“He’d be what?” I asked. Dead? He’d be dead? No one had told me that their plan ended with death. At the mention of his death, my stomach flipped and it felt as though everything came to a standstill. Fear. Fear at his death. It shouldn’t have mattered. I’d nearly killed him the night before with a pillow. I’d just had a knife to his throat. Death was the endgame with us.
As princess, I was taking the crown from the Beast, also known as Anteros.
Anteros was to die.
There’s no other ending for our story.
“Now he’s alive and so angry.” Gabby ran her hands over her face then through her hair. “What were you thinking? What were you doing?” I fisted my knuckles, palm slimy with his blood. I was thinking I carved out a piece of him. Forever. I was thinking he’d at least have an inkling of what it felt like to lose parts of yourself to someone else. I was thinking that I was one step closer to evening the sides.
I thought back to the look in his eyes. He wasn’t pissed, but I wasn’t about to tell Gabby that it would have been better if he was.
It’s not true love unless the person can destroy you completely.
I shook my head, ridding myself of the thought. There was no way I could explain that to her.
She threw her hands up. “You were to meet me in the stairs. I waited! I waited and I waited! Do you know what I risked going in that room?”
“So why did you do it?” I snapped.
Her eyebrows shot up, as if surprised at the question. All the frustration and anger dissipated from her features and she asked, “Why do you think?”
I stared into her earnest, honey-colored face, flushed from exertion, dark freckles a contrast against the red. Her gold hair was piled high on her head and she wore some kind of exercise clothes. I’d thought I would have to get out of hell alone, but then Gabby had come along. She was a woman who’d been in hell longer than me, who would have had every right to take the first ticket out without any questions. Now there she was, saying she’d come back, risked her life for me.
Somewhere in hell, I’d found a sister.
A bang sounded above our heads and Gabby and I snapped our heads up, looking between the rows of stairs. Without further conversation we bolted, not stopping until we reached the bottom. Two heavy metal doors marked the exit to the parking lot.
Freedom.
We pushed the doors open with our shoulders. The bright, blinding light of the parking lot hit me first, and I couldn’t see anything, just white. As my eyes slowly adjusted, I looked for Nikolai and Vic…but there was only one person there.
An older woman stood next to a silver car, radiating deadly elegance and poise. Wearing a long double-breasted coat that was like a dress, it somehow also highlighted her breasts in an obvious yet demure way. Big glasses framed a face below very curly silver hair. This was not the type of woman you would say used to be beautiful; this was the type of woman who aged better than those looked when still in their twenties. It was the type of woman I saw when flipping through magazines.
There was a confidence about her that said she knew it, too.
“Where are Vic and Nikolai?” I asked, turning to Gabby. “Who is that?”
“That’s…” Gabby gulped, sounding awed. “That’s Lucia Pavoni.”
The woman smiled. “Hello, granddaughter.”