Wicked Ugly Bad (A Kinda Fairytale)

by Cassandra Gannon

  “I wouldn’t hit a woman. No wolf would do that.”

  “You would if it meant saving the lives of others.” She snapped.

  “Well, that would depend on which others.”

  “It all happened so fast.” Esmeralda/Ramona interjected, before Scarlett could continue the argument. “I’m just thankful the witch was caught unaware and stopped in time. It was pure luck that she didn’t destroy us all.”

  “How did the witch get her magic inhibitor off?” One of the dwarf guards asked, taking careful notes of “Ramona’s” eyewitness report. Since she was supposedly the only Good folk present, her testimony would be all that mattered to Dr. White.

  Marrok kept his attention on Scarlett. “That’s an interesting question.” He smirked. “How did she get it off, do you think?”

  “I don’t know.” Her blue eyes flashed daggers at him. “I guess it just broke.”

  “The witch is a cunning and brilliant foe.” Esmeralda/Ramona agreed. “Who knows what kind of genius plan she had hatched. We were all too dazzled by her athleticism and by the way she outsmarted me at every turn to notice all the details.”

  “Well, we can check that out later on the video.” One of the guards assured her.

  “The video?” Half the room chorused in horror.

  Benji scrunched his massive body down in his chair. “Uh-oh.”

  Drusilla winced. “Letty, maybe we should just…”

  “It’ll be fine, Dru.” Scarlett interrupted with determined cheer. “Right, Doctor Ramona? The camera is great news, isn’t it?”

  “Yeah.” Esmeralda/Ramona quickly scanned the ceiling, her eyes falling on a small security camera. “Sure… great.” She swallowed. “Yeah, a video will clear up all the questions you have, guard. Uh… when will you be reviewing that, again?”

  “As soon as we’re done carting the witch down into the dungeon.” The head dwarf closed his notebook with an authoritative snap. “By then, it’ll have downloaded onto the main computer and we can watch it frame-by-frame in the office. See if any of this bunch tried to help her with her stupid plan.”

  Marrok arched a brow at Scarlett. “It was a stupid plan, wasn’t it?”

  The dwarf guard nodded at Esmeralda/Ramona like she was the one who’d agreed with him. Good folk tended to tune out the Bad like the hum of a florescent light. “Don’t worry, Doc. We’ll sort all this out in no time.”

  “Super-duper.” Esmeralda/Ramona gave a weak thumbs-up as the men hefted the unconscious “witch” between them and carted her out the door. “Thanks fellas. Couldn’t have done it without you. I’ll just finish up here and make sure these nut-bags get back to their cells.” She slammed the door shut behind them and swore in ancient language of witches. “Now what do we do?!”

  “I feel violated.” Benji lamented. “Group is being videotaped? What about our trust bubble?”

  “I told you that Ramona wasn’t respecting our confidentiality.” Avenant reminded them smugly. “Servants always spy.”

  “Nobody panic.” Scarlett held up her hands and felt panicked. “Let’s just think this through.”

  “What’s there to think about?!” Rumpelstiltskin shrieked. “They have a tape! The gas will come and put us all to sleep and…”

  “Shut-up!” Scarlett snapped. “It’s not actually a tape. You heard him. It’s a video file. We’ll just have to erase it from the computer and everything will be fine.”

  “Oh, that makes all the difference in the world.” Avenant scoffed. “Except the computer is locked in the security office… with all the guards and security.”

  “You are the most whiny prince ever.” Scarlett declared. “Charming would never complain so much.”

  Marrok slanted her an unreadable look. “Charming also left you here to rot, so he’s possibly not the best role model.”

  She ignored him. “Let’s just concentrate on solving the problem.”

  “We should just give up.” Drusilla murmured, slipping even deeper into her drugged gloom. “Charming left us. Cinderella was right. Good will always beat us in the end.”

  Marrok put his hands behind his head like he was lounging back at the beach. “I have this fantasy where I’m beaten by Good with this saucy leather whip. She’s wearing this little school girl uniform and we’re in this thing of vanilla pudding…”

  “Wolf, I swear to God, I will have Ez turn you into a toad.” Scarlett turned back to Esmeralda like a general in command her troops… her doomed, criminally insane troops. “Ez, can you do any kind of magic to get rid of the recording?”

  “Not without triggering the magic alarms. I’ll have to go in and do it the boring way.” She smoothed her stolen lab coat over her hips and frowned. “Hey, do I look fat in this body? Be honest.”

  Benji started munching on a throw pillow. “This whole situation is making me stress eat.”

  “You’re not going anywhere, witch.” Avenant glowered at Esmeralda. “How can we be sure you’ll come back?” He made a “hello” gesture with one hand. “She could just leave us here and make a run for it, all dressed up in Ramona’s face. Am I the only one who realizes that?”

  Esmeralda flipped him off. “I barely even considered that, jackass.”

  “Avenant is right.” Rumpelstiltskin bobbed his head. “Esmeralda will escape and let the rest of us take the blame for this whole mess! I know it!”

  “How many times must I tell you peasants to address me as Prince Avenant? And if the witch goes to deal with the computer, then so do I. At least I have some knowledge of how they work.”

  “Of course you do.” Esmeralda sneered. “How much did you embezzle from your loyal citizens, again?”

  “Those slush funds were all setup by that fucking usurper to frame me!”

  “We don’t have time for this bickering.” Scarlett’s gaze swept the room. “Our whole group is escaping. All of us. No one will be left behind, so long as we trust each other.”

  Six people stared back at her like she was deranged.

  Evildoers weren’t big on team building.

  “Alright, maybe not trust trust, but trust that all of us want to get out of here.” Scarlett tried a different tactic. “Look, it’s simple logic. If one of us goes down, we all do. Whoever gets caught or abandoned will just rat the others, right? So, we’re all in this together.”

  Marrok made an “aww” sound. “That’s beautiful, Red. Except… if we’re a team and all, why does it seem like you’ve appointed yourself captain?”

  “Well, who do you think should be captain? You?”

  “Why not? I work on a team professionally. Plus, you said yourself I have the most experience at being a criminal.”

  “You also have the most experience at being a sociopath!”

  Marrok crossed his arms over his chest. “But, that was before I met you and learned violence isn’t the way. You taught me to be peaceable and honest and… Oh wait… Thaaat’s right. You just clocked an innocent fairy in the head, didn’t you?”

  Scarlett stalked over to plant her palms on the arms of his chair, looming over him. “If you can’t play nice tell me now. Because, I need you to be serious and help me. Please.”

  His smirked faded. “I’ll help you.” For one brief moment, he actually sounded sincere. “You know I will. Baby, if you want to escape, we’ll escape. But, we gotta do it smart.”

  “That’s what I’m trying to do!”

  “No offense, but you’re doing a piss poor job. Now, it’s not all your fault.” He held up a hand forestalling her protest. “After all, what does a Good girl know about staging a jailbreak?”

  “I’m… not… Good.”

  He leaned forward to inhale the scent of her hair. “You sure smell Good.”

  So did he.

  Scarlett blinked rapidly at the thought.

  Marrok moved his head to keep eye contact when she would’ve looked away in awkward confusion. “It’s alright.” He whispered. “I should have handled it better. Even
through those damn drugs they were giving you, I knew who you were. I just didn’t understand why you didn’t know and it pissed me off. I didn’t understand that you couldn’t possibly figure it out.”

  Scarlett swallowed. “Figure what out?”

  “Poor Letty.” His tone was all warm honey and promises. “You’ve spent your whole life locked in a castle being Good, haven’t you? You’ve never been near any real Baddies, at all. You have no idea how we operate.”

  “I come from a notoriously wicked family!” She insisted. “I’m telling you, I’m very, very Bad. Look at what I’m doing, right now.”

  “Baby, I see you. I see you talking about trust, and saving the Four Kingdoms, and all-for-one-ing it with the rest of these idiots, when you should be figuring out a way to save your own cute little ass. It’s so erotically Good, I feel like you’re just torturing me with how adorable you are.”

  He had to be messing with her. No one ever called ugly stepsisters “adorable.” “When I torture you it will be painful, not erotic.”

  “Oh, I’m hoping it’ll be both.”

  Scarlett pulled back, refusing to be taken in by the seductive smile he leveled at her. She crossed her arms over her chest and cleared her throat. “Alright, this isn’t getting us anywhere. If you have something to add to this escape plan, feel free to speak up.”

  “Please, do.” Avenant muttered. “The woman clearly needs all the help she can get.”

  “Well, first off, we’re not fucking around with a computer system.” Marrok arched a brow at Scarlett, resuming his normal sarcastic tone. “Seriously, you watch too many movies. None of us have any idea how to hack into security mainframes and erase encrypted video files. Especially, not him.” He pointed at Avenant. “I guarantee Prince Asshole didn’t commit his own cybercrimes. Any money he electronically stole from his poor oppressed people, he had some other poor oppressed person electronically steal for him.”

  “My people loved me!” Avenant lifted a shoulder in an arrogant shrug. “And when they didn’t, they paid for their disloyalty. That’s how you build real citizenship.”

  “And how you wound up here.” Esmeralda said sweetly.

  Scarlett disregarded their bickering, a skill she’d fine-tuned through many looooong group sessions with them sniping at each other. “Fine, Wolf, how do you suggest we fix this mess, then?”

  Marrok leaned over to grab Ramon’s star-shaped lighter, which had fallen on the floor. “We use nature’s eraser.” He held out his hands “ta-da!” style. “Arson.”

  Chapter Three

  Everyone’s afraid of The Big Bad Wolf. And for good reason.

  Psychiatric case notes of Dr. Ramona Fae

  Why would fate give him the goodiest Good girl in the Four Kingdoms as his True Love?

  It just didn’t make any sense.

  When he’d thought Scarlett was evil, Marrok been bewildered by how… pure she seemed, but at least he could comfort himself with the knowledge that she was probably faking her naiveté. Now that he knew she was Good, though, he felt like he’d been handed a spider web made of crystal and told not to break it. It would’ve been funny if it wasn’t so damn frustrating.

  Letty believed in happily ever afters for Baddies, for God’s sake. What was he supposed to do with someone like that?

  Marrok glanced down at her and stifled a sigh.

  Still… wolves could always scent their True Loves and this girl was definitely his. Everyone in the Four Kingdoms was born with a True Love and most Bad folk had some kind of innate knowledge when they met their other halves. No one knew exactly why, but Marrok suspected that it was a protective measure to keep them from accidently harming their True Loves before they realized who they really were. Bad folk weren’t so great at not killing people who annoyed them and True Loves could be pretty damn annoying.

  From the second Scarlett had shown up in the Tuesday share circle, Marrok had known who she was and it had severely pissed him off that she’d so clearly rejected him. That she’d watched him warily, and tried to ignore him, and pretended not to notice their connection.

  Except she hadn’t been pretending.

  The woman had no way of recognizing him, because she was Good straight down to spotless, yet kinda of scheme-y, soul. Good Folk couldn’t sense much of anything beyond their own moral superiority. It was a biological fact. Plus, his aggravating little True Love was doubly blind because she didn’t even know she was Good. …Of course, she also didn’t know how to be Bad.

  No one had prepared her properly for either world.

  What kind of damn idiots had raised this girl that they didn’t notice she wasn’t wicked, ugly or Bad? That they’d allow her to be dumped in prison with men like him? Seriously, what the fuck was he supposed to do with a woman like this?

  And things would be even worse now that the drugs were out of her system. He hadn’t been lying to Scarlett earlier. Now, the other wolves would be able to scent the Good on her and her kind weren’t real popular in the WUB Club. It was a wonder she hadn’t been eaten already.

  This stupid escape plan really was their only option if Marrok was going to keep her alive. And --against his better judgment-- he was determined to keep her alive. He’d fucked up enough in his life. He wasn’t blowing this, too.

  Trevelyan would be laughing his ass off if he saw this.

  Marrok’s jaw firmed. He had to get Letty out of there, no matter what it took. Good or Bad, you only got one True Love, so this redheaded pain-in-the-ass was vital to him. Granted, he’d always imagined that his True Love would be some delightfully evil she-wolf, who laughed as she broke hearts and severed limbs, but Little Miss Save-the-World would have to do.

  At least, she smelled nice.

  “This is never going to work.” Scarlett whispered. “We should come up with a different idea.” She leaned closer to him to peer around the corner of the hall. The security office was only ten feet away, but it was bolted from the inside with a camera setup to record anyone who came close to the door.

  Since she was too distracted to notice that she was almost touching him, Marrok took the opportunity to lean down and breathe in the scent of her hair. The spiced apple fragrance shot right to his groin.

  “Of course it will work.” He murmured. “I’m a master criminal. My plans always work.”

  “Really? Then, why are you in jail?”

  Despite himself, Marrok’s lips twitched upward at her bitchy tone. At least, it was something. “My evil stepsister set me up. I swear.”

  Scarlett leveled a look of death in his direction. Good or not, the girl did have a delectable mean streak. “Just remember who’s in charge of this escape, alright? I’m going along with this part of the plan with some extreme reservations.”

  “Uh-huh.” Marrok barely heard her words, his attention on watching her lips move.

  His sexual fantasies had been getting increasingly graphic lately and some of the best ones starred her mouth. The girl probably had no clue what to do in the bedroom --which was a shame because the she-wolf vixen of his imagination had always been incredibly limber-- but his body didn’t care about Scarlett’s lack of skill. He just wanted her. All his instincts told him to claim her right now, rebelling at the unnaturally long wait he’d already endured.

  What other wolf could spend six weeks locked in a confined space with his True Love and not even touch her? He deserved a damn medal for his restraint. Not that she appreciated it. God, he couldn’t have found a more difficult girl if he’d tried.

  “Are you listening to me?” She demanded.

  “Nope.”

  She made an exasperated sound. “I said I’m in charge. Just do what I tell you, alright?”

  “This just turned promisingly kinky. Do I have to call you Mistress?”

  Scarlett gestured towards the security office. “Just get on with it. And remember not to murder anyone.”

  “No promises on that front.” He grazed her temple with a kiss, his smile growin
g wider as she jolted. Then, she quickly remembered she hated him and shoved him away. “Stay right here where I can see you. Understand?” He said.

  She blinked up at him in confusion, still not getting it.

  He’d been discreetly keeping an eye on Scarlett from the first day she’d shown up in the WUB Club, making sure that no one so much as cut in front of her in the cafeteria line. If people in the WUB Club knew how importing she was to Marrok, she’d already be dead. He had so many enemies that Scarlett would a target just because she belonged to him. Especially among the other wolves. He’d either played Wolfball against or with most of them, and his brethren weren’t great at leaving rivalries on the field.

  God, he hated his fucking job. Coming to the WUB Club was like an annual vacation he took when he just couldn’t stand it any longer. Only this visit, he’d found the one person who could finally change everything for him.

  If he could keep her alive, Letty would save him from his life.

  He knew it with everything in him.

  Marrok didn’t want the girl more than two feet from his side until they were safely outside the prison walls and away from all the insane killers who hated her kind. Then, he’d be willing to renegotiate the distance to a generous four feet.

  Well, maybe three.

  Marrok pointed a finger at her, his voice growing serious. “Don’t do anything stupid, helpful, or violent until I get back.”

  She glowered up at him, looking irritated and flustered and very, very innocent. Jesus, how could he have ever thought a woman with eyes like that was evil? Even narrowed in anger, the blue of them was as clear as a wishing well.

  “I’m not stupid, helpful, or violent, you jack…” She stopped mid-swear. “Wait. What’s wrong with being helpful? How is that an insult?”

  “See, you wouldn’t ask that if you were really Bad. Now stand back and let the professionals deal with the crime spree.” Marrok playfully waggled the bottle of cleaning fluid he’d pilfered from the supply closet using Ramona’s key. “You’re in good hands, Red. At least three of my felony sentences were for arson.”