Volumes of the Vemreaux Complete Collection: A Dystopian Adventure Trilogy, page 124
“He’s not the monster. Sam said there’s not monster, but he knows whose monster my me Braird. Not one. Two, three. Killy’s not monster. Same thing.”
Liam looked to Sam in horror. “Okay, at what point do we take her to the hospital? Did she hit her head?”
“No! I don’t know what to do, Liam! Can’t call Doctor Victor. We can’t take her in anywhere. They can’t know her damned secret. Then the press would be all over it because she’s a princess. I don’t see how to get her help. But something’s wrong!” Sam began to cry afresh. “I got Julia killed, Li! And now this?”
Liam reached around Blue and gripped Sam’s shoulder. “You are not Orlando. He’s the one who killed her. Any guard would have let him in to see her. She requested to see him, and he’d already been cleared by security. She sent you away, Sam. You did not get Julia killed.” He gave Blue a firm shake, holding her bicep. “Do you see what you’re doing to Sam? You need to snap out of it, kitten. Snap out of it, or we’re taking you to the hospital where they’ll take your blood and examine you. Either you tell us what’s wrong or they will.”
Blue’s tears fell fast, and her ramblings picked up their passion. “Don’t make me kills them, Braird. I didn’t know my monster my me. Not the fire. Too firing hot. Two, three, four, five, six? Six? Six XY?” She shook her head in frustration. “Don’t make me monster my me. Grennet shouldn’t touches my mine. He makes the monster my me. He makes it,” she insisted. She located her arm and reached out for Sam’s shirt, her grip feeble and clumsy. Sam’s hand covered hers as she tried to explain it to him. “He makes it, but I ams it. Then the monster my me with the firing too hot.”
Elle spoke for the first time in hours. “Are you talking about Grent, Blue?”
“Grennet,” Blue confirmed. “He touches my mine, so I monster my me. Two, three, four. Rariel makes five, just that day!”
“Baby,” Elle cooed, moving to the bed to put a hand on her shoulder. “Grent was a bad guy, and you’re not a villain for protecting me. And it worked. I’m still your mine, and I’m still safe. Safer than ever.”
“Six times X equals sixtry six.” Sam could tell she was trying to see him, but could only focus for a second or two at a time before she lost herself again and again. “Sixtry six deads for the monster my me. Eleven, forty-seven, X over thirty-two equals…” Her voice trailed off, but her lips kept moving. She began tracing on Sam’s chest all the numbers.
“Suze, get me a pen and paper from my desk. Quick!” Sam instructed. The moment Suzette wrapped Blue’s fingers around the writing implement, the girl began drawing on Sam’s chest until paper was inserted between them. Liam sat her up and grabbed the tray with abandoned food and cleared it to give her something to write on.
Blue ranted with the pen, allowing the numbers to spill out of her and pile up on the paper. When she filled up the page, Suzette slid a notebook onto the tray. Blue breathed with relief now that she had the space to let her brain fizzle and pop on the blank canvas. The math communicated her pain perfectly. Each number in her head lined up and filed in a row, waiting for her to assign its value and use it for a greater purpose. Blue rocked herself forward and back as she quietly sang.
“We serve the world that lives in peace.
We love the ones, our hearts we’d bleed.
They let us live and so we sing
Hail the Vemreaux! Praises ring.”
“Is this some kind of sick joke?” Liam demanded, looking like he might be ill.
“No.” Elle swallowed hard, moving away from Liam. “It’s the Wayward anthem. We had to sing it every morning before breakfast when we got our assignments for the day. It’s what you all fought so hard for. Putting us in work camps so you could go to parties and live in your perfect world.” The bitterness could not be masked. “We’re the throwaways, remember?” She pointed to Blue, who was scribbling feverishly as many numbers as she could, and singing the dreadful song Elle prayed she would never have to hear again. “But this? This is Baird’s handiwork. I’d know it anywhere. No one except him or maybe Sam can cross her wires like this.”
“Get Baird over here,” Sam spat through clenched teeth. He sat up next to Blue and placed his hand in the center of her back to rub warmth into her spine. When Liam hesitated, Sam shouted, “Now!”
The prince pulled out his phone and left a wary message for the Wayward, instructing him to call straight away. He looked at the back of Blue’s head as he leaned against the headboard. “Well, at least she’s doing something. Better than staring at the ceiling.”
“You call this better?” Sam questioned, not bothering to be kind.
“How’s her rib?” Liam inquired, noting Blue’s ability to move her arm without grimacing.
Sam shook his head. “I can’t tell for certain. Broken ribs take at least a month and a half to heal, but I’ve been keeping an eye on her, and it looks like she’s almost there.”
Elle cleared her throat. “It’s them. All three of them heal faster than normal people.” She wiped away tears from her cheeks. “It’s one of the things that makes them feel invincible, take too many risks. This is her first broken bone, though.”
Liam looked guiltily to Sam. The prince sighed, then made the one call he had been putting off.
“Liam? Who are you ringing?” Sam asked fearfully. “No, Liam. Don’t call Freddy. Please, Li. He can’t know I broke another one of his daughters!”
Liam paid Sam no mind. He recorded a message similar to the one he left for Baird. When he hung up, he could not look at Sam, but addressed him all the same over Blue’s incessant counting. “This is not your fault, Sam. And she’s his daughter now, which means it’s his business if she goes mad overnight. You can’t be the adult in this situation anymore. You did the best you can. Now it’s time to bring in the closers.”
Sam supported his head in his hands, along with his misery. He turned to grab for his cigarettes, which were not on the nightstand where he left them last. He checked the floor, in the drawers, his pockets, under the bed – everywhere except for Alec’s pocket, which is where they would remain.
38
Baird’s Cure
It was two more days before Frederick and Baird returned home. By then, Blue had gone through thirty-seven notebooks, sometimes interrupting her equations with a quick picture, a scribbled face or a floor plan. Thankfully, she stopped singing the song Sam was sure would drive him mad if he ever heard it again, and her maniacal rocking ceased around noon on Sunday. But the notebooks – the dozens of notebooks with a myriad of numbers and shockingly perfect drawings were piling up and taking the brunt of her psychosis.
Suzette and Elle returned to the mansion, but Liam remained at Blue’s side. However stressful Sam’s house had become, the prospect of going back home and living with Everest was even less appealing an option. He rubbed his sister’s back and played video games while he waited for any change in her mathematical fervor.
When Baird knocked, Sam’s fire that had died down raged anew. He opened the door and socked Baird in the face in lieu of a greeting. “Took you long enough,” Sam fumed, and then stalked off.
Alec did not meet Baird’s eyes, but he had plenty to say to the man. Though he understood why Baird pushed her so hard, only to push her away, then push her down so far she could not find her way back up, that did not mean Alec was okay with watching Blue’s deterioration over the past three days.
Baird took one look at Blue and paled. “I…how long? What did…Did she say anything?”
Sam and Liam tried to piece together enough of her ramblings to fill Baird in. He gazed down at his sister, sick to his stomach. This was not what he wanted. He intended to break her heart and keep her away from him for a while so he, Frederick and Alec could set things in motion. Never did Baird guess that his words would cause Blue to lose her mind. He swallowed and came to terms with the inescapable fact that his sister loved him, and might never stop needing him.
“Everyone out!” Baird commanded, not bothering with a low tone. Liam and Alec obeyed, but Sam would not move. “I said get out, Vemreaux.”
“I’ve been taking care of her for the past week and a half with no word from you. If you’re going to do something to fix this, I want to know what I didn’t try.”
Baird glared at the Vemreaux he loathed. “Fine, but stay out of my way. And don’t bother telling me how to be. I’ve been putting her back together for more years than you’ve been sober. You may not like what you see.”
“Just do it!” Sam shouted, feeling a little unhinged.
Baird observed Blue, who had not looked up at his arrival. Even as he conversed with Sam, she did not register anyone had spoken. Swallowing down his self-hatred, Baird snatched her notebook away. He did not expect the solution to be so simple, but frowned nonetheless when she continued writing on the tray she had been propping her notebook on. Next, he whipped the pen out of her hand, observing her confusion as to where it disappeared to.
Baird let out a noise of surprise when Blue slammed her forehead into the tray, splintering the wood. Sam’s protest thrust Baird forward, and he yanked the tray from her before she could punish her cranium a third time.
She began rocking like a sailboat being tossed around in high winds. Baird looked down at her, face grim. Before Sam could stop him, Baird wound his hand back and slapped her across the face. He used the same force he had done to snap her out of her blackouts.
Blue began counting aloud, voice hoarse from disuse, as she continued to rock herself.
Sam bit his tongue as Baird slapped her again, this time harder. Sam wanted to throw the Wayward down and beat him mercilessly for too many reasons. Not only was she the crowned Princess of Europe and his charge, she was his one and only.
Baird lifted his sister from the bed and threw her roughly to the ground, gratified when she lifted herself up after hitting the wood floor. “Get up!” Baird roared. When she did not come out of her fog quick enough, Baird punched her shoulder, hoping to bring her out of her stupor. Blue merely groaned, which was not enough response to satisfy him.
“That’s enough!” Sam shouted, shoving Baird away from Blue.
Baird ignored the command and cast around for another alternative, eyes darting around the room until they landed on Sam. He tried to communicate his plan with a look, but Sam did not know him well enough for that. He crouched down in his sister’s line of vision and spoke directly into her face. “Blue, if you don’t get up right now, I’m going to hurt Sam.” He was sure she could hear him. Pretty sure.
When she only moved her head around forlornly, Baird grabbed Sam. “Just go with it,” Baird instructed in a whisper. “Play it up, or I’ll hurt you for real.”
“Baird, stop!” Sam yelled, hating this tactic even more than the first. Baird socked him in the stomach, holding back his force so it looked believable, without making Sam lose his lunch. Sam groaned dramatically and doubled over, hoping this was the end of Baird’s brilliant plan. Baird surprised Sam by kicking him in the gut, which knocked him into Blue. This time the noises of protest were not as fake.
Blue’s unfocused eyes landed on the man on the floor next to her. “No,” she cooed, confused at the unfolding of events. “No, no.” She shook her head, scolding her eyes for deceiving her. When Sam’s body heaved again, latent neurons began firing anew. The line between her eyes creased as she sought the source of his discomfort. The world slowed, and she saw Baird’s foot swinging toward Sam. Her Sam. The face she never wanted to see beaten. The body she would protect with her life. Sam, who held her. Sam, who teased and doted on her. Sam, who loved her. Sam, who she belonged to in this moment more than she did her own brother.
Severing family ties she never would have thought possible, Blue lunged out and caught Baird’s foot before it made contact with her treasure. She ripped his shoe off and pummeled him to the ground, bashing him over the head with the footwear and her free fist. She yanked the shoelaces out of their bow and wrapped them around her brother’s neck, surprising a cough out of him. Tighter she squeezed, relaxing as she felt the panic in him swell beneath her capable fingers.
“You were right, Baird. I probably was the first monster, but I’ll fix it,” she promised, tutting when he swung at her to release him, his face turning red with suffocation, fury and fear. “I’ll fix it all. I can clean up my mess. Just another minute, and you won’t hurt anyone ever again. You won’t be in anymore pain. I know what to do, Baird. I think you’re the one who needs to die. You should’ve killed me when you had the chance. Weak people hesitate, Baird, and I am not weak.”
What she did not expect was Sam’s interference. His hands atop hers softened her grip and loosened the string so Baird could breathe again. “No, dolcezza,” he admonished, voice shaking. “This won’t solve anything. Easy. Easy.” Sam’s arms went around her, and he felt her whole body soften.
“It was a lie, Blue,” Baird admitted. He rubbed his neck and cleared his throat to check for permanent damage, which thankfully, had not happened. “I lied to you when I said you were the first monster. It was me.” He propped himself up against the door and breathed heavily. “It was always me. I was just mad at you. How I convinced you otherwise is beyond me. I’m the psycho.” He rubbed his throat. “I killed people on purpose. You know that. You killed on accident, and I pushed you into every fight you ever got in. I was the bad guy before you were born. How do you think I recognized you before they told us we were related?”
“B-But you said!” Blue protested, clinging to Sam as tears pooled in her eyes. “And you hurt me!” She rubbed her throat, recalling his violence.
“Are you crying?” Baird asked, horrified. “I guess I should’ve expected something like this with this one looking after you.”
It was to Sam’s credit that he maintained his hold on Blue and did not fly across the room and beat Baird senseless. “That’s what this has been about?” Sam raged. “You told her it was all her fault?” He turned to the weeping girl in his arms, who finally looked like she rejoined the world. “No, Blue. It’s not. It’s that damned prophecy and your psychotic brother. You’ve got real light in you, baby. Light not even Baird can snuff out. Whatever glitch you think you have, we’ll figure it out. Baird made his own choices, and now you can, too.” He smoothed her hair away from her cheeks so he could see the thinned face and frail features of the fighter he adored. “You’re surrounded by peace now. You’re a Femreaux princess. You don’t have to be a warrior. Let the king handle the tyranny he created. Let Frederick and me watch out for you. Let the villain what trained you take some responsibility for himself instead of pushing you around.”
Utter despondency washed over her as she cried. “I’m sorry, Sam! I’m so sorry!”
“Shh.” Sam mashed a kiss to her forehead. “Nothing to be sorry for. You didn’t run this time. You’re allowed to be confused. Just please don’t do that again!” He buried his face in her neck and cried out his exhaustion into her skin that was now warm and responsive to his touch.
Baird was disgusted at the display, but he knew his job was not over. “That’s enough, Blue. Get a hold of yourself. There’s more.”
Sam wanted to thrash the Wayward, but his grip on his treasure stayed his fists from springing to action. “Not now, Baird. You’ve done enough. Get out!”
Baird continued as if Sam had not spoken. “Look at me, Blue,” he commanded, and like a fish on a hook, she turned to him, eyes shining with tears he abhorred. He squared his shoulders to her, steadying himself before he went in for the kill. “Do you remember how I taught you to hold it back?”
“Hold what back?” Sam was tired of Baird being the only one to understand her so well.
“You remember how I taught you to file things away when it gets to be too much?” Baird watched his sister nod tentatively. “I’m about to tell you something that’s gonna be too much, and you have to hold it back. You have to file it away. Put it out of your mind, maybe forever after I tell you.”
“Okay.”
Baird observed her to make sure that, despite the tears, she was aware enough for the task at hand. “It’s Grettel. Frederick was keeping track of her in The Way.” He watched the hope rise up in Blue and squashed it before it could grow. “She’s dead. She died in The Way.”
“What? Oh, I’m sorry, guys,” Sam offered.
“Shut up!” Baird demanded, though there was no aggression in his tone. It was a plea for caution. “You can’t…can’t talk about it, Sam. You’ve got no idea what she’s holding back. This? What happened here? Her losing her mind? That’s what happens when she can’t hold it back.” He shook his head without looking up. “Don’t open the box, Sam. Don’t open the box.”
Blue was processing, her eyes flicking back and forth rapidly as she tried to push back the horror before her mind could wrap around it. “Was it Killian?” she asked, barely able to put a voice to her worst fear.
“No. Not Killian. Just Wayward life. Grettel was a girl in The Way.” Baird watched her carefully, waiting for signs of a chink in her armor. “Push it down, Blue. Hold it back. Keep it shut.” He repeated the instructions over and over in an increasingly soothing tone until her eyes went blank under his hypnosis.
After a few minutes of even-toned instruction, Baird was satisfied that she would not be a danger to herself anymore. Baird stood, scooping up the notebooks. Without apology or hesitation, Baird turned and left Sam’s house, the tears, his sister, and his grief without looking back.
39
The Bad Guy
The drive back to the mansion was just long enough to stay Baird’s trembling fists. He despised seeing Blue so broken, knowing it had been his doing. She was always so strong and ferocious – the only one who had ever been able to keep up with the challenge he presented. In every way, she was his equal, with the one exception being that she let herself feel love. It was the one weakness he allowed himself to indulge in behind closed doors, and he blamed his sister for introducing the cursed emotion to him. The attempt to keep Blue far from him and his grand plan needed a new approach. He could not march off to his death knowing that the only person in the world who understood him would be left a blithering mess.
