AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Thank you,” he adds at the end and the next second, a flustered Claire knocks in the room, bobs him a curtsy and takes Marco’s phone in her hands. She’s wearing black slacks and has her hair in a sleek bun, the epitome of order and cleanliness, and I think of the last time Marco held his phone, his clothes soaked with water, his fingers covered in blood and soot, his eyes red from crying.
I remember how he said ‘I’m happy’ over and over again as he sent his messages to his mom.
How his body protected mine as the bullets rained around us.
How it grew heavy and cold as the bullets hit it.
How they killed him.
And then the tears come. Dad has barely time to run and catch me as I fall backwards, my body buckling under the weight of loss, a keening sound escaping my lips.
“I’ve got you,” he murmurs, wiping the hair from my forehead as if I’m sick.
But I’m not sick. I’m alive.
This is my sickness: I am alive when I shouldn’t be. If it weren’t for him, I wouldn’t be alive. But I am.
I’m alive in a world without Marco. And I am beginning to realize that I am no longer the girl I was when I asked him to take me on his Ducati and away from Vermont. This is a new world the jet flew me back to, and I am new in it.
Different.
As if I’ve died and come back a different person.
And that different person is in love with Marco.
And that different person has no idea how to exist without him.
…
The phone is fully charged in two hours’ time.
I won’t be a coward, I decide. Two hours later, I’m still crying. Now that I’ve started, I can’t stop. Dad asked Angel to come over, in case he could help. Angel is still in the palace. He said he’s not going back to Yale unless I expressly tell him I don’t want him here.
And I won’t tell him that; I do want him here.
But he can’t help. So I send them both away, my dad and Angel, and I turn on Marco’s phone. The security team hacks it to get it to open, since I don’t know the password, but I ask them to respect it and not look at his files. The head of security tells me that he can give me one hour with the phone, and that after that, it will belong to them.
Of course it will. And it’s such a major thing that he gives me one hour alone with it—I’m sure he’s breeched all kinds of protocol in order to give me that. But apparently, Hector is here in Asteria as well, and he made a big fuss about me being allowed this privacy. No one knows who Hector is really, but dad has promoted him to head of security, after he saved my life.
And they had to obey him.
I sit down, swallowing salty tears, and wrap a blanket around me. I’ve been in nothing but pajamas and socks since I’ve been back at the palace, but I don’t care. No one sees me apart from dad and Angel, anyway. I still haven’t talked to Hector. He just let me know he’s here, and left the rest up to me.
As if I know what I’m going to do.
As if I know what I want.
Or who I am.
I press play on a random audio message on Marco’s phone. The date on it is a little less than a week ago: the day we left Vermont.
/Marco/
[audio transcript]
We are taking off again, mom. Leaving Yale.
We won’t go back to the UVM, there’s no way. They will be waiting for us there, and I don’t know how many of her guards have turned. Or how many have already died.
