I picked at my dinner that night, the food not tasting quite as good once I realized what was going on in the basement.
This world is so confusing to me. On one hand, there’s so much beauty to it – the two days spent at the stables were some of the happiest moments of my life. But everything that happened last night – and now, knowing what happened downstairs – what still might be going on…
I’m so uncomfortable, knowing that I’m living in a world where the happy parts are bought with violence and pain.
I drift into an uncomfortable sleep later. I had hoped that Daniel might come by, talk to me, maybe put my mind at east. But he never showed up. I’m restless all night, waking up at every perceived noise.
I must have fallen into some sort of deep slumber, though, because when someone shakes my shoulder I’m suddenly awake, gasping, shocked –
How the hell did they get into my room without me waking up –
I spin in my sheets, terrified, my eyes adjusting to see a dark figure crouched there –
I cringe back, but stop when I hear a soft, familiar shushing sound.
“Shh, shh, baby Fay, it’s all right,” Fiona says, putting her hands on my shoulders.
“Fiona!” I cry, sitting straight up in bed, instantly awake.
She turns her head towards the door at my noise, worried, and puts a finger to her lips, shushing me. As her face is turned, the light from the window falls on her face, revealing a deep bruise starting along her cheekbone, under her eye. Her lip is swollen too, a little cut down its left side.
“Fiona,” I say more softly, reaching out towards her face.
She flinches away from me but then works to put on a smile. I can see that it takes effort.
“What happened to you,” I ask, concerned – but in the pit of my stomach, I think I know.
“Don’t worry about it, baby,” she says, giving me a truer smile now. “How are you, are you okay?”
“Me,” I say, aghast. “Fiona, you –“
“Fay,” she says seriously, cutting me off, “we don’t have a lot of time. Tell me – are you all right?”
Surprised by the question, I nod. “Sure, Fiona,” I say. “I’m fine.”
“Okay, sweetheart,” she says, putting a hand on my cheek. “I’m going to go away for a while,” she continues, glancing back at the door over her shoulder. “But I couldn’t leave without saying goodbye to you.”
Worry collects in my stomach and my chest as I study her face. “Where are you going? Why –“
“I just gotta get out of here,” she says, working again to keep the fear off of her face, but I can tell by her quickening words that her time is growing short.
“Fiona, did he –“
“Don’t worry about it, Fay,” she says, smiling at me again. “Just stay on his good side, okay? He won’t do anything to you if you do what he says. Lie if you have to – just…” she hesitates now, “do what you need to do to survive. But at every turn, let him think he has the upper hand.”
Tears start in my eyes now. I open my mouth to speak but she interrupts me again.
“Don’t do that, little cousin,” she says, giving me a broad smile, wincing when it pulls at the cut on her lip. “I’m all right – just like I said – I’m getting out of here.”
“So that’s real?” I ask, wiping the tears from beneath my eyes. “You’re really my cousin?”
“Sure,” she says, putting a hand on my cheek. “I knew you the instant I saw you in that kitchen downstairs – knew you were our little baby Fay.”
I bite my lip against my emotions then, struggling to keep from crying. My cousin here, all this time, taking care of me – and I didn’t know.
“But he…he didn’t know?” I ask.
She shakes her head at me.
“Were you – were you spy-“
“Don’t ask questions, Fay,” she says seriously. “That you don’t want to know the answer to.”
I snap my mouth shut, not really knowing, now, whether or not I want to know. I think I do but –
“Listen, baby,” she says, reaching into the pocket of her jeans. “I need you to do something for me. As family.”
She produces a little note, pushing it into my hand. I stare down at it.
“I need you to get this to your dad,” she says quietly.
“To – to Alden?” I ask, looking up at her again, surprised.
“No, Fay,” she says, pursing her lips sarcastically. “I want you to take it to David, your other dad.” My eyes search her face as she hits me, jokingly, upside the head. “Don’t be stupid. Of course to Alden.”
“Fiona…” I say, my eyes widening. “I don’t know if I can – that’s so dangerous. If Kent -”
“Please, baby,” she says, true pleading in her eyes. “I know what I’m asking you to do, and I wouldn’t ask it if it wasn’t so important. I promise you, I promise – no one you love will be hurt by you doing this. Okay?”
I bite my lip, considering it. Fiona backs away from me, leaving the note in my hand.
“I’m going to leave it with you,” she says. “And if you want to flush the note down the toilet, Fay, I understand. I’ll be disappointed,” she gives me a stern, sisterly look then, “but I will understand. Please.”
She puts her hands together like she’s praying and backs towards the door.
“Fiona,” I whisper, “please, stay – just tell me what’s going on –“
“I have to go baby,” she whispers, her hand on the knob now. “He – he doesn’t know I got out. They’re going to come looking for me.”
My eyes go wide at that – I hadn’t considered that she’d be a prisoner –
My god, what did she do?
And what did he do to her for her transgressions?
“I love you, Fay,” Fiona says, pressing her hand to her heart and looking at me with real affection in her eyes. “I’ll see you again sometime – I promise. But now I have to go.”
She blows me a kiss and slips out the door, closing it behind her.
I’m speechless as I stare at the dark space where she was just a minute ago. Then I blink, wondering if maybe I dreamt it all – it happened so fast –
But when I look down into my hand, the note is still there.
Shit. Shit. What the hell was I going to do with this?
It’s a little bomb, really – I know that. If Kent finds me with this note, I am done for, relationship with Daniel or no.
But to whom, really, do I owe my allegiance? Should I give this note to Alden, my father, who I know loves me?
Should I give it to Kent, out of allegiance to Daniel? Or to Kent himself, out of allegiance to him? After all, he protected me last night – kept me alive –
But what, really, happened last night? Was it just coincidence that my father and his family weren’t in the room when the attack happened?
Kent said it was a kidnapping attempt, maybe for me, but was it? Was I ever really in danger? Did my father perhaps arrange it as a way to get me away from Kent, to get him out from his clutches?
I groan, leaning back against the pillows, feeling far too inadequate to answer these kinds of questions. The fact was, I had absolutely no idea what was really happening, and here was this stupid note, this test of my loyalty.
Everything depended on my actions next - who I gave it to, whether or not I flushed it down the toilet like Fiona said. But even if I did that, and my dad or Kent ever found out that I had this piece of evidence and didn’t give it to them –
God damnit, I’m screwed either way.
Swiftly, I peel open the note, hoping that its contents give me any hint about what I should do next. But it’s just two lines of cryptic poetry.
The little wren sleeps, warm in its nest,
The mink at its door doth it detest.
What? I wrinkle my nose at the verse, written in Fiona’s hand. What the hell was this?
It doesn’t even make any sense – nests don’t have doors -
I grit my teeth and fold it up, trying to decide what to do.
My eyes fall on my desk then, and I make a decision, then.
Well, I make a decision that allows me to defer the real decision. I hurry out of my bed and over to the desk, grabbing some scotch tape out of the top drawer and crawling underneath to tape the note to the back of the slim central drawer.
There, I think, crawling out and dusting my hands off. Now that it’s safely hidden, I can decide later what it is that I want to do.
I get back into bed and lay my head back on my pillow, wondering and worried. Damnit, things have so grown so very complicated.
What was going to happen when Kent discovered that Fiona was gone?
I purse my lips and stare at the ceiling, knowing that I won’t get a lick of sleep. I’ll be too busy staying up all night worried about what my next move should be.