Royal Holiday

by McKenna James

  But the fact that he actually laid a hand on my father? That was too far, even for him.

  Maybe that was option D: Senator Sabatino would do something absolutely insane resulting in the permanent destruction of any chance I had with Rodrigo.

  What was going to happen to us after this? There was no way I could tell my family that I’d been seeing Rodrigo in secret now. Everything was ruined. Any dreams I’d had of a future together were now dashed, scattered before me like the thick layer of dust that covered every surface I touched.

  I walked into cobwebs so many times that I lost count. I nearly lost my footing a million times. Stumbling about in the dark, I could hear strangers angrily shouting through the thin walls of the palace.

  “Down with the Crown!” people chanted mindlessly.

  “Steal everything you can! We can probably sell it.”

  “Think of all the things we could buy!”

  “Where’s the Queen and Princess? Somebody find them!”

  No matter what I heard, I kept shuffling. I didn’t need to see these intruders to know what terrors they were bringing down on my home. I heard everything I needed to. Expensive curtains were ripped, priceless antiques shattered, walls and doors were bashed apart beyond repair. I was relieved to hear the Royal Guard sprinting in, fighting and yelling at these so-called revolutionaries as they attempted to regain control.

  By some miracle, I made it out into a cool, open room. I found myself face-to-face with a large steel door. Judging by the roots slithering down the sides of the walls through the cracks in the concrete ceiling, I must have been just beneath the fountain in the royal gardens. There was a dampness in the air, a muggy heat despite the winter chill.

  I walked straight up to the door. There was an electronic PIN pad just to the right of the latch. Only members of the Royal Family and select members of the Royal Guard knew the code to get in. Reaching up, I shakily entered the code.

  7. 10. 1573.

  It was the day in history that my great ancestor, Queen Marionne, landed on the shores of Brooklandia to claim it for her people. With her wisdom and highly sought-after guidance, the nation would emerge was one of the strongest and oldest the world had ever seen. Brooklandia had survived centuries through war, plague, and famine. No matter what time threw at us, we remained. Brooklandians were a resilient kind of people, powerful in all the ways that mattered.

  The PIN pad beeped at me three times while a little green light blinked. Five separate locks clicked open before I was finally able to twist and pull the latch, gaining access to the emergency bunker on the other side.

  “Marina!” Mother gasped, immediately pulling me into a tight hug. “I was so worried about you. You’re not hurt are you? Are you okay?”

  “I’m fine, Mother. Where’s Father?”

  My mother turned, worry written into the knot of her brows. I followed her line of sight to discover Father lying on the bunker’s sofa, a member of the Royal Guard crouched down beside him to tend to his wound. An ugly patch of red stained the fabric around his right shoulder where he’d apparently been run through with some sharp object, likely a knife. Oddly enough, Father didn’t look too worse for wear.

  “I’ll kill him!” he spat, lively as ever. I had a feeling he was going to be alright, despite the deep puncture. “Sabatino, I’ll kill that bastard. I swear I will! Mark my words, this is treason! I’ll have his whole family arrested. Right down to his second cousins twice removed!”

  My throat closed up. The walls of my stomach were shredding themselves into ribbons. My legs were shaking so hard I thought I was about to topple over.

  “Father,” I said cautiously, “please calm down. There’s no need to–”

  “Every last one of them!” he hissed. “If I lay eyes on a Sabatino, I swear I’ll kill them with my own two hands.”

  My heart seized in my chest. Why was this happening? What were we going to do? I was torn between my feelings for Rodrigo and my family. It was eating me up inside. Whatever minute possibility Rodrigo and I had together in the future had now been pummeled into a fine powder, irreparable.

  My bones ached. My brain throbbed. My eyes were dry and itchy.

  This could have gone differently. Rodrigo and I could have been happy had our families been on better terms. It was a shame, really. I could see myself falling in love with him.

  And now I knew it was downright impossible.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  Rodrigo

  It happened fast. Too fast.

  One second I was chilling out with Oliver at his studio waiting for Marina to show up, and the next thing I knew, word of an insurrection against the King led by Father reached my ears. He’d apparently run the King through with a knife, though his condition at this point remained a mystery.

  I hurried home immediately, hoping to find my father and mother there. Maybe it wasn’t true. Maybe those mad rumors were just that—rumors, empty words. I didn’t want to imagine the chaos, didn’t want to believe that Marina might have been caught in the middle of everything.

  To my dismay, I found Mother packing everything in sight, stuffing clothes and useless knickknacks and pictures and cushions into five massive suitcases in the living room. Her hair was a mess, frazzled strands sticking out this way and that. Her cheeks were puffy and red, her eyes were swollen from crying. It was jarring to see Mother so disheveled and out of sorts. I’d always known her to be a proud, well put-together woman. Seeing her in this delirious, heated stated unnerved me to no end.

  “Pack your things,” she snapped at me, jerking her thumb over her shoulder to signal toward my bedroom. “We’re leaving.”

  “Leaving?” I echoed in disbelief. “What? Why?”

  “Shut up and pack. They’ll be here any minute.”

  “Who’s going to be here any minute?”

  “Rodrigo,” she hissed. “Enough talk. I’ve got a car waiting for us downstairs and two tickets to Allendes. We leave on the first train out.”

  “Mother, calm down. Just tell me what’s going on. Would you–” I grabbed Mother’s hands, halting her frenzied packing meltdown. She pulled away violently, like I’d burned her with fire.

  “Listen here, boy.” She was practically seething. “There’s going to be an investigation. When the Royal Guards show up, they’re going to take us into custody.”

  “But we didn’t do anything wrong.”

  She pressed her lips into a thin line and paled. “You didn’t do anything wrong.”

  My mouth fell open slightly, appalled. “What did you do?”

  “It doesn’t matter.”

  “Mother, just answer my question.”

  She set her jaw, tendons in her face visibly tensing. “I planned it.”

  “What?”

  “I planned everything. I used to work at the palace as Marina’s tutor, remember? I knew every single strength and weakness of that place. Your father may have been the one to carry the plan out, but I was the one who fine-tuned every little detail. When the Royal Guards show up, they’re going to take me and throw me in jail just like your father. That’s why we have to leave now.”

  “No, I'm not going anywhere,” I protested.

  Marina’s here.

  “They’ll arrest you too.”

  “I haven’t done anything wrong.”

  “They won’t care. You’re guilty by association.”

  I shook my head. “That’s ridiculous. I’m not going to leave.”

  I’m not going to leave Marina.

  “They’ll interrogate you. They’ll twist the truth until you can’t tell which way is up. Trust me, Rodrigo. You’re one of us, and that’s all the proof they need to incriminate you.”

  “Mother–”

  “Especially because you’ve been sneaking around with the Princess.”

  I froze where I stood, mouth fully open in a combination of shock, horror, and embarrassment. “You… You know?”

  My mother rolled her eyes and scowl
ed. “Now I do.”

  I wanted the floor to fall out from beneath my feet. It would have been less painful.

  “But how?” I grimaced.

  “You weren’t exactly subtle. You’d come home incredibly late smelling like women’s perfume. You’d spend an obscene amount of time with that Oliver guy, which told me you were either seeing him or someone who happened to be hiding out there too. And guess who just had an article written about them in the papers concerning her charitable projects.”

  I squeezed my eyes shut and tried to convince myself that if I couldn’t see my mother lay the truth bare, it wouldn’t happen.

  She snatched a copy of the newspaper off the kitchen table. The pages were crinkled and disorganized, but she had no problem finding what she was looking for. Mother read aloud: “‘Princess Marina and fashion designer Oliver Smith have been collaborating together on some truly spectacular works for almost a month.’” She crumbled the pages in her fist and let them fall to the floor. “Do you have any idea what this means? The King will probably find an excuse to execute you.”

  “We care about each other,” I snapped back. I was tired of being yelled at, treated like a child. “We belong together.”

  Mother scoffed, “Not anymore. Do you really think the King is going to let you anywhere near her now?”

  No words came to mind. I was left speechless, my tongue and the back of my throat terribly dry. The thunderous beat of my adrenaline-filled heart left me deaf. Reality was finally starting to sink into my bones. As much as I hated to admit it, Mother was right. I’d never be allowed within a thousand yards of Marina after what my father had done.

  I clenched my fists into tight balls. The mounting pressure behind my eyes was excruciating. My molars were clenched so tight I could hear them squeaking against each other in my skull. I didn’t know if I was going to be able to look her in the eye after everything that’d happened. Her father, the King, was hurt because of mine. Whose side was I supposed to take? Where were my loyalties supposed to lie?

  This wasn’t my fault. None of this was fair. Marina and I couldn’t be happy because of our parents and their own twisted, confusing, stupid issues. But why did we have to suffer because of them? Why did being together have to be an impossibility because of our parents? I wanted nothing more than to make her happy, to give her everything that I possibly could. How was that so wrong?

  My mother cupped my face, tilting her head up to look directly into my eyes. “We need to leave, Rodrigo. We can’t stay here. If we’re behind bars, there’s nothing we can do for your father. I’m taking you to Allendes. Once we’re there, you’ll enroll in law school and come back to help him.”

  “But I–”

  “You’ll never amount to anything here. Don’t you want to help people? You’ve seen how disenfranchised the people of Brooklandia are. Come back when you’re a lawyer, when you’re in a position to do good. Maybe you’ll be able to finish your father’s work once and for all. But you can’t do that if you’re rotting in jail for having an affair with the Princess.”

  I couldn’t think straight. This was too much information to process all at once. The lights of the apartment seemed brighter than usual, blinding and overbearing. I felt incredibly hot beneath the thin layer of my blue windbreaker, my skin seconds away from melting right off my skeleton. The inside of my nose burned with the smell of sweat lifting off the dry air. The muscles in my neck were so taut that I was afraid my skull would snap right off.

  Right and wrong were suddenly confusing concepts. I didn’t know who to blame, who to be upset with. Deep down, I wanted to be furious at my mother and father. Because of them, Marina and I couldn’t stand a chance. But sitting on the surface was a burning rage for the King. He’d imprisoned my father, locked him away God knew where. As stern and strict as Father was, I still loved him with every fiber of my being. I loved my mother too. The thought of her in jail left the acid in my stomach bubbling over.

  It was too late for Father. But I could still help Mother escape.

  As for Marina, I didn’t know what I was going to do. I knew I couldn’t stay here any longer, though. Every second I hesitated meant a second in the Royal Guard’s favor.

  Sucking in a sharp breath through my front teeth, I nodded.

  “Okay,” I rasped. “Let’s go.”

  ~

  Taking the train was an interesting choice on my mother’s part. It would have been far faster to take a plane. Though, in her defense, the security would have been much tighter. By the time we arrived at the station, the news of Father’s failed rebellion and attack against the Crown was already the topic of hot gossip and heated debate.

  “Senator Sabatino’s lost it,” I heard someone whisper.

  “They say he managed to rally over a thousand people to support his cause.”

  “This is going to spread across the kingdom.”

  “You think?”

  “Of course! The King’s so unpopular. Just because this revolt failed, that doesn’t mean the people have lost just yet. I think they’ll be emboldened to make another move like this.”

  “What happened to the rest of the Royal Family?”

  “I heard the Queen and the Princess are in hiding.”

  “As they should be. I bet they’re terrified.”

  I kept incredibly still, afraid that any sudden movement on my part would make me lose control. I wanted to ask if Marina was alright, if she’d been hurt during the fiasco. I wanted so desperately to call her, but I didn’t have her number—for security purposes, she’d said.

  I was sitting on a wooden bench, a wool scarf wrapped around my neck and the lower half of my face to disguise myself. Mother and I managed to make it past the checkpoint without raising any alarms. The King hadn’t issued a warrant for Mother’s arrest yet, which meant we still had plenty of time to flee the country. Nevertheless, I was restless. The hundreds of questions racing through my mind wouldn’t give me a second of respite.

  “Where’s the train?” I asked, probably for the third time that hour. “It’s late. It should be here.”

  Mother patted me on the shoulder, pulling my scarf up a bit higher to conceal my face as a group of travelers passed us by. She’d obscured her own visage with large darkened sunglasses, a scarf of her own, and a black baseball cap to cover her hair. Never in my life did I believe I’d see her wear something so casual. Mother blended in well with the crowd, though. I supposed was all that mattered.

  “A flight would have been faster,” I mumbled.

  “This was the best I could do on such short notice,” she quipped. “I have an old friend who works as a conductor. These were the last seats to Allendes.”

  I cringed. “How much did it cost you?”

  “An arm and a leg. Try not to think about it. All you need to worry about is getting across the border in one piece.”

  My phone suddenly started to ring in my pocket. I jumped in my seat, startled.

  “Who is it?” demanded my mother, an edge of concern in her words.

  I checked the caller ID. “It’s just Oliver.”

  “What does he want? Don’t answer. He could be working for the King. He might try to expose our location.”

  I shook my head, dismissing her concerns. “Oliver wouldn’t do that.”

  “I swear to God, Rodrigo, if you answer that call–”

  I turned away and answered. “Hello?”

  “Thank goodness!” Oliver breathed a sigh of relief. “I’ve been worried sick. What the hell is going on? Are you okay?”

  “I’m fine, Oli. Don’t worry.”

  “Don’t worry? Don’t you dare tell me not to worry! Everything’s a shit show. Brandon’s been hurt, and I can’t reach him because the palace is on lockdown and–”

  “What happened to Brandon? Is he going to be alright?”

  Oliver let out a shaky breath. His voice sounded scratchy, like he’d been crying. The cheerful, funny, overly dramatic friend I knew was gone,
replaced with someone full of anxiety and doubt.

  The attackers—I don’t know what to call them really—they came in through the bottom floors nearest to the kitchens. He was in the middle of work, and he–” Oliver choked up. He sounded like he was about to break. “He got caught up in the middle of it. Brandon managed to call me, but he… God, he sounded horrible.”

  “I’m so sorry, Oliver. I’m so sorry.”

  Oliver started to sob. “I don’t know whether to be angry at you or scared for you.”

  “Oli, I need you to take a deep breath. Okay? Can you do that for me?”

  “Where are you?”

  “I… I can’t tell you that.”

  “Why do I have the feeling you’re about to do something stupid?”

  “You always have the feeling that I’m going to do something stupid.”

  “Do I sound like I’m joking right now?”

  I allowed my shoulders to slump, defeated. “No. No, you don’t.”

  “You’re leaving,” he realized, a cold and brutal clarity to his tone.

  “I am.”

  “What about Marina? She’ll be so worried about you.”

  “It’s… It’s better this way.”

  “Are you freaking kidding me?” he screamed over the phone. His shrill words pierced right through my eardrum to leave it ringing. “Are you insane? You can’t just leave her!”

  “I don’t want to, but I have no choice.”

  “Of course you have a choice, Rodrigo. Don’t be stupid. You’re going to break her heart.”

  I chewed on the inside of my cheek as I frowned in thought. “I’ll be back,” I promised. “I’ll be back one day. I just… Can you please tell her to wait for me?”

  Oliver sighed exasperatedly. “Why am I always the messenger?”

  “Because you love us.”

  For a moment, he was silent. I honestly thought the call had dropped. Oliver eventually clicked his tongue and groaned. “Yeah, alright. You got me there. What do you want me to tell her?”