Royal Threat Read online

  When I heard the creak of a door, I froze. It could only be the Queen, but I didn’t want to immediately announce myself. I padded over to the open kitchen doorway at the sound of a second creak, and peeked around the corner just in time to see the Queen’s bedroom door close. My door was still open—as was Princess Amelia’s.

  Curious and alarmed, I crossed the living room to Princess Amelia’s open doorway, still holding my water and apple. There was a nightlight in her en suite as well. My eyes had adjusted to the darkness, but not enough to confirm what I thought I saw—an empty bed.

  I flipped on the light switch, the brightness momentarily blinding me, and found exactly what I had feared. Princess Amelia’s bed was indeed empty, and her motorized wheelchair sat vacant on its far side. I failed to hold in a gasp as my mind tried to comprehend what I was seeing.

  Without further hesitation, I raced to the Queen’s bedroom, threw open the door, and locked my attention on the shadowed figure standing over the bed. I flipped on the lights as the figure turned toward me.

  “Oh… My… God…” The scene before me seemed impossible. My whole body froze, sending shivers up and down my spine. The glass dropped from my weakened grip and shattered at my feet.

  22

  Victoria

  A fully standing, fully functional Princess Amelia stood over the Queen, still wearing the pale blue nightgown we’d dressed her in before tucking her into bed for the night. Her eyes were dark and wild. A scalpel dripping with blood protruded from her right hand.

  Behind her, the Queen’s body spasmed. A red ribbon stretched across her neck, spilling blood down the front of her nightgown and onto the bedsheets. She was still gasping to hold on to what little life she had left, but the throes of death were already weakening. Within a handful of seconds, she’d be gone and there was nothing I could do to help her.

  “It is time for a change in power,” Princess Amelia said.

  “Who are you?” I croaked, my words just barely escaping my lips.

  “You weren’t supposed to see this. I’m sorry things have to end this way, but you are far too hard to control.”

  “Far too hard to control?” I whimpered. “What are you—who are you?”

  With a terrible determination in her eyes, Princess Amelia stalked toward me.

  I backed out of the doorway, my right foot landing on glass shards, almost taking me immediately to the ground. But I bit through the pain—pain my feet have endured before—and closed the door to give myself an extra few seconds.

  I dropped the apple and hopped on my left foot to pull a piece of glass from my sole, which flowed with red like a dam breaking. I looked to the only exit and the locking mechanism, let alone the weight of the huge door would be cumbersome. I wouldn’t have time to escape.

  The Queen’s door opened and Princess Amelia glared at me as I bolted for my room, slamming and locking the door once inside. There was no way out of this room except the way I’d come in—no secret passages, no windows. Calling for help was my next best option, but the room also didn’t house a phone. And I was still without a cellphone.

  Princess Amelia banged against the door—a door with no security reinforcing. It sounded like it was about to crack or break free of the frame.

  “Victoria!” she called. “Don’t make this harder than it needs to be. It can be painless if you allow it to be.”

  I didn’t believe that for a second. Nothing was painless. I searched the room for something—anything that could aid me as the door continued to be ruthlessly assaulted.

  I hobbled over to the nightstand and grabbed the lamp, ripping the cord from the wall. Then I returned to the wall beside the door. After a few more hits, the doorframe gave way, splintering, as the door violently flew open.

  Princess Amelia stepped inside just as I swung the table lamp like a bat at her head. She noticed it coming at the last second and threw her arms up in a defensive pose, but it wasn’t enough to stop the force of the lamp gunning toward her face.

  With a crack, the lamp post collided with one wrist and the side of her head as she tried to turn from the blow. The scalpel flew from her hand and her body tumbled back into the living room.

  The lamp remained raised as I inched toward the open door and looked down at Princess Amelia’s still body lying on the bloody carpet. Most of the blood was mine, but she was now bleeding from a gash on her temple. She was unconscious for the moment, but I had no idea how long that would be. Killing her didn’t even enter my mind with all the questions that arose from the grisly situation.

  Thinking fast, I retrieved the scalpel and hurried toward the closet, tossing the lamp on the bed as I passed. I’d remembered seeing a bathrobe, which I quickly located and ripped off the sash.

  Luckily, Princess Amelia was still unconscious when I returned with the sash I planned in using to bind her hands together. I was no expert with knots by any means, but I looped the sash between her wrists and tied it as tightly as I could. Then I brought back another sash from her room and bound her ankles.

  I felt safe enough to now tend to my slashed foot. In my bathroom, I removed a few more small glass splinters with tweezers and wrapped my foot in gauze and tape. It hurt to walk on it, but the pain wasn’t any worse than a good switching—a pain I’d become accustomed to throughout the years. I wouldn’t say I was thankful for that treatment now, but it certainly helped mitigate the pain.

  I followed my trail of blood back to the living room. The Princess was still out cold. I really didn’t want to see the Queen, but I had to be sure—make sure I hadn’t misjudged her condition in my shock. I dreaded the few steps it took to get there—the start of my blood trail—and was careful not to land on more broken glass.

  Standing in the doorway, I confirmed my original observation of the scene was correct. The Queen lay in bed, eyes wide, expression frozen. Blood dripped from her body, down the side of the mattress, forming a small puddle on the floor. The room’s already metallic scent stung my nostrils.

  Despite the tumultuous relationship I had with the Queen, I couldn’t believe things had ended like this—alone in her bed with a slit throat, in the one place none of her enemies were supposed to be able to reach her. The girl lying in the living room couldn’t be her daughter, but I guessed anything could be possible at this point.

  How did this happen?

  I didn’t know if Prince Byron was still in danger, if the girl who had killed the Queen was the threat we all feared, or if she was just one of them.

  I had no tears for Queen Hart—my biological mother—since we had never quite reached that place. Maybe we would have gotten there once I was married and actually working under her. But all my royal problems hit one after another, not giving me more than a moment to breathe, and we never got there. I may not have had tears for her, but I stood over her body with the realization that my life had changed yet again. I had no idea what that meant and a major part of me was terrified to find out.

  A groan came from the living room, sending another chill through my body. I pulled the bedsheets up and covered the Queen’s head.

  “I’m sorry,” I said, not exactly sure what I was sorry for, but thought it sounded appropriate. Then I returned to see Princess Amelia trying to sit up, but freezing at the sight of me.

  She eyed me nervously like I was the attacker—the palace threat—then started to cry.

  “Who are you?” I asked again. When she didn’t immediately answer, I screamed. “She’s dead! The Queen is dead! You killed her! Who the hell are you?”

  “I’m so sorry, Victoria,” she cried, bringing her bound hands up to shield her face. “It’s me… Bethany.”

  “I’ve been hearing that name a lot lately. You’ll have to do better than that. Prove it.”

  “How?” There were now tears mixing with the blood, making it look like she was crying blood. “I didn’t ask for this. I was chosen. Even when the Queen took you back, I was happy for you. We always said we’d be happy for
each other.”

  “That’s true…”

  Princess Amelia—or Bethany—pushed up on an elbow and tried once again to sit. “I didn’t do it. You have to believe me.”

  I thought of seeing her when I first came down here, rolling toward me in the motorized wheelchair. How one side of her face was completely slack when she talked. The difficulty she had with talking. The shaking in her hands as she maneuvered the joystick. The way her legs and feet curled to one side. I looked at her blood-streaked face, then noticed her ears—the multiple piercing holes—and remembered how I had received several more piercings to match Bethany. Princess Amelia never had any.

  “You took out your earrings, but didn’t try to hide the holes,” I said.

  “You are the first one to notice. No one else gave me a second glance.” Bethany wiped her eyes with her fists, drying her eyes, but making her cheeks look worse. “I woke up like this; when the Prince’s guards found me in the woods. I was no longer in control of my body—my movements, what I said. There was another voice. It’s like I was locked inside my own head and no one could hear me.”

  “But you’re here now,” I said. “Why? What happened? Who did this to you?”

  “I don’t know,” Bethany said. “The voice wasn’t mine, but I have no idea where it was coming from.”

  “Bethany, is it really you?”

  “You told Piper and me to go to the secret library before the Choosing Ceremony to find a copy of Pride & Prejudice. You said it was special. I found it with Prince Byron and we looked for the Princess, but didn’t find her.”

  “Did you try to kill the Prince?”

  The silence stretched so long it hurt, then she finally nodded.

  “Why?” I asked.

  She began to cry again. “I don’t know. I—I just had to. I wasn’t in control.”

  If there was anything I could be relieved about, it was her confessing to being the one who attacked Prince Byron, which meant he should currently be safe.

  Then my heart sank from the most obvious question with the confirmation it was Bethany sitting before me. If this had been Bethany all along, then where was Princess Amelia? Was she still being hidden by Frank’s men, captured by whomever was behind these rogue clones, or already dead? It hurt to even entertain that final option as a possibility.

  “You know, there are girls out there claiming to be you, under the pretense of fulfilling the Queen’s bidding, though I know that’s not the truth. Whoever’s behind their actions is probably the one behind yours.”

  “And nothing’s happened to you?” Bethany asked. “You haven’t lost control?”

  “No,” I said, and I was mostly confident in my answer. “And I didn’t fall during the Choosing Ceremony. Neither did Constance and Piper. That has to mean something.”

  “Neither did I,” she said, sadly.

  “But you were the chosen princess,” I said. “The doctors must have singled you out somehow.”

  “The doctors…”

  “Do you think the doctors are controlling you?” It wasn’t a far leap.

  “They know the most about us. I guess it makes sense.”

  “Dr. Sosin knew the most about me and he’s dead,” I said.

  “I was typically seen by Dr. Crane. Sometimes Dr. Alden or Dr. Young. They were always nice to me—always talked about how special I was—how special we all were.”

  We gazed at each other in silence for a long moment. I wasn’t sure what to do next. Where did we go from here? Bethany was my friend; I had grown the closest to her during our time together in the palace. But now she was a danger to everyone around her, seemingly by no fault of her own—but a danger nonetheless. I couldn’t let her go, but I also couldn’t bring myself to kill her.

  Before I could start talking through this dilemma with her, I noticed the subtle changes creeping back in. One side of her face began to sag. Her body began to shake and her legs curled at odd angles. Then her upper body began to teeter like she was losing the strength to hold herself up.

  “Victoria… I—I dreamt about this. It seemed impossible. The blood. The death. The Kingdom…” Tears were forming in her eyes while she still possessed the control to do so for her own physical response. Soon, the other entity would have completely taken over.

  I scooted over to her and helped ease her body down to the floor. I didn’t want to see her in any more pain. Seeing the transformation right before my eyes, I had no doubt everything she’d told me was real.

  “Victoria, I seem to have fallen. Can you please help me back into bed?” The voice was no longer Bethany’s. The difficulty of speech and awkward cadence was all Princess Amelia.

  I backed away, gazing down at the ghosts of my friend and my Princess—intertwined like the twisted trunks of the devil’s tree. The sight of the frail girl on the floor tore at my insides. I didn’t know what I could do to help her besides putting her out of her misery, and couldn’t bring myself to do such an awful deed.

  “Victoria… please…”

  Her voice made me cringe. My eyes stung. I continued to back away as the girl on the floor continued to plead for my help—help I couldn’t provide.

  Once I was near the bunker door, I went through the process of unlocking it and threw all my weight into it to push it open. It moved slowly, and when there was enough room, I slipped through the narrow opening and forced it closed. The pleading from inside was instantly silenced. I was left in total darkness, which kept her face prominent and clear in my mind’s eye. The faster I returned to the light, the better.

  I felt around until I found the stairs and climbed back to the known parts of the palace.

  23

  Byron

  I had guards waiting in two rooms across the hall. I lay in bed much like the night before, staring at the digital clock and out into the darkness. Unlike the night before, I wasn’t awake from being unable to sleep; I was awake in anticipation of the intruder’s return—seeing myself as the bait.

  At a similar—if not a little later—time to the night before, my doorknob jingled. I had been beginning to fade, but my adrenaline spiked, making me instantly alert. I reached under my pillow and wrapped a hand around the grip of my gun, but didn’t take it out. I lay still, my eyes trained on the door, waiting for the lock to be picked and the door to slowly swing open.

  But, instead, came a loud and frantic knocking.

  “Prince Byron, please open up.” It was Victoria’s voice.

  Then I heard the concerned voices of Pax and Rod in the hallway with her.

  I leapt out of bed, gun still in hand, and rushed to unlock the door. Victoria stood before me in a lacy purple nightgown that looked far too alluring for her to be walking around the palace in, and her hair up in a messy bun with loose strands falling all around her face. Then I noticed blood on her hands, and as my eyes traveled down, more on her legs. Her right foot was wrapped in stained bandages.

  “Oh my God, what happened?” I gasped, stepping aside to allow her and my guards to enter. I locked the door as soon as we were all in the room. “Why are you out of the safe room?”

  What Victoria said next shook me to my very core.

  “The Queen is dead.” She stared right at me with haunted eyes. “We need to get out of here—leave the palace. I still don’t know what’s going on, but we need to run.”

  “Whoa, wait a sec,” I said. I reached for her and pulled her into a hug. She stood there with lifeless arms at her sides as I embraced her. It took her a few seconds to return my embrace. “Are you okay?”

  “Yes.”

  I pulled back and studied her further. “What are you talking about? You were in the safe room—the bunker with the Queen and Princess Amelia. No one should have been able to get in. What happened to the Queen?”

  “She wasn’t Princess Amelia,” she said, her words thick and anguished.

  “What are you talking about? I saw her. It was definitely—”

  “She was not Princess Ameli
a,” she repeated, more forceful this time. “She was Bethany, but not Bethany. She was being controlled or possessed or something. She got up after we all went to bed and slit the Queen’s throat.”

  “Just like with Dr. Sosin,” Pax said.

  “And what that stranger in the night had wanted to do to me,” I added, still trying to wrap my head around what Victoria was saying.

  “There is something terrible going on here and we need to escape before it’s too late,” Victoria said, now on the verge of panic.

  “Where is she now?” I asked.

  “Still in the bunker. I tied her up. I didn’t know what else to do. I couldn’t bring myself to kill her, but had to get out of there.”

  Despite the severity of the situation and what Victoria had just been through, I still found myself distracted by her appearance—so I excused myself and rushed to the closet to retrieve a bathrobe before further discussion. I noticed Pax eye her as she draped it over her shoulders, closed it tight, and secured it with the fabric belt.

  “Dr. Crane told me earlier today that there is some kind of chip in each of your heads for monitoring, and Dr. Sosin had been experimenting with mental manipulation.”

  “If that’s what it is, it’s some serious mental and physical manipulation,” Victoria said. “You saw her—her condition.”

  “So, technically, she’s in danger as well,” Rod said.

  “She’s not in control of herself whatsoever,” Victoria said. “She came out of it for a few minutes after I cracked her over the head, but then went back to being Princess Amelia.”

  “You interrupted the control? I asked.

  “I—I don’t know. Maybe.”

  “You said she was tied up? Did she seem secure?”