A Beautiful Nightmare: A Novel

by Shana Vanterpool

  “I have money planted somewhere safe. We can’t go there until all threats are gone. If we have to run forever, we might not even get it. If we must live penny to penny, I’ll have to adapt. That was a possibility.”

  I drug my eyes over his clothes. “What kind of suit is that?”

  He grinned knowingly. “Armani.”

  “Yeah, you’re going to adapt all right.” I sipped my brandy, feeling myself get looser and looser.

  “As long as you’re there, all of the objects I once coveted can fade away.”

  It was so strange to feel so warm and yet so discontent. I wasn’t used to men like this. The insanity, yes. I should have expected that. But the unadulterated truth he gave me was instantly dismissed. It wasn’t real. But … it was. Wasn’t it? Wasn’t this truth the most fragile of them all? “Dash … I’m not worth that much.” I was learning that some truths were heartbreaking, and some of them weren’t. But making the ones that were into a lie, only made the damage they caused that much worse. “I’ve never been.”

  He surprised me by smirking. “Kinley, you are worth more than anything I have to give you. Worth the love and happiness I want to make you feel. You are worth more than anyone has never given you.” The untarnished parts of him shone through his eyes. “You are the truest part of me. You’re stronger than my brain, than my fears. You’ve always been. Your heart can fight with me all it wants. It is true regardless of how doubtful it is.”

  I thanked the alcohol in my system. It gave me the courage to maintain his eye contact and block out the doubt in me as it screamed insults left and right. “Perception and reality aren’t the same thing.”

  “What is love without a fight?” he muttered, refilling his mug.

  For a few minutes we sat in silence. The light outside faded from its deep blue hue to a slowly overtaking black. The warmth from inside of the tower probably glowed in the snowy haze.

  “What did Denny buy with the money you gave him?”

  “Your dream home.”

  My heart iced over.

  And chilled.

  I drank a long drink. “Bastard. Why only a million? Was that how much I was worth?”

  “Kin,” he groaned. “My guess is that a million dollars to him was far easier to explain away than fifteen. The McDonald’s seems to be more aware of their façade than my father.”

  “I wonder if there were more of us.” I peeked at him. “Were there?”

  “I don’t know.” His gaze hardened. “It’s you and me right now.”

  I could only imagine someone worse off than me. A woman with nothing, giving in to his magic, and selling herself and her child away. To think of the MK Gang spitting pure blood children out on a conveyor belt sent a chill through me. To know that all of the pain and disappointment I suffered through would have only amounted in losing my first born to him, made me livid. I drank my brandy down, holding out my glass for more.

  The walls were so close to me, threatening to enclose.

  He fell back and groaned at the ceiling. “I’m pleasantly under the influence.”

  “You and me both.” I moved to lay on my stomach, letting my dress slip down my thighs as I dangled my feet in the air.

  “No panties?” His fingers trailed down the side of my thigh.

  I let my legs fall apart just enough so he could see the beginning of my pussy. “What for? You’re always taking them off anyway.”

  He slipped his fingers under my leg and traced my slit. “I love what’s underneath. Come sit on my face.”

  I giggled into the blankets. “I thought we were being romantic?”

  “That’s romantic.”

  “In a porn maybe.”

  “Our sex life is much hotter than a porn. I’m offended.” He removed his hand, and instead put it behind his head, long body wrapped in his all-black suit. He looked bad and dark and I wouldn’t mind feeling his freshly shaven skin on mine. “Better, my queen?”

  I nodded, my neck flopping a bit. I had passed loose by, and was now nearing that boneless drunk anything could come out of my mouth mood. I managed to get some more brandy into my mouth, and swirled the taste over my tongue.

  “I dreamed about later,” he suddenly began. His deep voice wrapped me in its effect. “We were living in Australia, of all places. You wore nothing, but you were covered in red dirt. Your hair was as well, but I remember thinking you looked so damn sexy. We made love on the ground, under the sun, in the open. I want that with you. Your body, my hands, and no threats anywhere near us. Probably not in Australia, though,” he added, chuckling far too loudly than I thought the situation needed. “Too much heat.”

  “Dork.” I took another drink. “Not to mention the spiders there are like miniature ponies.”

  He laughed harder. “We’re marked by the MK Gang, and you’re concerned with spiders?”

  I shivered in disgust. “I don’t like spiders. They’re so skeevy and … ugh.” I couldn’t manage the thought of making love on top of a funnel-web hole.

  He guffawed.

  I glared at him. “You’re annoying.”

  He grabbed his stomach. “You were attacked by hit soldiers, and care more for a spider?”

  Unable to locate the humor, I sat up and stared down at him indignantly. “You’re a giggly drunk.”

  “And a horny drunk.”

  “A presumptuous drunk.”

  “A drunk who is so in love with his queen.” His smile faded to something I could only describe as … sweet?

  Dash and sweet went together rarely, if they had ever joined hands. I swallowed hard at the swift change in his demeanor. “You’re okay.”

  His grin became crooked. Sexy. So damn enticing I swore my heart skipped. It had never done that before. Even Denny hadn’t made my heart do a double take.

  “I’ll take it.”

  I folded myself against his side. “Me too.”

  “I’ll try to be more romantic. It’s hard though, Kinley, when I’m so worried all the time.”

  The amount of guilt I felt in that moment was crippling. “I’m worried too. It’s easy in this tower to separate ourselves from what’s really going on. But it’s bad, isn’t it? It really is a nightmare.”

  He held me tightly to him, the warm sent of brandy from his breath mingling with mine. “One of the worst.”

  I exhaled my terror. “Why can’t we take off?”

  He stiffened, but instead of storming, the alcohol numbed his reactions. “Where would we go? The roads out of here are probably scouted. The things I know, Kinley, there’s no easy way we can walk out of here the way you think we can. They have to come for us, so we know where they aren’t. My father’s men are smart and brutal. They’re heartless. They’re MK’s. Please trust me about this.”

  “I do.” I didn’t know if it was because I’d been responsible for my own welfare my whole life, or if I was worried Dash wasn’t seeing the big picture. I’d been there. Perception and reality fed off of each other when you didn’t have all of the answers. “But I don’t like being so close to them. So vulnerable.”

  “We’re safe here. The only way we wouldn’t be was if one of us gave them a reason to look up.”

  “But that’s a possibility. Or you wouldn’t be anticipating it.”

  “Of course it is. Anything could turn their heads. Even this snow storm could. The light at night could as well. I put no windows in my side, and you don’t need lights with all of the windows on your side. Tonight, for example, is a threat. A dark snow-laden city and a building with one light so high up. He could look up right now and send his men to investigate. They’ll nose around, find the elevators out of order, turn them on, and try to come up. But I purposely broke the shaft, and the elevator I used is now the stockroom. It was how I brought everything up. There are no other elevators that lead to this floor. But there is one that does the second. Once they’re on the second, it’s only a matter of time before they create their own way in. If they find us, we have a sixt
een-minute window to escape.”

  Was that how long it took to leave through the mirror door? In my state, I imagined it leading nowhere. But if that was the case, it would have a chain on it like the door near his office.

  “Where are you going?” he asked, when I unfolded from his arms and took off.

  “To turn the lights off. No candles either. We’ll use the moon.” After I’d switched off the lights on either side of the couch, I returned, trying to locate his silhouette in the dark. “I want to be a part of this.”

  He sighed as he too sat up. “You already are.” There was a resolve in his tone.

  Because he accepted we were a team now.

  “Thank you.”

  He gave me another one of those crooked smiles. “May you sit on my face now?”

  24.

  I Wanted My Kingdom

  My dress was bunched around my stomach.

  My head pounded brutally.

  My stomach turned, and I groaned, clutching at my belly. My legs felt weak from making love for hours the night before, and my mouth tasted like fuzz and bitter brandy. The taste, combined with the dryness overtaking my tongue, revolted me. Everything inside of me wanted to release the toxic cocktail in my stomach, but I couldn’t move without making my head pound.

  Beside me, Dash snored like a bulldozer. He lay flat on his stomach. His bare back met the blinding overbearing light of day, and his suit pants hung off his hips, showing the top of his ass. The empty bottle of brandy lay discarded on the blanket, and our mugs where we had fallen asleep. There were marshmallows everywhere as well. I hadn’t remembered eating any of them. I could only remember our hips meeting, and the feeling that I would never give him up for anything in the world.

  I had done so once, and that we might not get to keep what he had, felt like a new kind of punishment.

  A surge of nausea slammed into me, making every part of my body ache. With all the strength I had left, I struggled to stand. Once I had, I took it slow, walking just quick enough to get to my bathroom without risking the contents in my stomach. As I walked, my dress fell back down around my legs.

  The moment I entered my bathroom, I dropped to my knees in front of my porcelain toilet, and retched. Brandy and marshmallows came spewing out of me, making me even more sick. I closed my eyes. When the puking subsided, I leaned gratefully against the toilet and tried to breathe through my mouth. The stench of vomit was so thick in the air I wanted to retch again. My body ached and my skull pounded.

  My eyes closed for a moment, but when I woke, my knees screamed, and I could feel in my body that I’d fallen asleep for more than a few minutes. I flushed the toilet and tentatively stood. I felt slightly less nauseous than I had.

  And the door knew it.

  Over here, Kinley.

  Here, Kinley Kinley Kinley.

  “No,” I whispered, brushing my teeth. I’d never been more grateful for the taste of peppermint in my life. It flushed the puke from my breath and immediately improved my mood.

  Just a peek?

  “No.” I grabbed my brush from the counter and combed it through my hair, leaving it falling down my back in gold waves. After washing my face, I felt less like the inside of a piss stained brandy bottle, and more like a slightly human occupant in a nightmare she understood.

  Dash won’t know.

  I began to walk away.

  He’s passed out.

  I kept walking.

  I tiptoed carefully into the room to find Dash unmoving, still in the same position, snoring so loudly I swore he could wake himself up. He wasn’t waking up for a long time. All I needed was sixteen minutes.

  With my heart pounding with excitement, I took off for the door. I did so quietly, walking when he snored, and taking my time. Dash would know I’d left if I did it suddenly. I could sense that even now his eyes were peeled on me.

  When I got to my bathroom the sun shone thickly onto the mirror. I approached it and stared, giving Dash a minute to come find me. When the faint hint of his snores drifted through my bedroom door, I let out a sigh of relief. Thank you brandy.

  I stretched my hand to the middle of the mirror where I remembered the light had reflected, and pushed it gently. The door gave way, yawning toward me. The other side of the door was cold gray stone, like the inside of a tunnel. I stepped over the threshold of the kingdom, and for the first time since waking up in this nightmare, I was free. But one more step, I didn’t feel free. I felt … uneasy. The same way I had when I stepped out into the street to run one last time.

  I had fifteen minutes’ left; in my head I counted.

  Sixty, fifty-nine, fifty-eight…

  There were fourteen minutes left when I was finally cloaked in cold darkness. The cement ground was like ice, and my gown made a swishing sound every step I took, helping me count the minutes. I stretched my hands out in front of me to act like a buffer between me and whatever lay hidden in front. After another minute of careful walking, my right hand touched something cold and hard. I felt it over, sliding my fingers up and over until I realized it was a railing.

  I stopped cold. A staircase. 110 floors. I did the math in my head. It was impossible to run down 110 floors in sixteen minutes. Unless we cut off at least a dozen floors. I didn’t know where this staircase led. But I knew it had something to do with the ING building, otherwise why else would he point my bathroom at it with the way out right behind it.

  I took a deep breath, and then I took off.

  My bare feet pounded down the stair case, over and over again, running, unseeing, in the dark. The cold metal bit into my feet, but I dug on, speeding up, thankful that I’d spent my life running, because I only had ten minutes’ left. My lungs screamed, and my head still pounded. Sweat dripped down my temple and lower back. It was all I could do not to stop and throw up right there on the stair case. Tears streamed down my face. I was going back. I had to know the way out, or Dash and I would never be a team. Once I knew how to leave, I could think about how to keep everyone else out.

  When I had five minutes’ left, my right foot overcompensated, assuming there was a step there. There wasn’t. I stumbled into what felt like a wall. Something hard jammed into my hip.

  “Shit.” I clutched at my hip, my eyes blurring from the pain.

  Two minutes.

  I bit back the pain and struggled with the door in front of me. I clutched the hard object that had jammed into my hip, turning it. The handle gave way. I poked my head out. I was in another room. This one slightly lightened by the door in front of me. It was a glass door, but it looked frosted or blinded. There were noises on the other side. Men shouting? But the sound quickly faded as I counted down the last minute in my head.

  I stepped away from the door and it swung shut silently behind me. The pounding in my skull intensified the closer I got to the frosted glass door. There was a long silver handle on my side. Something roared on the other. The sound cooled my blood. Cars. For months it had been only Dash and I in the tower. On the other side of this door were people, reality… The moment I was faced with it, I wasn’t sure I wanted it. But if I didn’t make myself part of Dash’s team, I would forever be hidden behind his back. I couldn’t protect him from there. I couldn’t see anything coming if he kept trapping me.

  I turned the handle.

  Everything in me steeled when the sounds of cars and roaring rushed into the open door. Carefully, I poked my head out to find rows and rows of identical glass on my right and left. A glance down showed that there was no handle on that side, but a small button in the wooden grain window frame. No one would know the door was here but Dash. And now me. Before me were large cement columns, and what looked like empty parking spots. Above me the ground shook. A parking garage. My bathroom was aimed right at the way out. Almost as if Dash had given me an escape plan if I needed it, as if he might not be there if I had to get away.

  The thought made my stomach turn.

  I quickly stepped out of the glass window. It sof
tly closed behind me. I stepped around a column and looked around. This garage was entirely empty. There were no cars parked in the spaces, and the exit all the way on the other side was sealed off with no parking, under construction signs and bars blocking the entrance and exit. But there was no construction going on. If anything, this section of the garage looked new and unused. Feeling exposed, I wanted to return to the tower and curl up on the blankets with my king. Instead, I stepped out from behind the column, or my king would trap us both.

  I sprinted across the garage to the other side, my bare feet like ice on the cement floor. Slipping around the construction signs, I poked my head out to find a ramp leading down. Somehow I knew Dash wouldn’t go through all of this trouble just to walk down the ramp. He’d hidden the way out of here on purpose. I went back into the garage and stood in the middle. The wall on my left and behind me was pure cement, and didn’t appear to be special. The glass encasements across from me I knew hid a door, which meant they could hide others. The other wall was the exit, and that seemed too easy and risky. I ran back to the glass encasements and examined each one until I found the one furthest from the door in had a mechanical button imbedded in the wooden grain as well.

  It gave way with a silent swish and closed immediately behind me. I stepped inside to find a second staircase. It only went down, and the only light came from glass from the door. I took the stairs, flying down them in the dark to find a single parking garage. In the garage was a nondescript black SUV. I touched my hand to the door, examining the metal garage in front of the SUV. It looked to be on a pully system. Electric.

  And that’s when I realized this wasn’t the exit. This was an escape route. It hadn’t been created for me to run away. It had been created for us both to escape without anyone knowing we had. There was no way anyone could see inside of the walls. This SUV was the same as any other. We’d drive right out of this private garage and fade into traffic. There was nowhere out of here but the garage door.