We gave it two months. There was no reason to hurry now I knew that this was going to happen. My fragile mind could bear a few more days, it seemed.
The others were ecstatic about the news, of course, more so than I had thought possible. On hearing, Hannah dropped to the floor, her back to the wall, and buried her face in her hands; Ella screamed at everyone “I told you so!” before succumbing to a fountain of tears as she crumbled on the couch; Tasha gave me a bear hug that might or might not have cracked a rib, then threw herself on Alexander and kissed the poor green-faced man on the mouth. When Chris finally managed to pull her off his brother he thumped the other man on the back and dragged his girlfriend away before she could do worse.
“I don’t know what to say,” Clara said—that being exactly what she did. She didn’t say a word, not trusting herself to, apparently, content with touching my face from time to time with tears in her eyes.
Granny Tonks flittered around like a fat and gross butterfly, laughing in everyone’s face and asking me if this huge moment of celebration didn’t warrant I give her the hard stuff she knew I was hiding. I ignored her request and pretended to show a great deal interest in the vomit Ella had just produced—having stuffed her face with all the sugary items she could find in the kitchen.
I wouldn’t have given my life for the Queen’s.
Tasha and Clara took over the moment this idea was proposed, telling any who might here, in quite explicit terms, that they did not need my help in any way imaginable. And that was that. My job was nothing more than to sit and watch my fairy tale come to its justifiable conclusion.
Alex and I talked, every moment we could, every chance there was a moment to breath. I told him more about my family, about my country. He told me as much as he could about his past, about the days before Jeremiah Rodwell had plucked a little boy off the streets and made a man of him. We never mentioned his sister, or the men he had killed. He knew that I knew; I never tried to hide it. He had no intention of not telling me either. A time would come for that too. A time would come for everything. And at that time I would be there, and I would listen to everything he had to say.
But that time was not now.
It was the time of my happiness. Of my happily ever after. I was going to get married. To be a bride. And I was getting married to the man I loved. His past didn’t matter and neither did mine. Our yesterdays had made us who we were, and we had fallen in love in the present, taking into account what the other had become. Nothing else mattered.
I was in the highest of heavens. I was jubilant, euphoric.
My wedding day was going to be the happiest day of my life.
And I suppose it was…just not in the way I had hoped it would be.
***
I was sitting in front of the mirror in my pink wedding dress.
The colour had been chosen at my insistence, a mixture of white and red—the colours expected on brides both here and back home. Delicate silver thread spread in twisting flowers across the whole expanse of the sheer chiffon, reinforced underneath by the softest of silks. The denser cloth ascended only till my chest, in the fashion of a sleeveless gown.
The embroidery started in an explosion at the hem, where it was so compact the pink was almost non-existent, then climbed up with its thickness gradually reducing. By the time it reached my shoulder blades there was no embroidery at all, only the diaphanous cloth stretching up to my neck and wrapping in long fitted sleeves down my arms.
A fragile tiara, on loan from Clara, sat among the curls topped over my head, over which lay a soft pink scarf wrapped, again, to leave my neck and ears exposed. Thin silver earrings hung from said ears, my only jewellery beside the tiara and wedding ring. Tasha had kept a light hand when it came to makeup, satisfied with smoky eyes, just a faint whisper of blush, and nude lipstick.
I looked beautiful. I felt like a dream.
And I was hyperventilating.
Having had sent Tasha away on the pretext of getting me something to eat, I now placed my arms on my stomach and bent forward, breathing through my nose.
What was I doing? What if this was not the right thing to do? What if it doesn’t work? What if this was too soon—which it was! What if he came to this realisation moments before the ceremony and left me standing in the middle of the room, a bride with no groom to wed?
I knew Alexander wouldn’t do it. I knew he did in fact—astonishing as it was—love me. He had done nothing but show me that the last couple of months. We connected. We were two extensions of the same thing. I knew him.
And yet the doubts wouldn’t go away. I couldn’t even comprehend as to why I doubted anything in the first place; the arguments and counterarguments seemed to be in my head just for the sake of being there.
Something creaked behind me.
I closed my eyes and proceeded to exhale through my mouth.
Cool air touched my heated skin. Thud.
My eyes flew open.
There was a window in the room, directly behind me and facing the darkened front yard of Clara’s house. With the advance of night—I wanted my wedding to be under the stars—Tasha had closed it so as not to let the chill air in. It was fastened by a simple latch, nothing too complex. Very easy to be tampered with from the inside…or outside.
I lifted my head. The mirror showed bellowing velvet curtain. And an open window.
I shot off the stool, turning just in time to see the dark figure crouching on the balcony step on the windowsill. Before my mouth could open and a shout emerge, a smooth barrelled gun was pointed right at my head.
“Now, now, darling, don’t do that,” the man said, clicking his tongue as he dropped onto the blood red carpet. “Is that any way to greet an old friend?”
His face was a mess, a collection of dirt and bruises. The injuries looked new, as if he had been through hell itself to get here. The previously beautiful dark brown hair lay in a tattered mess, a bird’s nest left too long untouched and uncared for. His clothes hung in rags over thin shoulders and frail hips, their make and design almost cartoonish-ly different from what I had last seen him in.
“Zayn,” I said, heart in my throat. I couldn’t think, couldn’t breathe. “You haven’t been taking care of yourself.”
My former captor grinned, eyes flashing, showing teeth yellowed at the roots. “Zara,” he said, cupping his right hand and bringing the fingers lightly to his forehead—the greeting of nawabs. “It’s been a rough few months, that’s all.”
The back of my thighs smacked against the dressing table—I hadn’t even realised I was stepping back. “I see.”
Zayn’s face, the beautiful angelic face of a demon, contorted in a manic grin. “You are getting married, I see.” He inclined the gun. “My invitation must have gotten lost in the mail.”
“Most likely.” I swallowed. “We didn’t know you were still in the country.”
He took a step forward. “But where was I going to go, my sweet dear?” His eyes hardened with so much hatred I felt bile rise in my throat. “The two of you did everything to humiliate me. Left me tied up like a sack of potatoes. You think Frank was going to just bring me back into the fold? He would have killed me the moment he saw me. I had nowhere else to go.”
I had wondered why Alexander had done that—let him go, that is. Even with Chris trying to stop him, it wouldn’t have taken that long to finish Zayn off. I knew he had wanted to, seen the unadulterated abhorrence in his eyes, seen the barely controlled shake in his hands. Yet he hadn’t.
Now I knew why. Zayn’s punishment had been to live; to live with the knowledge that he had lost. To crawl back to his master with his tail between his legs, licking his wounds like the cur he was.
I wished they had just killed him. Because Zayn was a snake that just didn’t stay down. We had underestimated him. And now he was here to take his revenge.
On my wedding day.
He was clearly drunk, his stance uneven and eyes twitching. That was probably how he had been brave enough—or stupid enough, if one wanted to be fair—to assume to infiltrate the wedding and seek me out right in my room. That was also probably why he had succeeded. It was drunkard’s luck. From all the petty damn-assed things fate had to dish into my plate, this was probably the lowest blow yet.
His being inebriated would be no help to me, though. Clouded senses didn’t stop you from pressing the trigger, and there were only too many times he could miss, space permitting. The door was to my left but, no matter how fast I made a dash for it—which was pretty unlikely in my current state of dressing—he could still shoot me and be gone before anybody came up.
“Whatever you are thinking, Zara,” Zayn said, noticing my shifting eyes, “nothing can help you today. There has been an unfortunate fire in the ballroom.” He leered. “The Rodwell pups and your stupid friend are down there. By the time any of them come up, it will all be over.”
I didn’t say anything. Slipping my hands behind my back, I desperately searched the table top for something hard, something sharp, something that would at least create the illusion that I had fought back. I found nothing.
Zayn was taking in my attire. His eyes came to rest on the ring on my finger. “Look at you,” he said, voice pregnant with loathing and disgust, “dressed up like a princess. You think any of this is real? Any of this true? You are used goods.” He spat at my face. The white dollop fell a foot short of my hem. “You are nothing but a toy to him, like you will now be to anybody. He is going to use you and throw you away, just like you deserve. Just like is your due.”
His words meant nothing to me. Once they would have. Today, not so much.
Instead, I watched him come yet closer. The distance between us was shrinking fast. I couldn’t retreat any further.
Yet I knew I had time. He wasn’t going to kill me fast. This man cared no more what would happen to him, what the Rodwells would do if he caused me harm or killed me. He was hungering for it, for a chance to face off, to show his worth. The days of disgrace and shame had left him a wounded beast, just waiting for a chance to strike, to eat me whole.
And now he had that chance. He was going to make the most of it. On my wedding day.
My hand stopped at the edge of the ornate double-tiered perfume stand, nails scraping against its decorative clawed foot.
“I could have given you everything,” Zayn was saying. “I could have given you a life of everlasting bliss. And yet you—” He shook his head.
“You would have had me degraded, every single day.”
“You already were!” He surged forward. The gun came to rest on my right cheek. His face, so close now, was flushed with blood. Spittle dripped over his lips. His flashing eyes were huge. “You already were degraded,” he whispered. “You always will be degraded. This is forever, Zara, and you know that. He will never respect you. Never!”
I leant my head back, feeling the tremors from his body seep into mine. But I didn’t break my gaze, didn’t turn away. My fingers—in quite an uncomfortable grip, admittedly—wrapped around the bottom of the stand. “You lost, Zayn,” I said, letting the words be loud and clear—keeping his attention on my eyes and away from the business behind my back. “You lost and I won. It’s all over. You are deluded if you think killing me will accomplish anything.”
Of course there was no reasoning with him. He was a madman, come to do his mad thing. Nothing I said would have made any difference.
But I needed time. I needed to feel like I was doing something.
I needed to do something.
He pressed closer. The gun slipped down my face till it rested under my chin. “I will be at peace,” he said. “You ruined everything. You played me.” He grinned. “Now I am going to show you how things should have been done. And when your brains are splattered across the wall, I will win.”
“No you wouldn’t,” I said. “People like you never win.”
Zayn grinned, revealing to me a veritable mosaic of yellow plaque. “People like me? Why, I will show—”
I swung my weapon. Tiny glass bottles slid off the carved crystal and exploded against the far wall but, to me, the sound was nothing but white noise. I watched in fascinated awe as my right hand curved, my left palm slamming into the gun at the last moment. The barrel slid from the underside of my chin a couple of inches. His eyes widened. The perfume stand slammed against his head.
A deafening bang shattered the air. It seemed a mushroom cloud expanded in my left ear, a painful bubble. Sound tapered to a sharp ring. Something ripped through the edge of my neck.
Zayn stumbled. Not having had much room to move, my weapon did not hit his temple like I had hoped it would. Instead the only place that made contact was the clawed foot, the power behind it doing nothing more than making him blink. It was the dislocation of the gun from the centre of my throat, and the subsequent shot, that had him stepping back.
I might have screamed, I might have gasped; but I would never know what actually did happen. I was drunk on terror, intoxicated by the possibility of death standing so close and breathing down my neck. I knew, somewhere in the corner of my mind, that I had been shot, but the pain refused to register. Even through the silencer on the gun the shattering power of bullet through air had reduced my ear to a mere head ornament.
An unearthly whine shrieked in my head, a warm trickle seeping down my neck, I fumbled with Zayn, flailing hands trying to push the tripping man. His footsteps were unsteady, that being the only reason I was able to force him away another stride. The gun, loose in his hand, moved against my arm as he flexed his fingers.
He shifted, trying to say something but got cut off midsentence as I yanked away and reached for the weapon. It surprised me that he hadn’t tried to shoot a second time but, when I pushed my nails into his wrist I saw his hand around the barrel in a slack grip, his finger groping toward the trigger.
Blood throbbed in my ears. My chest heaved up and down. The hem of my gown crushed under my wayward feet, the bead-edging pulverising into tiny chunks that I felt through my soles—it was funny what your senses prioritize when you are about to die.
Despairing of him letting go, I freed my hand and swept it over the vanity again, searching for something that would be hard enough to crush his fingers. He pushed closer and I gave ground, keeping his body close and the gun to the side. Beauty knickknacks clattered against one another. Zayn’s left hand tightened around my arm.
A stout bottle of Clive Christian teetered at the edge of the table, almost out of my reach. I twisted my head, hooking hungry nails in its ornamental casing, and gritted my teeth as it slipped through and disappeared over the edge. A desperate sob clawed through my throat. I clamped a hand on the gun again, desperate, frustrated, pushing it away from my body as I stumbled.
Zayn was shouting something that refused to sieve through the scream in my ears. His eyes were enormous, the pupils so dilated they swallowed the irises whole. He struggled to knee me, his aim sloppy and unsteady, legs fumbling among my skirts as he tried to find purchase. The blow left a throbbing circle of pain on the inside of my thigh.
He spat at me. The wetness landed, warm and heavy, on my right cheek.
We struggled. I pushed my shoulders against his, morbidly conscious of the warm metal under my hand and his. My foot slipped.
My legs slid from under me, my hands only just staying wound around his. This made him stumble and land on me with such force that I felt my lungs empty in a painful huff. A sharp twinge registered in my chest. For a moment the edges of my vision blackened. My arms were twisted in a not-so-natural way, trying hard to stay with the gun. I tried to heave myself up, pulling my elbows under me and endeavouring to push against the floor, but his weight proved too much. I flopped down again.
He was trying to get to his feet too. But I knew once he did, once I let go of the gun and it turned ever-so-slightly in my direction, he would not let his chance go. I would have a bullet embedded in me as sure as the sun would rise tomorrow.
Defence was pointless. I had to get on the attack.
Putting all I had in my back, I heaved against his weight. Because he was trying to get up too, I found just enough space to pull one knee under me. His fingers yanked my hair, the pain, though unfelt in the grand scheme of things, bringing frightened tears to my eyes and blurring my already questionable vision. I tried my best to ignore it, instead turning just slightly to push a shoulder against his gun arm. With the strength of my back now available, I pinned it to the ground and pulled one of my hands away.
Twisting my face so I could look at him, feeling the force of his knee ramming into my ribcage, I drove my fingers into his wide open eyes.
He tried to turn his face away but, with all the pent up rage and anger I could feel throbbing in my blood, I hooked my nails and felt them bite into the bridge of his nose. His mouth opened in a scream as I clawed upward, reaching for the sponge-like softness of his eyeballs.
He let go of my hair, reaching for his face- to pull my hand away. Feeling his unrelenting weight press against mine, I shoved a knee between his splayed legs. His hand, inches from my fingers in his face, collapsed. His cheeks puffed out and sweat bloomed on his brow. I used this window to redouble my efforts to flip him over.
The gun arm was still pinned under my elbow. He tried to keep on his side with his free hand pushing against the ground but, with his wielding position and the fire in his jewels, it did no good. I bared my teeth and screamed, bending my fingers and scratching new furrows in his cheeks.
He collapsed on his back. Hair fell over his face in sweaty waves. I threw a leg over his abdomen, my skirts bellowing and tangling under my weight. I ignored the pull of cloth, feeling a tear widen at my waist, and climbed on, my chest bent to his so I could keep one hand on the gun and the other on his face, one knee on his other forearm.
I pushed my fingers into his eyes one last time. He screamed so loud I imagined I could hear him.
His fingers around the gun slacked. I dived forward with both hands, the blood on my fingers bright red, and fumbled for the weapon. He tried to keep his grip but it was already too late.
The warmth of the thing felt like living death against my palms. I made haste to stand up before he realised what was happening. My skirts hampered my intended smooth movement, making me pitch forward. Dragging myself away, I climbed to my feet with the fevered intensity of a walk on fire.
Standing, I turned to face him, the barrel pointed at his nose.
He was smiling, twisted with his elbows on the ground and his legs only just pulling up. The scream in my ears had silenced to a thin ring. I watched his busted eye, the heavy lid drooping down over bloody tears. I watched his lips, forming words that reached me like lifeless dry air. I watched his hand, raised as if in supplication.
My soul felt light as air, as bright as the sun. The movement of my finger was only that to me, a movement; nothing more, nothing less. Finally the last piece of the puzzle that was my life had fallen into place, all on its own. The picture was complete. It was a happy picture.
I pulled the trigger.