A Beautiful Nightmare: A Novel

by Shana Vanterpool

  He glanced down at me, irritation tight in his eyes. “What are you talking about?”

  I released his hand and walked back over to the symbol, giving her time to catch up. “This same exact symbol is on the brick wall across my office building.” I traced the edges of the crown. “I saw it every day I left.”

  Instead of glaring, his face paled. He joined me. “How can you tell it’s the same?”

  “This.” I pointed to the MK letters. “I’ve seen the symbol before all over Chicago. But the M and the K are never this sharp.”

  “Me too,” he said. “And I’ve seen that symbol in particular as well.”

  “Where?”

  His fearful eyes met mine. “Runner.”

  “Runner?”

  He wrapped his fingers around my wrist and yanked me after him. Behind me, there was a grunt near the grate. I struggled to keep up, let alone understand him. Our bare feet pounded on the pavement as he led us. The moment we stepped into the public, my heart started pounding. People. There were so many people. And they were all looking at the crazy couple running down the train station in sweats and no shoes. My hair swept away from my face as Dash and I ran together. I spotted the parking lot he mentioned, but he passed it by. And that he had no more plans after it, concerned me. But he wasn’t stopping. So I wasn’t either.

  His breaths were heavy and hectic. I tried to catch his gaze, but he wouldn’t look at me. “Damn it, Kinley,” he cursed, speeding up.

  And I knew I’d messed up. But it was too late.

  “What’s wrong?” I asked, casting a glance around me for any signs.

  He didn’t respond. Instead, he stopped, yanking me beside him. We had run far from the train station, and were now in the middle of a busy square. The recent snowfall had left everything wet and gray; the cold bit at my face and feet. We were displaced in the real world. It made me realize there were different types of reality, and that not all illusions should be questioned. People in the square stopped and stared, giving us sideway glances. I ignored them, choosing to focus on the shattered look on Dash’s face instead.

  He looked devastated.

  Broken.

  “They wanted us passed out,” he said. “Blowing up the tower was only to trick my father. Now we’re theirs.”

  “What’s runner?”

  “Who,” he corrected. “Who’s Runner.” Tears welled in his eyes. Terror … heartbreak. Everything in me froze. “Where does it hurt on you?”

  I didn’t understand. “Everywhere? I don’t know. Nowhere.”

  He looked around us, brain working. “And Fillan is so far away.”

  “What’s going on?”

  “You’re marked.” His sucked in his sob. “You’re marked by Runner.”

  I shook my head, not understanding.

  He looked at my body, and then my eyes. “We have to get to Seattle. Now.”

  I was marked? Weren’t we both marked? I looked at my body too. But I didn’t understand what I was looking for. On my right, I caught a flash of gold.

  “We need to steal a car. What did you do to deserve this?”

  That one question sent a bolt of fear through me. I thought I knew. I sold my soul for a chance at my dreams. I cheated. I fell in love with Dash. But if my mother had a hand in this, maybe I hadn’t done anything. Maybe I’d never even stood a chance.

  “We can’t stay still. Do you hear me? You cannot stay still. You have to keep running until we can get to Fillan.”

  “What’s wrong?”

  “Now!” he snapped, catching the attention of a group of women taking selfies in front of a bronze statue.

  I glared at them until they returned to their phones. As Dash looked around helplessly, I felt my spine tingle. The group of women taking pictures walked passed us, blocking Dash from my view for a moment.

  I looked around expectantly. A flash of blonde hair whipped past me and I sighed in relief. She pushed the handle of a plastic bag in my hand.

  I looked at Dash’s handsome face one last time, my heart pounding, and prayed from the bottom of my soul that this worked. I love you, my king.

  And before I could ask anything more, Dash grabbed me by my wrist, and took off across the small downtown park. We passed a payphone on the edge of the street, but after a slight pause, he continued. I had questions, so many questions, but I could feel that we weren’t alone. The hair on my arms rose and I made sure to keep up Dash.

  He eventually let my arm go when we got to a busy street, too panicked to look at my eyes. “Stay beside me.”

  As long as you don’t lie, he won’t look into your eyes.

  There was this window, and only this window. It was lies converging to protect a truth. I held a hand to my flat belly, and glanced up, waiting for the signal. I remembered what she said to a T. I’d always had a fantastic memory. I never forgot a thing.

  Not the heartache I’d endured, or the horror that got me there.

  We stopped at an intersection. There were lines of cars on all four sides. The traffic was deep and encroaching. Exhaust and cold mingled in the street. For some reason, I inhaled deeply, holding the air inside of my lungs for a moment longer. Dash looked cornered, trapped. He glanced around helplessly. He hadn’t thought this far. He hadn’t known the true players of this game.

  Above me, a flash of black whipped around, and then a small hand not unlike my own made a peace sign. Two.

  Yes.

  So I took his hand, and grabbed his face between my hands. I looked deeply into his eyes. “Thank you for everything.”

  “What are you talking about?” He was hectic, confused. “What’s wrong with your eyes?

  I ignored his question. “You kept me sane.”

  “Kinley?” Terror sizzled in his eyes. “What’s going on?

  “You are my whole world.” Yeah right, I thought acidly. But Kinley wanted me to say this to him. I’d give her this. And nothing else.

  “Stop!” he screamed, trying to hold on to me.

  “I love you,” I professed. “It can’t end any other way.”

  He dug his nails into my side, but I was stronger for some reason. I pushed him off, sending him back into the wall beside us. I took a step into the street and opened my arms, staring up at the gray Chicago sky.

  “Your eyes!” Dash screamed.

  Sharp fire burned in my back as Dash screamed. Another burn exploded in my stomach. My body crumpled from the pain. I looked into Dash’s eyes, at his fire, at his pain.

  The bullets tore at me as Denny and Trent stepped out into the street, their handguns going off again and again. I was terrified I’d done it wrong.

  “Run!” I screamed, but it was a whisper as the people in the street began to stampede away. “You have to run. Don’t ever stop, my king. Run to the hawks!”

  Denny stood over me suddenly, his evil baby blue eyes narrowed in disgust as he emptied his clip right into my heart. I closed my eyes before he could see them, and sagged as if I were gone.

  Because Denny had wanted us both gone.

  “Kinley!” Dash broke. Shattered.

  I couldn’t move.

  I couldn’t hear.

  But I could love.

  I loved stronger than I had ever lived.

  29.

  We Were Even

  Haven’t you learned anything by now?

  “Stop lying, Kinley. Haven’t you lied enough already? Six months of lying, all day, all night, aren’t you tired of it?”

  I lied.

  To everyone.

  Yes, even to you.

  But this was supposed to protect us. Offer us a way out. We couldn’t run forever.

  Denny killed me? Like I would ever let that lying sack of shit get the upper hand over me, after he’d done so again, and again, and again? Dash just let me walk into the street? He let me kill myself? I’d sacrifice myself for that man time and time again, but he’d never let me do so. Everything I felt for him was true. Everything. But not everything I m
ade you think was.

  I lied to you. I lied to Dash.

  But I wasn’t alone.

  Kenna was in on it too.

  “Names are letters, Kinley. They can change so often they lose their meaning.”

  I watched from my perch as Kenna went down in the street. Then I grabbed the pillow from the bag Kenna had given me, extracted the egg-shaped mound, and wrapped it around my belly. I gathered my obsidian hair away from my face and let it fall down my back. Dash would be waiting for me. He’d be lost. He might do something stupid.

  I had to lose Denny before that happened.

  I took the stairs of the building I’d hid in, and pushed the door open and entered into the street. I passed by a glass window, and caught sight of my black wig. I looked just like her. If you ignored my eyes. I yearned for my blonde hair. Because it was the truth, it was me. I just wanted to be me now.

  Years and years spent running. Of being someone I didn’t know and someone I didn’t want.

  I had earned the right to be me, and I just wanted to claim myself.

  I ducked behind the same statue Dash and Kenna had run past, watching the sirens glow as they sped down the street to help her. I hoped she got away in time. Her bullet-proof vest was a risk, and so were the bullets she’d replaced. But it was one she and I had to take. Denny never would have let us go alive. To save me, she’d gone rouge. She wormed her way into his heart, pretended to be pregnant, and did her best to keep us safe. She’d gotten a job as his assistant the second she found out it was me they’d made a deal with.

  The same kind of deal they’d made with her mother for her, and Dash’s mother, and my mother. The MK’s targeted soft victims, and took their blood to build their army.

  When I left the kingdom for the first time and saw her, I knew that was my only option. So I waited for her. I didn’t go back to the kingdom right away. She’d come back. She always did.

  After all, she was my roommate at the youth home I’d been forced into when my father got rid of me.

  ***

  My first time away from the kingdom

  I waited in the short hallway between the door for the staircase and the frosted door in the empty parking garage.

  I knew she’d come back. She had to.

  My heart was both broken and confused.

  It was the recognition on her face when she saw me that spurred my memory. And now that I knew she was Dash’s sister and Denny’s secretary, I had to wonder what side she was on. I had to, of course I had to, but the look in her eyes in the garage hadn’t been disgust or anger, but relief. She’d been happy to see me.

  Because the bond we’d formed all those years ago hadn’t shattered.

  Denny found out about the tower, but Kenna and I knew he would. We knew he’d never let either of us go once she took off.

  She went into the kingdom and warned me about the gas. She was hiding in the back of the SUV when we ran. I’d never been marked. Kenna had been. That’s how Denny found the kingdom. Because he’d been looking for us both.

  We both had debts to pay.

  When I saw the shadow through the frosted door, I waited, knowing the shred of fabric from my dress I’d left would eventually lead her to me somehow. Denny was too stupid to know what it meant. But Kenna had to know.

  After a beat, I pushed the door open and watched her. What pregnant woman really wore heels that high? Her white jeans were stark in the gray garage.

  She had the torn piece of purple fabric in her fist, and there were tears in her dark eyes. Regret? Fear? Heartbreak? Terror? We were identical in many ways. Our physical attributes were stark opposites. Her dark hair and dark eyes were unlike my fair hair and fair eyes, but we’d clicked in that youth home. She’d been obsessed with The Wizard of Oz too. She played it in the common room over and over again, as my life became empty on my own. I should have known better than to trust my father. When he kicked me out at fourteen, I’d been so empty, I never questioned being full again.

  And then there was Kenna. My roommate. My empty broken roommate. She followed at a distance, becoming my roommate after college. Our shitty apartment on the west side of Chicago. She was a prostitute. And I’d bet anything that she was the reason Denny had found me in that coffee shop. How he knew about my situation. She probably hadn’t meant to mark me. But she had.

  When she was in front of me, I opened the door slightly more for her to enter. Once she had, I closed it, and sagged against the wall.

  “What are you doing here?” she whispered.

  I glared at her.

  She looked at her feet in guilt. “I didn’t know, Kin. I had no idea that he would choose you.”

  “Who?”

  “Trent.” She met my eyes. In them there was the turmoil she’d endured. “I didn’t know when I asked him to help you, that he’d make a deal with you. I only asked him to help you out. Front you the cash or something. You’d pay him back. I didn’t know he’d want from you what Raynard had wanted from my mother.”

  I continued to glare, livid, so livid.

  “Denny paid me for sex. I didn’t know you two were together. I thought Trent helped you and you got out of debt like he’d helped me get out of mine. And then Denny and I started hooking up even more. He called you when we were together a couple years ago. I couldn’t believe that you two were together. That Trent had gone through his son to get what he wanted. So I kept seeing Denny. Pushing him for details. He knew I knew you. But he didn’t know how close we’d been. I didn’t know what to do. Trent hadn’t done anything yet. But Denny constantly bitched about you. About, um, your issue.” She gave me a sympathetic look. “And then that fucking moron interfered.” Her gaze became ridiculing. “Idiot. Father always claimed Dash because he was his only son, but he’d never once did that for me.”

  “Do you love him?”

  She looked down, and then nodded pitifully. “But he doesn’t love me. I was just someone he could screw. He was using me. Once you took off, Denny stopped calling me. Didn’t care about me now that he was so busy trying to cover up this shit. I knew what he wanted, what he owed his father. Denny got a lot of money to be with you. But that money was contingent. When you couldn’t give him what he wanted, Trent took that money back. He was desperate.”

  That’s why he’d taken Dash’s million.

  “So I lied and said I was pregnant. I knew it’d keep me close to him, and close to you. It would please my father to give him a full-blooded son. So I lied to him and told him that’s what I was having. He loves me now,” she added, smiling sadly through her tears. “But I can’t keep lying. Denny’s gone all day, all night. He bought us a house. He thinks we’re free of our debt. But we’re not.” She tried to pull in a breath through her sobs. The terror in her eyes was the same in Dash’s. She knew what her father was capable of.

  Her story could have been that, a story. I’d told enough lies to know there were probably so many more around the ones I’d already told.

  So I asked her one question that would tell me exactly where she stood.

  “You remember that part in The Wizard of Oz when Dorothy wakes up from her nightmare and remembers it was all a dream?”

  She stared blankly at me. “Of course I remember. That’s my favorite movie. Yours too. You didn’t have cable growing up, but you had that movie on VHS. You’d watch it when your parents fought. You said that movie was the reason you never stopped dreaming. Because not all nightmares were terrifying.”

  ***

  Present

  I ducked behind a wall.

  Her answer had been the exact one I’d been looking for. Dash would rage and roar when I found him. But he’d done this to me too. He’d kept me in the dark to protect me. That’s all I wanted to do. I saw an out and I took it. How could he blame me forever? Kenna helped me get there. And in turn, she could escape from the debt she’d enslaved herself in the moment she let herself think Denny had a heart.

  He didn’t have a heart.

&nbs
p; He’d emptied his clip into my heart in the street for the world to see. And he’d done so, because he thought it was me.

  He didn’t know Kenna went rouge. That she’d dug her tracker out from under her skin, because she was Runner. Figured out how to extract it without blowing herself up. Because like Dash, her father was the kingpin of the MK Gang, and she’d also fallen for Denny’s trap.

  “Asshole,” I whispered, fixing my black wig and pregnant belly.

  To keep my mind from Dash, and the devastation I knew he was feeling, I thought only of my plan. Kenna said Denny would come back here. He had to. He thought Kenna was there.

  My dream home looked exactly how I pictured it. A brownstone with a mixture of limestone and brick, it sat on the corner lot like royalty. That he’d paid attention to my dreams, only to kill me in the street, gave me a deep insight into who Denny McDonald was. A man who turned those dreams into his gain, and took your nightmare and finished it. I nestled in the parking alcove across the street in my black wig and pregnant belly, and waited, knowing the longer I did the more chances Dash would take matters into his own hand.

  If Kenna said to him what I told her to, he’d figure it out. He had to.

  He had to.

  We would meet up, and I’d give him his dream at the same time I got mine.

  The moon was high in the sky by the time a dark blue SUV pulled into the driveway. I watched Denny get out, face twisted in a rage. He stomped for the front door and kicked it open, leaving it gaping.

  “McKenna!” he roared.

  His familiar voice stabbed at the wounds he’d created. They were gaping, but I was starting to feel a few scabs.

  The lights in my dream home turned on. I saw his shadow on the second floor before it went up the stairs.

  I took the cold metal from inside of my belly, and pulled back on the hammer the way Kenna had shown me. I’d made sure there were real bullets in this gun, and not the fake paint fabrications that were in Denny and Trent’s.

  I reattached the belly, pulled my shirt down she had supplied me with, and then I stood, ready to end this once and for all.