by Kathy Myme
David… while I might not know what’s going on in his head, anyone within a ten-mile radius should be able to feel the cold hatred rolling off him. He’s pissed off. Every muscle he has looks frozen in place, as if he’s a machine primed and ready to eliminate anyone standing in his way.
Trevor might not be able to see reason… but I’m not sure David can either.
For a terrible second, Trevor hesitates. And in that same second, David’s hand twitches on the trigger. It’s pointed right at Trevor’s heart.
But then time pushes forward. There’s an enormous feeling of relief in my heart as I hear the noise of Trevor’s knife clattering to the ground. Thank god he’s being sensible.
“Kick it away from you.” David’s voice is low. “The knife. I want it as far from you as you can possibly get it.”
Trevor’s shoe tentatively reaches out and nudges the knife away from him.
“Now,” David says coolly. “It’s time for some manners. I want you to apologize to the lady.”
Trevor’s eyes shine as he looks up at me. It’s not with tears. It’s with hatred.
“I won’t apologize to that whore,” he grunts, clutching his shoulder.
David glares at him. His fingers twitch once more. “Apologize to her.”
Holy shit. Right now, I’m not sure who to be more terrified of. Trevor may hate my guts… but David’s fury is unrelenting. If Trevor doesn’t apologize, I’m fully convinced that he’ll pull that trigger. He’ll kill him.
“David,” I beg. “Please-”
David shakes his head, undeterred. “He’ll apologize like the scum he is-”
“Mr President!”
We’re not alone. Around a dozen men in black have surrounded us from all sides. Before I can even react, three of them are pinning Trevor down and pressing a gun to his head.
“He’s hurt!” I cry out, the terror of the last few minutes disappearing now I see the man I’d spent so long with bleeding on the ground. “Help him!”
The Secret Service look to David. “Sir?”
“Take him away,” David says, his voice a thick layer of steel. “Hand him over to the authorities and get the man to the hospital. The lunatic pulled a knife on Miss Waters here.”
Despite everything, horror fills me. “Wait-”
“Veronica,” the President says softly. “You need to leave.” He snaps his fingers at one of the men. “Peters?”
“Sir?”
“Take Miss Waters back home.” David leans forward, saying something in a hushed by firm undertone that I can’t quite catch.
“Yes, sir.”
I clench my fists. “No way in hell. I’m staying here-”
But when David turns to me, the fight dies. That rage hasn’t even begun to fade. If anything, now he is back in complete control and Trevor has been stopped, he only seems to have hardened further. The man who’d smirked as he’d stroked my inner thigh is nowhere to be seen. This isn’t a fight I can win.
“We’ll deal with this later,” he says, absolutely unshakable. Absolutely in command.
President
My heart is going about a million miles an hour.
I’ve never shot someone before now. Hell, I’ve never shot anything beyond a paper target at a firing range before now.
But now I’ve shot a man. And I liked it.
The rush of it all, the adrenaline and the testosterone, pumps through me like a concoction of drugs. I feel like I could do anything right now, like I’m the most powerful man in the world. (And I kind of am.)
And I’m never going to let that son of a bitch near Veronica again. Next time, that bullet will be aimed for somewhere a lot more fragile.
I’ve always felt a little silly carrying a pistol on me. With so many highly trained secret service agents around me, it’s seemed a little useless. Still, for my safety and protection I’ve been carrying one under my jacket in public since I was elected.
And now it has paid off. It certainly hadn’t felt silly when I’d seen that piece of shit with a knife. When I’d seen him threatening Veronica. Then it had seemed smart, like the best idea I’ve ever had.
I’m going to make his life hell for what he did tonight. It is treason, attempting to assassinate the President of the United States, and the way he was waving that knife at me was… threatening.
Yes, I’ll make sure he ends up in a maximum-security prison for the rest of his miserable life for this.
He will never, and I mean never, get near Veronica again. I will do anything to protect her.
“We have word,” a Secret Service agent next to me says. I’m in a car now, heading to the White House. “The target is out of surgery and doctors say he will recover.”
I nod. Good. He doesn’t deserve a quick and easy way out. And the public might not understand their president fatally shooting a man in a park at night. It’s not exactly good for one’s public image.
“And we’ve gone through his phone. He’s been in contact with a reporter,” the agent continues. “Here.”
He passes me a tablet with a number of screenshots of a text conversation on them. There are so many, they’d clearly been talking for a long time. I begin to read.
Hey Trevor, this is Stephanie from ClickBoom. You’re Veronica Water’s boyfriend, right? Did you know she’s been sleeping with the President? Text me back if you want more info xx
Obviously the engagement has been invented to cover up their affair. How do you feel knowing the President is cucking you? xx
You should confront her, find out what’s going on from her own mouth. Here is her location, let me know what she says xx
It’s clear that Trevor is unstable, and this ‘Stephanie’ woman has been the one pushing him from behind the scenes.
By the end, a rather unfortunate picture has been painted. Stephanie has been trying to write a story proving Veronica and I aren’t really engaged. She is using Trevor as a source, but once he’d told her everything she started using him to get more information. She’s been pushing him to confront Veronica, trying to piss him off to make sure the meeting would reveal all.
She wanted to cause drama so her story would sell better. I look out the window of the car at the street lights as they fly by.
“I want her number,” I say. “Now.”
The secret service agent hands me a phone with a number typed in and I hit call.
“Hello?” a voice on the other end says cheerfully. “This is Stephanie from ClickBoom News, how can I help you?”
“Stephanie,” I say in a nauseating cheerful voice. “This is the President of the United States of America.”
“Ahhhh…. Is this a joke?”
“No, it really isn’t,” I laugh, maintaining the lighthearted facade. “I’m calling you about Veronica’s friend, Trevor.”
“Oh,” she replies, quietly.
“I shot him,” I say, still cheerful. “You see, that’s what happens when a deranged man attacks me and my fiancée with a knife.”
Stephenie doesn’t respond.
“Now it’s come to my attention that the reason he decided to come after us was because he was spurred on by some reporter. And that this reporter gave him the location of my fiancée. Ha, imagine that.”
I stop pretending to be cheerful and speak seriously. “Do you know what happens to co-conspirators in treason plots in the United States? No? I’ll tell you. They get charged with treason too.”
“No, I didn’t,” Stephanie says, panicking. “I never knew he’d… I never encouraged him to attack anyone.”
“I’m looking at the texts you sent Trevor right now,” I say. “And it seems very clear to me that you were encouraging Trevor to confront my Veronica. You told him lies about her and then you told him where she was. I don’t take that lightly, not one bit.”
“I never thought he’d do anything like that, you have to believe me. Please, I’m so sorry.”
I can hear the desperation in her voice now. Desperation
to save herself, that she avoids whatever storm I bring down upon the people that threaten Veronica.
“Let me make this absolutely clear,” I say. “You will delete all traces of this farcical story you are writing. You will drop this absurd conspiracy theory about Veronica and myself. And you will cooperate with the Secret Service fully. Do you understand?”
There’s silence for a moment, before a meek voice replies. “Yes.”
“Good. Don’t make me call you again,” I say. I hang up the phone before waiting for a response.
Veronica is safe now. I’ve seen to that. Trevor will be under armed guard, and the report will be picked up by the Secret Service within the hour.
I take a deep breath in. “Take me to see Veronica,” I tell the driver.
Veronica
It’s as if I’m some fairytale princess who’s been locked in a tower for her own safety. As soon as Peters and some of his underlings take me back to the White House, it’s as if I’m a high-security prisoner.
“I’m going to take a walk,” I say, after an hour of restless pacing around my bedroom suite.
“No.”
“What do you mean, ‘no’?”
Peters doesn’t flinch. “Ma’am, the President has made it explicitly clear that you are to be kept here for your own safety.”
“Unless you guys let Trevor go, I think I’ll be alright.”
“It’s the President’s orders, ma’am.”
“You can’t keep me here,” I say, glaring at them all. Is there some prerequisite that you have to be tall and stupidly intimidating to work in the Secret Service?
“I’m afraid we can.” Peters gives me a courteous smile. “Can we get you anything? Dinner? A drink?”
I shake my head. “No.”
It’s so incredibly awkward. For the next few hours, there are at least three members of the Secret Service present in my bedroom at all times. Jackson’s appearance, when he re-emerges after what feels like an eternity, actually gives me some comfort as a familiar face.
“Jackson,” I tell him. “Call off your friends. Can’t you all just wait outside my door?”
To my dismay, my shadow is no more sympathetic. “I’m sorry, ma’am. President’s orders.”
‘President’s orders’. Does David mean to keep me locked up here forever now? Is this how he believes I’ll spend the next few months?
Of course, it’s not like Trevor hadn’t scared me. Fuck, I’d been so terrified. The idea of anyone holding a knife to my neck is far from pleasant. The idea of my boyfriend doing it? That’s something else entirely.
Trevor. I think of him, broken and bleeding, inside some cell somewhere. As ever, I feel so incredibly guilty. The look in his eyes… the paleness of his skin, the unsteadiness of his frame… He’s clearly very sick. We’d been together only a week ago, even if being back in Cali together feels like a lifetime. How hadn’t I picked up on it?
You didn’t pick up on it because you never picked up on him, a voice in the back of my mind whispers. Isn’t that why you came to Washington DC? To get away from that life? You wanted nothing to do with him long before now.
Is it really true? It’s not like Trevor and I have had the best relationship recently… or, well, ever. We fought. A lot. But don’t all couples?
I think I’d found it endearing once. Our differences, the way we never seemed entirely happy being alone in each other’s company. But in California, we’d had friends and work and school there to distract us from the gaping hole that was each other. Here the only thing between Trevor and I had been just under three thousand miles and a bad mobile phone data network.
Do I love him? Had I ever loved him? The question has always made me think a lot more than you’d imagine. Sometimes I think I loved the way he’d always just been… there. I loved the idea of having Trevor in my life. But is that the same as loving him?
He’d tried to kill me tonight.
“Here.” Jackson pushes a cup of something hot and steamy in my hands. “Drink this.”
I tilt my head. “Tea?”
“You don’t look well,” he tells me.
“My boy-” I pause, mentally slapping myself. I can’t talk about Trevor. Having a ‘boyfriend’ hardly works with the engagement cover-story… or at least it doesn’t in a way without making me seem like a massive asshole. “My friend tried to kill me tonight.”
“I can tell.” He wraps my fingers around the drink. “Drink up.”
I’m not pleased with him for agreeing with Peters so easily, but I still appreciate the gesture. The tea is chamomile. As much as I want to stay angry and desperate, there’s something about its warmth that soothes me whether I like it or not.
Eventually I go to sleep, wanting to be away from it all. It’s intensely awkward to sleep in the same room as so many suits, people whose job it is to watch me, but it’s been a long evening. I can’t help myself. And they at least have the decency to all turn around as I get changed.
When I wake up, it’s almost as if no time has passed.
“Here,” he says, handing me the TV remote. “Why don’t you watch something? It’ll make time go faster.”
Click. A woman, her makeup immaculate and unbelievably flawless, speaks to a camera.
“A man has been taken into custody following an attack on the President’s newly announced fiancée, Veronica Waters. The suspect appears to have attacked Waters in the park following an evening of dinner she’d attended with the President.”
Images of the President and me fill the screen. It’s the pictures that the press took of us at dinner. The sight of the President’s hand on my leg makes me flush ever so slightly, even though this really isn’t the time. The memory of his fingers on my inner thigh…
“We now have President Shepard to make a comment.”
And then David’s face appears on the screen. I’d forgotten how absurdly photogenic he is. The cameras seem to capture all of his best features. I’m looking at the David Shepard that the public sees: tousled dark curls, high cheekbones, serious eyes. A voice that makes you believe that everything is going to be okay.
The man I’d seen earlier, angry and coldly commanding, can’t be seen anywhere.
“Earlier this evening, a violent attack was made on my fiancée. Fortunately, nobody was harmed and Veronica is safely resting at home. I’d like to thank everyone involved for handling this so swiftly.” He nods, never breaking eye contact with the camera.
I stare at that cool, composed look. If the President has such a handle on the situation, surely I should be able to go outside. It’s not like I’m asking to go hang out on a cliff’s edge. The White House grounds are one of the safest places in the world.
“I want to go out,” I repeat again.
“Didn’t you hear the President?” David is standing in the doorway, his eyes on his own TV self. “His fiancée should be safely resting at home, Veronica.”
The Secret Service members stand to attention. “Sir.”
“Thank you for keeping such a good watch on her, gentlemen,” the President says. “If you don’t mind, I’d like for you all to wait outside. Just for now.”
Peters looks uncertain. “Sir, one of us could remain in the room....”
“I’ll handle things,” the President assures him flatly. Is there also a hint of annoyance in his voice? “I believe I handled things rather capably in the park. I didn’t see anyone else following Miss Waters.”
There’s an awkward pause.
“I slipped out of the bathroom window,” I explain. “They couldn’t have known.”
“I’m aware,” the President replies. “I’ll be dealing with you later.”
My cheeks burn red, tinged by embarrassment. Yet it’s the President that should be embarrassed. If he had to ‘deal with’ me now, he’d have to explain why I ran out of the window in the first place. What he’d done to me.
The Secret Service clears out. As refreshing as it is to have a room less crowded, I th
ink I’d rather take a few days of their loitering over the strange silence that descends over us when we’re alone.
“David,” I say eventually. “Is this necessary? They won’t even let me leave my room. On your orders, apparently.”
The relaxed, comforting persona from the TV seems to have been a ruse. It’s clear there’s still a lot of fury bubbling over his surface. His knuckles are white, squeezed together like he’s trying to hold onto his cool.
“Somebody tried to kill you tonight, Veronica,” he says. His eyes are still on the TV, not meeting mine. It’s not even on anything interesting now, only the commercial breaks. “It’s convenient that you didn’t mention your boyfriend is unstable.”
“He’s not unstable,” I protest, but the words sound hollow even as I say them. “Trevor… I could never have believed he’d do something like this.”
“You didn’t tell him what was going on?”
“He wouldn’t let me.” I narrow my eyes at him. Is he trying to say this is my fault? Is he blaming me just like I blame myself? “As soon as he heard his girlfriend was engaged to the President, I think he must have taken it pretty badly. Are you saying you’d be entirely reasonable in the same situation?”
“I don’t do girlfriends,” he says coldly. “But I wouldn’t lose control like that. Not ever. I wouldn’t attack anyone unprovoked.”
When we’d gone for dinner this evening… there’d been a kind of warmth between us. We had been two people trapped in an insane, weird situation.
But now David won’t even look at me.
“You were irresponsible and rash climbing out of the window unattended,” he continues. “It’s clear that you can’t be left to your own devices.”
“You drove me to it,” I shoot back. “You were- you made me-” My whole body feels hot and tingly and shameful at the memory. At the desire that ached so acutely. The desire he’d somehow tapped into so easily.
“You’ll be fully attended by the Secret Service at all times from now on,” he says. It’s like he’s speaking only to himself. “Some external visits are unavoidable, but you will not leave my side unless it is absolutely necessary. You will not wander off or lose sight of me.”