Queen

by Aimee Carter

  Nothing was a coincidence in the Hart family, and my mind reeled. Daxton, his wife, and his elder son, Jameson, had all been in the car that had exploded, killing them instantly. But it had been Daxton’s car—he was the only one who was supposed to die. I didn’t know for sure who had bombed it, but before that moment, all signs had pointed to Celia. Now I wasn’t so certain.

  “Guess Augusta gave you your lucky break,” I said shakily. “Now look what you’ve turned it into. A dictatorship, with you at the top of the pyramid.”

  “It is rather beautiful, isn’t it?” He brushed his thumb against my lips, and I nearly gagged. “Just like you.”

  “You know what my favorite part was? How you killed Minister Creed and Minister Ferras in cold blood and forced the other Ministers to sign the amendment that gave you absolute power,” I said. “Managing a coup in your own country with only two bullets—it’s actually sort of impressive. But I bet the real Daxton could’ve done it with one. Are the surviving Ministers still being held prisoner in the Stronghold, or have you flayed them alive and butchered them the way you did Minister Bradley?”

  “Mmm. I had no idea you had such an admiration for my techniques. It’s a shame—if I’d known sooner, perhaps we could have made the most of it. Though I suppose there’s still time.” He slid his other hand over my hip. “I don’t have to kill you right away.”

  “You don’t have to kill me at all,” I said, suppressing a shudder at his touch. “The people will revolt.”

  “They already are. I hadn’t wanted to declare war on my own country, but if I must...” He shrugged. “So be it.”

  My lips curled in disgust. “You don’t care about the people at all, do you? Just power and what it can do for you.”

  “That’s all any successful politician cares about,” he said. “You would do well to remember that, Lila.”

  “I care about the people. Greyson cares about the people.”

  “And look where that’s gotten you.”

  “Held prisoner against our will and forced to do your bidding so you don’t kill us,” I said. “I’m aware, thank you. But you know what we have that you don’t? The people’s support. They’re out there rioting for us, not you. And they will keep rioting until you’re no longer a problem for them.”

  “What, do you truly believe I’ll ever allow you or your idiot cousin to take my place?” he said, then chuckled. I could smell stale coffee on his breath. “You were never going to outlive me, Lila. You or Greyson.”

  “What was your plan, then? To live forever?” I spat.

  “All great men do.”

  I choked out a laugh. “You think you’re a great man? Celia was great. Knox is great. Greyson will be great, and they will all be remembered as heroes. But you are nothing more than a weak, scared little man who had to step into the shoes of a tyrant in order to be anything in this world. History won’t remember you as a great man. History will remember you as a coward.”

  He hissed, and his hand flew to my throat, squeezing until I couldn’t breathe. My eyes widened, and I clawed at his hands while fumbling the handle of the knife, struggling to slip it out of my sleeve.

  “That’s it, Lila,” he murmured, his dark eyes dancing with sadistic joy. “Fight me. Go on. Try to show me which one of us has the real power.”

  The edges of my vision grew dark, and his grip tightened even more. But I refused to let this be the end. He had killed Celia, he had killed Lila, and he had done his best to kill Benjy and Knox. But he wasn’t going to kill me.

  I kicked him in the knee as hard as I could, and his grip immediately loosened as he cried out. I stumbled away, gasping for air and finally pulling the knife from my sleeve. Blood rushed to my head, and the room spun, but I gripped the back of the couch and forced myself to hold it together.

  “You stupid, stupid bitch. I could have made it infinitely less painful for you, but you’re out of luck now, aren’t you?”

  He surged toward me, his hands reaching for my throat again, but this time I was ready. I ducked and thrust the knife as hard as I could into his belly. It slid in far more easily than I imagined it would, and the handle slipped from my grip.

  Daxton stopped and looked down at the knife sticking out of his stomach, his expression strangely calm. “Well. That hurts, doesn’t it?” Slowly, with a pained wince, he pulled the blade out of his body and examined it. “A steak knife? That’s not terribly creative of you, Lila.”

  I stumbled backward against the door, unarmed and dizzy from strangulation. He had to be in agony, but he walked toward me with ease, holding the knife like a toy.

  “I’ve always loved your face. So even, so perfect—you’re practically Aphrodite,” he murmured. And in a blur of motion, he slashed the blade across my cheek.

  I felt the skin split and warm blood pour down my face, and burning pain followed. I bit my lip, refusing to cry out. I wouldn’t give him the satisfaction.

  He slashed my cheek again, this time deeper and barely half an inch from my eye. “The ancient Chinese had a flair for execution. My favorite in particular is the death of a thousand cuts, where piece by piece, the flesh was removed from the body. How many cuts do you think it will take to kill you, Lila?”

  “I don’t know,” I rasped, my voice barely recognizable. “But I know how many cuts it takes to kill you.”

  “Oh?” he said. “Do tell.”

  “Two. One to your belly, and one to your legacy.” Red-hot pain seared my cheek, but I forced a grin. “Smile, Victor. You’re on camera.”

  He twisted around wildly, pressing one hand to his abdomen while the other gripped the knife. “What are you talking about?”

  “I’m talking about the game you and Celia have been playing,” I said. “You’ve lost. The entire country is watching all of this, and they’ve heard every last word. No matter what you do to me now, you’re dead.”

  Daxton scrambled toward the nearest cabinet, throwing open the door and ripping through the supplies. Blood dripped to the ground where he stood, but he didn’t seem to notice or care. “You’re lying.”

  “Go ahead and try to convince yourself of that, but I’m not,” I said. “You’re a dead man walking, Victor Mercer.”

  With an enraged cry, he pulled a pistol from his jacket—the same one he’d given me to execute Celia. “Then I might as well take you with me,” he snarled.

  I ducked as he pulled the trigger. The bullet ricocheted off the metal door behind me, and a cabinet across the room exploded. Daxton swore and, with trembling hands, dug through his pocket and produced another bullet. “Nowhere to go,” he said in a nervous singsong voice. The color drained from his face, and the puddle of blood beneath him grew larger. “I already told you, Lila. You will never outlive me.”

  Suddenly something beeped, and the door to the safe room groaned and creaked open. Standing on the other side, his hair windswept and his face flushed, was Knox, a semiautomatic weapon in his hands. At least he’d had the sense to bring more than one bullet with him.

  “Lila, move,” he ordered, and I jumped out of the way, giving him a clear shot at Daxton. It occurred to me half a second too late that I had also given Daxton a clear shot at Knox.

  Another shot rang out, reverberating through the safe room, and Knox swore. He dropped his gun and clutched his shoulder, and Daxton dived for the loaded weapon. Panic and adrenaline surged through me, and I scrambled toward it as well, grabbing it an instant before he could and pointing the barrel directly at his head. This time I wouldn’t miss.

  He laughed, a crazed, unhinged sound that turned my insides to ice. “You got me,” he said as he slowly stood, wincing as even more blood gushed from his belly. “You’ve won, Lila. Congratulations.”

  “Can’t win while you’re still alive,” I said, finger on the trigger. “Now tell everyone what you
did to Kitty.”

  “What I—” He chuckled again. “Who cares? She was a nobody.”

  “I care,” said Knox, stepping toward him with his hand still pressed against his wounded shoulder. “She may have been nobody to you, but the country loved her. So tell them what you did to her.”

  “I—” Daxton sighed. He was ghostly pale now, but other than a slight tremor in his hands, there was no other sign he was injured. “I told her I would let her go. And I did.”

  “And then what?” I growled.

  “And then...and then I may or may not have had her helicopter blown to bits.” He shrugged. “Couldn’t say for sure.”

  I swallowed hard. I could have told him it was Lila, and maybe I should have. The country had a right to know she was gone. But I couldn’t bring myself to do it. Lila deserved better than to die in the mountains, her body buried by snow and never recovered. She deserved this legacy. After all she had been through, she deserved to be remembered as one of the greats, too. Not me. I would have been nobody without her. But she was the reason behind all this. She was the reason the Blackcoats would now celebrate a hard-won victory, and she was the reason half a billion people would now have the freedom to live the lives they chose. Not the lives the government gave them.

  I couldn’t take that from her. I didn’t need the glory. I didn’t want the glory. All I wanted was for this to be over.

  “Victor Mercer.” I could barely speak. My voice was broken and hoarse, and every word felt like I was swallowing glass, but I forced them out. “You have been found guilty of treason, conspiracy to commit treason, and the murders of Kitty Doe, Celia Hart, Minister Creed, Minister Ferras, and Minister Bradley, among countless others. You are hereby sentenced to death. Do you have any last words?”

  He considered me for a long moment. “Yes, as a matter of fact, I do.”

  And faster than I would have ever thought he could move, faster than I could react, he leaped toward Knox and pressed the knife against his throat.

  “You will pardon me. You will get me medical treatment. And you will release me, or I will kill your fiancé.”

  Knox fought back, but Victor dug his finger into the bullet wound in his shoulder, and Knox cried out in pain.

  “It’s your choice, Lila. If I die, Knox dies with me. There will be no second chances this time.” Victor shifted, his chest shielded by Knox’s shoulder. There was no way I could kill him without shooting Knox, too.

  I stood frozen in place as my heart pounded and my vision grew blurry. “Even if I let you go, you have no way to know for sure that I’ll stick to my word.”

  “But the country is watching, remember?” He inched the knife across Knox’s throat, and pearls of blood formed at the blade. “Surely you wouldn’t lie to them.”

  “They want you punished for your crimes. No one would blame me for having you arrested, no matter what promises I make.”

  He sighed. “I suppose you’re right. I guess that means I’ll just have to kill him after all, won’t I?”

  His hand holding the knife twitched, and I didn’t think. I didn’t breathe. I did exactly what he’d urged me to do less than an hour before, standing on that platform in front of thousands of people, with Celia kneeling in front of me, ready to die.

  I pulled the trigger.

  XVIII

  Scars

  The bullet hit Knox in the spot where his shoulder met his chest, half an inch below where Daxton’s shot had landed.

  The force of it pushed him backward, and the knife went flying as Victor slammed against the wall. Together they lay in a crumpled heap, and I hurried over, my heart pounding.

  “Knox?” His name came out choked, and I dropped to my knees beside him. “Please don’t be dead, please don’t be dead—”

  “I’m not dead,” he managed, wincing. “I think Victor might be, though.”

  Knox sat up, revealing Daxton underneath him. His dark eyes were wide, his mouth slack, and fresh blood blossomed from the bullet that had traveled through Knox’s shoulder into his chest. He wasn’t moving.

  “Looks like the bastard had a heart after all,” said Knox, and I held out my hand, helping him to his feet. The world seemed to tilt on its axis, and I stared at Daxton’s body, trying to absorb what had just happened.

  He was dead.

  Finally, at last, Daxton Hart—Victor Mercer—was dead.

  “I should—I shouldn’t have killed him,” I whispered. “I should have shot him in the knee.”

  “You’re not that good of a shot. Besides, he was already minutes from dying,” said Knox. “Look at how much blood he’d lost. There was no saving him.”

  “He should have had to stand trial for his crimes. He should have—he should have had to look his victims’ families in the eye and lived to face the consequences. Death was too easy. I had him. I should have—”

  “Lila.” Despite his injuries, Knox hunched down in front of me, staring me straight in the eye. “You did exactly what you should have done.”

  I threw my arms around him, hugging him as tightly as I dared without causing him more pain. He embraced me in return, rubbing slow circles on my back.

  “Come on,” he murmured. “Let’s get out of here.”

  Knox hadn’t been bluffing. The Blackcoats had once again hijacked the broadcast system, and the entire country had seen the showdown in the safe room between me and Victor Mercer. Before Knox and I even made it to the atrium, a team of paramedics ran down the steps directly toward us. I stepped aside, expecting them to race to the safe room to see if there was any hope to save their Prime Minister, but instead they stopped.

  “Miss Hart—Mr. Creed—please sit and let us examine you,” said a woman. I glanced at Knox, and he nodded. Together we sank down, and the paramedics got to work inspecting my throat and the bullet wounds in Knox’s shoulder.

  I insisted on walking to the ambulance, but much to his chagrin, Knox was forced onto a stretcher and carried out, the paramedics threatening to withhold painkillers if he didn’t stay put. Greyson waited for us outside with Rivers at his side, and as soon as I stumbled out, a blanket wrapped around my shoulders and a paramedic holding my elbow to make sure I didn’t fall, they both raced toward us.

  “Lila—are you—what happened?” Greyson skidded to a stop on the gravel drive.

  “Victor’s dead,” I croaked. The more I spoke, the harder it became. “Knox—”

  “I’m fine,” he called as the stretcher appeared. “Did the whole thing get on air?”

  “The whole thing,” said Rivers with a grin.

  I refused to be split up from Knox, so we rode to the nearest hospital together in the same ambulance, with Rivers driving Greyson behind us. Through the back windows, I spotted hundreds, if not thousands of people gathered at the gates of Somerset, watching us drive off. A cheer rose up, loud enough for us to hear through the ambulance walls, and the sob I’d been holding in all morning finally escaped. We’d done it. We’d actually done it.

  “It’s really over, isn’t it?” I whispered. Knox, who’d so far spent the ride arguing with the paramedic, nodded.

  “Yeah,” he said, his expression softening for a moment. “It’s over. You did it. Hey.” He caught the paramedic’s hand. “What did I say about shots?”

  A team of doctors waited at the entrance to St. George Hospital, and as soon as the ambulance doors opened, they rushed to help us. Knox was immediately carted away, but just as I began to panic, Greyson appeared.

  “I’m right here,” he said, taking my hand as they loaded me onto a stretcher. “I’m not going anywhere.”

  True to his word, Greyson stuck by my side for the rest of the day, even as reporters descended on the hospital, begging to speak to him. Benjy somehow managed to find us, and he brought with him a protection detail
for Greyson and me—all Blackcoats, he promised. And all immeasurably loyal to us.

  Doctor after doctor inspected my face and throat, and though it didn’t seem like much of a big deal to me, they insisted strangulation had dangerous lingering effects, and they couldn’t be too careful. Every time I started to protest, Greyson shushed me and told me to let the doctors do their jobs, and reluctantly I did so. After kicking him in the stairwell and abandoning him, I owed him this.

  “We’ve done everything we can to prevent severe scarring to your cheek,” said a doctor with a thick black braid hanging over her shoulder. “But I’m afraid without more—advanced measures, there will always be scars.”

  I’d had enough advanced measures done to my body to last me a lifetime. “It’s okay,” I said tiredly. “They’re fine the way they are.”

  “You’re sure?” said Greyson, and I nodded.

  “I earned those scars. I’m keeping them.”

  He touched my chin and examined the stitched-up lines running down my face. “They suit you,” he said. “Make your outsides match your insides.”

  “What, damaged?” I teased. He blushed.

  “No, I mean—tough. Strong. Fierce. A fighter.”

  “A regular badass,” said Benjy, who lingered nearby, and I gave him an amused look. I could live with that.

  At last the chaos of the day subsided, and night set in. As soon as Knox was out of surgery, we were given private hospital rooms side by side. With Greyson’s help, I snuck out of bed and into Knox’s room, pulling my IV along with me. Together Greyson and I sat on the sofa while Knox slept off whatever they’d given him, and I couldn’t help but notice a little trail of drool running from his mouth to the pillow. It would have been cute if he wasn’t snoring so loudly.

  “So,” I whispered. “You’re Prime Minister now.”

  Greyson took a deep breath and released it slowly. “Guess so,” he said. “I’m going to put together a council tomorrow.”