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“I’ll tell you in a minute,” he bites out, his lips white. “I just need to check this place out before we go in, ok?”
We step inside. The barn smells of wood and wet leaves, but it’s empty. There is light inside, high ceilings and empty space. Marco sets me on my feet, his hand lingering on my back until I stop feeling dizzy and stand up straight on my own.
He turns off the torch’s light, and at once we’re plunged into darkness. There is a milky, pale light streaming from the seams of the barn’s walls, but it’s too weak. Marco walks on with feral, soft movements, covering me with his body as he moves, and proceeds to check every corner of our surroundings, both outside and inside the barn.
Once we’re inside, I breathe a sigh of relief.
“All clear,” Marco pronounces in a few minutes, obviously weak with relief as well.
My body folds in on itself, and I sink gratefully to the floor, relishing the fact that for once, I’m in a dry, quiet place. Surrounded by dead bodies. No, don’t think about that. Survive. Look at what Marco is doing; help him. Stay alert.
Marco has started barricading the door with various logs and boxes he finds around. He works quickly and methodically, as if he’s rehearsed this—he probably has been in a similar situation before. Once the barricade is finished, he runs to the other side of the barn, obscured by darkness, and starts taking something heavy out of the wall, something that makes a ‘clang’ when he places it on the floor by his foot. Then he takes another one. I squint, and get up so I can see more clearly.
It's weapons. Heavy machine guns and handguns and everything in between. They are all stashed in these huge boxes against the corner, and Marco takes them out, one by one, studying them in the yellow light of his torch.
I sit heavily back down and start peeling my soaking-wet coat.
This is it, I think, watching him through heavy lids. I think that if I wasn’t on the brink of utter exhaustion and hypothermia, I would be freaking out right now. As it is, it requires too much effort to keep myself awake and breathing, and I can’t spare any to think about all the dead bodies outside. Of my guards. Of how they will never go back to their families again. And neither will I.
This is where it will happen.
This is where I’ll die.
“Hey,” Marco’s voice says out of the darkness. “Are you doing ok?”
I taste something salty on my frozen lips and I realize that tears have started silently pouring down my cheeks.
“Yeah,” I reply. “You?”
He chuckles, but does not answer. He busies himself with building a fire in the middle of the room, and immediately light floods the big, bare room, and I squint against it, my eyes long since accustomed to the darkness. Marco looks like some sort of Greek god of the sea who has been drowned and tortured by a vicious serpent for about two eternities. Cheeks hollow, shirt plastered to his crouched body, skin pale, hands roped with veins as he works quickly and efficiently, grabbing weapons, securing the bolts on the doors.
A little too efficiently, actually. Wait a second. Realization hits me slowly, sluggishly, through the cold and the panic that have me in their grip.
“Did you stock this barn beforehand yourself?” I ask, teeth chattering.
“Yes,” he says, his voice clipped.
He grunts as he picks up the logs to carry to the fireplace, and I think that’s all the answer I’m going to get. But, no, there’s more.
The orange light of the flames of the fire illuminates the sharp angles of his face, making the woods of the walls look cozy like a painting. His face looks kind. Familiar. Beautiful. Safe. But he is none of these things. Well, except beautiful. But his beauty fades fast once I remember the lies.
“I put the logs and guns some time ago,” he says, turning to face me, “and I have stored some water too. We can stay barricaded in here for a few days, if we have to. I hoped I wouldn’t have to use it. We’ll put out the fire as soon as you’re warm enough.”
“Since when did you know that I was a target?” I ask.
“Everyone knows,” he says, his hands stilling for a second. “Has known for weeks. The palace, your fa… the palace. That’s why they hired me as your secret bodyguard. Everyone knows, my queen. I’m sorry.”
“Don’t call me that,” I say sharply.
He chuckles again, and in the end, it sounds like his voice catches on a sob. But of course that’s not possible. Marco doesn’t cry.
“If you knew why I call you that,” he says in a voice unlike his own, “you wouldn’t hate it so much.”
“I do know. It’s because you’re an ass.”
He smiles widely, and gets up to pick out more guns from a box in the corner, his face once again swallowed by darkness. I inch closer to the fire, and sit so close to it my cheeks almost catch on fire, but I don’t care. The warmth begins to seep inside and I close my eyes and exhale.
“You ok?” Marco asks again from the other side of the room.
