26. Get Dead
2243 Words
We get to the dining room and Luke has a fort set up over 2 tables with a bunch of sheets. I throw off my coat and climb in. They have fresh cookies in here. They're still warm.
My servant hands me a whole plate of cookies. I shove a whole one in my mouth.
"What now?"
Nadine's mom says, "They're having a fort lunch. Leave them be."
Tye pokes his head in and cracks up laughing. "They have cookies." Then he comes in and gets a cookie.
The rest of the boys have the fort torn apart in seconds. I stand up with my plate and keep eating.
Zeke tries to take them.
"No. Mine."
"Be a good girl, and I'll get you more before we go. You can't eat them all now, you'll get sick. You haven't even eaten lunch yet."
I shake my head. "I won't get sick."
He puts an eyebrow up.
I do want to be good. I take 2 more cookies and hand him the plate.
"Thank you."
"I'm good."
"Yes you are."
"NO MINE."
I feel something slice into my upper arm and I panic. I climb up the front of him. The cookies fly and the dish breaks. He takes off carrying me.
"WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING?"
"MINE."
"YOU ARE GETTING YOUR ASS BEAT FOR THAT."
I can't tell who is yelling what. I'm holding on as tight as I can.
He checks my arm. "MARCUS. SHE GOT HIT WITH THAT."
I wipe my eyes off, and I got blood on my hand. It gets all over my face.
"DIPAK."
"ENOUGH." Everyone shuts up and Dipak takes me. "SIT YOUR ASSES DOWN NOW. OMAR AND CRUOR WITH ME."
They take me to an empty room and fix my arm. I cry the whole time. Then Collin comes in.
I sit on his lap. "I just wanted cookies."
"It was an accident baby. Tye tried to take Nadine's cookies, and she tried to stab him. She didn't even know she sliced your arm."
My servants bring lunch for us and sit it up.
He calms me down and puts me at the table. "Your arm better?"
"Yea. It's fine."
"Take her another outfit to our room please."
"Yes, sir."
We eat lunch, then I move back to his lap.
"You have a couple more hours. What do you want to do, baby?"
"This."
"That scared you." He rubs my back. "Let's take a bath and wind down."
I warm up the bath water for the third time and lean back against him. "We should come back and do this for an entire weekend."
"I would love that, baby. Maybe Marcus would let us rent a cabin."
"That would be perfect... It didn't feel like a sword cut me."
"What did it feel like?"
"I don't know. My skin opened somehow. It felt more like a sharp whip than a sword."
"The shirt looked like a sword went through it. And Nadine had the sword right there."
I shrug my shoulders.
"I'll say something, and we'll check the footage, baby."
"Thank you."
"Marcus is at the door. He says get out of the bath. You are meeting at 4:30."
Collin laughs. "Get a dress on, and I'll do your hair, baby."
"Ok."
He throws some clothes on and shuts the door to the bedroom behind him.
I get dressed and go to the kitchen. Dipak, Dracul, Marcus, Omar, Kane, Collin, and Frode are standing there.
"I didn't even realize you were all here."
"We weren't." Frode shakes his head.
"What happened?"
"The sword didn't touch you. We've checked the footage from every angle."
Omar crosses his arms. "It was magic. It was a direct attack on a princess. We have to figure out who did it before you can see any of them again."
"Can't you check their hands? It felt sharp and sudden. If they're going to use a spell against me, they would have to use their hands."
"Not necessarily. But that's what we're starting with."
"And there was a bunch of us standing there. How do you know I was the target?"
Dracul brings up the footage. "They could be trying to take each other out, and she was caught in the middle. There was a man standing right in front of her. He could have been the target. We did not consider that. If he was the target, and she stepped in the way, what angle did the attack come from?"
"That's Zeke."
Marcus nods. "We ruled him out. He didn't do anything but take the plate."
"Got him. Right there. I can't tell you which of them the target was, but he did it. Who is that?" Omar points and looks at me.
"No idea. I've seen him a few times. But never talked to him."
"Are there many you haven't spoken with?"
"Yea. Some I've only danced with or said hello to."
Dipak nods. "Some of them are waiting for the idiots to get thrown out. There are so many people trying to get her attention. It's easier to wait until there's less."
Kane stands up. "Let's go figure out who the target was."
"I want to go."
"You can't go. He might try again."
"I'll go as Star. He won't have any idea who I am. None of them will. And also, Zeke isn't safe in there with him. Are they in there together now?" Dracul and Kane run out.
Collin nods. "That's assuming one of them were the target. All the kids were standing there. Hell even Nadine was."
Marcus and Dipak are gone before he finishes the sentence.
Omar nods and looks at Frode. "Might as well go. Evie, stay by Collin. I'll put a shield on you, just in case."
Collin fixes my hair and off we go.
A dining room table is broken. There's a guy missing his head in the middle of the floor. Broken s**t is everywhere.
Nadine runs over. "I told them I didn't touch you. They didn't believe me though."
"I told Collin it didn't feel like a sword. When I came out of the bath they were checking the footage."
Kane walks by with a head. "I sent Zeke to your office. Didn't want to chance having him here before we knew the target. Told him you'd have dinner with him."
"That's nice of me."
Thora smiles. "It really is. It seems like he likes you. And he was the target. It wasn't you."
"Oh wow."
Nadine nods. "Yea, they're trying to take each other out."
Dracul drags the body out.
Thora stands in the middle of the floor. "EVERYONE SIT DOWN." She crosses her arms and waits. "THERE ARE 37 OF... 36 OF YOU REMAINING NOW. DON'T TRY TO KILL EACH OTHER. YOU'LL ONLY GET DEAD."
"Thank you." I smile at her. "The point of this isn't to make it to the end. I have to choose someone. You could all make it to the end and I could choose nobody. Show me who you are. If we have a connection, great. We can see where it goes. If we don't have a connection, don't hurt the people who do. I will throw you out if the boys don't get to you first. And you can see now, they don't take kindly to this shit."
Dravon smiles at me. "What happened?"
Omar stands beside me. "He attempted to hit Zeke with a magic spell. He hit Evie with it by mistake."
"All that blood was yours? Are you ok?"
"Yes, I'm fine. Thank you for asking. We have amazing doctors and healers here. They made sure I was ok. Then I took a 2-hour bath to calm down."
They laugh and Dravon nods. "Have you thrown anyone out personally?"
"Yes. Two. One was attempting to make me feel bad. Another was very rude. I saw the way he was treating servants and removed him. I would have removed the dead guy too. But he's... well, dead now."
"Who removed the other 100?"
Nadine points with her sword to the head table. "The real assholes."
Dipak smiles and waves.
Thora puts her hands on her hips. "I threw one out because he kept trying to feel my boobs."
"I don't want a mate who's constantly trying to feel Thora's boobs." They crack up laughing.
Marcus rubs his eyes. "Next game is in 4 weeks. You'll get the letter in 3 weeks if you're in. Also, you are still free to walk away. If you don't show up, we will assume you're not moving forward. Let's go home."
"This way." Omar is standing by the door. "I'll get you sorted out once we get back to the castle."
Collin takes off to go home and tells me to summon him back after Zeke leaves. I get sucked into saying goodbye to everyone. Then I go up to my office. Zeke is sleeping on the couch with his arm above his head. He is sexy. I can see a little of his stomach where his shirt is pulled up. I admire him for a minute. Then I realize he's awake and smirking.
"Sorry. I was... um."
"You were staring at me like I was a damn cookie, woman."
I laugh so hard. "Sorry."
"Don't be." He pulls me down beside him. "What happened? And did I miss anything? That guy told me to wait here and pushed me in."
"You were the target of the attack. They killed the guy. But they didn't want you there if he tried anything else. The next games are in 4 weeks. And don't feel Thora's boobs. She'll throw you out of the games."
"Can I feel yours?"
"Maybe someday." I giggle and pull him up. "Let's go eat."
We sit to eat at the table.
"This is a nice place."
"Thanks. It's my apartment. I had no idea where to go. I wanted somewhere calmer than the cafeteria. Hope it's ok. Was this wrong? I didn't even think about it."
He smiles. "You're alright. We can eat dinner and be calm."
"Thank you. That was a lot for one weekend."
"I understand. But don't bring men here. Some might get the wrong idea. Make them eat outside or something."
"They can eat outside, and I can eat here."
"Perfect." He winks. "Can I take you out to dinner Thursdays?"
"All of them?"
"Well, Thursday is not really a date night. Friday or Saturdays. You can pick. I don't want to wait a month to see you again. Dinner once a week seems nice."
I smirk. "Are you going to eat outside while I eat here?"
He laughs. "Got me on that one. But no. I'll take you out."
"Can we dress fancy?"
"How fancy?"
"YOU CAN PICK." I pull him into the closet. "I have lots of dresses."
Marcus is choking and Omar is smacking his back.
"WHY?" Dipak glances around. "Why are you in the closet?"
"Why are you all in here?"
Thora smiles. "Alert went off. Zeke in your bedroom." She smacks Marcus hard.
"Thank you."
"My pleasure."
"Don't bring men here."
"In the closet?"
"No. Why?"
"We're going to dinner. I want to be fancy. I told him he could pick the dress."
"You should wear the red dress." Thora pulls it down. "I love this with your hair."
Marcus shakes his head. "He's a man. You tell us what to wear."
"I like the red dress too." Zeke is staring at it.
"I'll wear that then."
Omar nods. "Now we all know what she's wearing. Let's exit the closet."
We sit down to finish our dinner. All 11 of my servants are roaming around the room cleaning and pretending not to be nosy.
Marcus rubs his eyes and the rest of them laugh. "Finish dinner. This is fine, but no men in the closet."
Dipak laughs. "No men past the door."
"Ok." I watch them leave. "I guess we found out what happens if I take a boy from the games back there."
"Yea, that was interesting. I can do Thursday or Saturday this week. Either of them work for you?"
"Saturday. Thursday we're handing out audition lines for the play."
"Are you going to audition?"
"No. The mate games would interfere too much. Plays take a lot of time. I might do hair or something. But I need to focus on the games."
"Do you like a lot of the guys?"
"I still don't think I've met all of them. I know maybe 10 of their names." I shrug my shoulders. "More will leave by next game. Then I can get to know people a little more. You're the first one to ask me out, outside the games. I'm excited about that."
He smiles. "I like you."
I jump on his lap and hug him. "I like you too." A servant falls over the coffee table. I point. "Go back there and pretend to clean."
They take off to the bedroom and he laughs. "Thank you for dinner." He kisses my hand.
I give him another hug.
"I can't wait to see you in that little red dress." He stands up with me and kisses my head. "I'll see you Saturday, I'll be here at 4."
"See you then."
I wait for him to leave, then I jump up and down. The servants come out and jump with me.
- Writer
