Through the Windshield Glass (31 page)

I did my best
not to think about Michael, but the harder I tried to push him away the harder
it was not to think about him, particularly our moment in the tree. Every time
that memory came to mind I would discover myself slightly smiling while biting
my bottom lip.

It agitated me
that I was incapable of controlling my own facial expressions. James had always
teased me for having the worst poker face he'd ever seen, but I always thought
I'd be better at it when James wasn't there cracking jokes to get me to crack.

Finally, nearly
two hours after I'd been locked in the room, I heard a key in the lock. I
turned around, planted my feet in the carpet and crossed my arms tightly over
my chest.

Daman entered,
followed closely by an attractive black-haired woman. She looked similar to
Bridgette, but gave off an even more dainty air.

"Alice,"
Daman said. He opened his arms in a welcoming gesture, but I didn't even bother
to blink at him. He put his arms down and motioned to the woman behind him,
"Let me introduce you to
Queen
Alice. She prefers to go by Lisie
though."

"Why
haven't you renamed her?" I asked suddenly.

The corner of
Daman's mouth perked up in a sort of half smile, "I suppose I just like
the name Alice."

Daman came
closer and started circling me, the queen watched with a blank stare. She
wasn't there, not physically, she was completely in her own world, almost as
catatonic as Maria had been.

I was suddenly
glad that Kinga was now gone, she would not have wanted to see her adoptive
mother in this state and under the control of Daman.

"What is
this Daman?" I asked, "Why am I here?"

"It's
Alecsander, actually," Daman said, "You know why you're here,
Stephano told you. You would have failed of course, I knew where you were as
soon as you left wherever it is my dear Rose was keeping you."

"Your dear
Rose is dead," I said bluntly. Daman blinked hard and his mouth thinned
for only a fraction of a second, but it was so imperceptible I was almost
convinced I'd imagined it.

"What a
shame. I told Stephano to send a message, not to kill her."

"Stephano
did not kill her. He attempted to turn her into a thing like you. I killed her
when she asked me to," I tried to look Daman straight in the eye and not
move a muscle as I spoke the lie. I didn't want to implicate Michael. I'd
rather have Daman take his anger out on me than hurt anyone else I cared about.

"I don't
think you killed her," Daman said.

"You
don't?" I asked. I was unable to hide the surprise in my voice.

"If
anything it was my brother. They were always so
close
, he was the only
one she would have asked to do such a thing," Daman sounded jealous. As he
circled in front of me I noticed his right hand was clenched.

"Michael
went back to tell the others what happened to Kinga. He left before I killed
Kinga, he thought he could get there and back again with help before anything
happened to her. He was wrong," I replied.

Daman's voice
came from my close to my right ear next, it caused the hairs on the back of my
neck to rise, pumped my adrenaline, and made me want to turn around to face
him, but I held my ground, "My brother is still outside my palace walls,
Stephano saw him when he captured you, now are you going to stop lying to me or
am I going to have to make you?"

The door to the
room opened again and Leigh was forced in. She didn't look in the least bit
scared; in fact she looked downright loathsome. She glared so fiendishly at
Daman I waited for him to flinch away from my ear.

"Let me
go," Leigh demanded.

"Why would
I do that?" Daman asked, "You're the only thing keeping Alice here,
if I let you go how will I find a wife on such short notice?"

"Alice
will never marry you!" Leigh shouted. She looked angrier than I'd ever
seen her. Her tiny fists were clenched so tightly she had to be cutting into
her palms, her face was beginning to turn red, and her eyes were squinted so
narrowly the only color I could see was the black of her pupils.

Daman left my
side and approached Leigh. For the first time since Daman had entered the room,
I flinched. Every muscle in my body tensed for attack, I knew if Daman laid a
single finger on Leigh I would rip his throat out with my teeth. Luckily for
him, all he did was whisper in her ear.

Leigh still
looked angry, but she also looked thoughtful as she listened to what Daman was
saying, then an entirely new emotion stole over her face. Unadulterated fear,
"Don't you dare," Leigh said menacingly.

Daman moved
away from Leigh and looked her straight in the eye. He crouched down to her
level
　
and turned to give me
a wicked smile before continuing his quiet conversation with Leigh.

"Fine,"
Leigh said after a few moments, "I'll do it, but not for you."

"Fantastic,"
Daman said, he stood and faced me, "I believe I've just found you a flower
girl. And, if I'm not mistaken, your friend Maria will readily agree to be your
maid of honor."

"I don't
want her to be a part of this; I don't want either of them to be a part of
this. I'll do whatever you want, just let them go,” I tried. It was a vain
attempt, I knew Daman would just laugh it away, but I thought I might as well
try it.

I was right,
Daman got a good hearty chuckle out of my threat, "Two days," Daman
said. He winked at me, patted Leigh on the shoulder and started to leave with
the queen.

"Why do
you need a wife?" I asked suddenly.

Daman didn't
turn around, "Two is more powerful than one."

"So why do
you need me? Why did you need Kinga? Why don't you just marry your lapdog
queen?" I was desperate for information.

"Dummy
wives don't work," Daman said. He must have realized how vague his
explanation sounded because he continued with more information, "When Rose
left me I thought that I would still get the power from her, but she has to be
a willing advocate."

"Then what
about Kinga's mother?" I asked.

Daman finally
turned around, "Willing, conscious advocate. She did not handle the loss
of her husband and daughter well. She was too fragile, she is simply a puppet
now, but you will not be."

"Why me
then?" I finally asked. It was the question that had been gnawing at me
since I first escaped the hallway and I wasn't going to miss my opportunity to
find out.

"It was
supposed to be Maria," Daman said. Blood rushed in my ears and I felt
lightheaded, but I waited for Daman to carry on, "It was easy enough to
convince her to commit suicide. She was already contemplating it, all it took
was a little nudge from her dearly departed mother and she was mine.
Unfortunately, she went mad before I was able to find her, but fortune had it
that her best friend followed quickly in her footsteps."

"Then why
Maria?" I asked. I was dreading the answer, but I had to know.

"She reminded
me of a girl I once knew," Daman said quietly.

Something
tugged at the back of my mind, it wasn't my own memory, or at least it hadn't
been. It felt like I was remembering watching it on a television screen.

It was Daman's
fake death that he had shown me before making me fall in love with him. I
closed my eyes and tried to remember what the girl he saved had looked like.
All at once, I remembered. She looked a lot like Maria, apart from the hair and
clothing, it was impossible not to draw parallels.

Daman had been
in love with that girl, that's why he had chosen Maria.

Daman seemed to
realize that I was remembering what he had shown me and suddenly it was like a
door had closed on the memory. I couldn't even remember what I had been
thinking about, but I knew whatever I had done wasn't something that Daman
liked. I had caught him in a vulnerable spot and
　
he
knew it. Without another word Daman swept from the room with the queen right
behind him.

The demon
standing behind Leigh left too. It was now just the two of us in the room with
nothing to do but talk and plan our next move.

Chapter Forty-four

"You can't
marry Daman!" Leigh shouted after a few minutes of silence. I hadn't dared
talk to her first, she looked ready to explode and I was right.

"I don't
really have a choice, Leigh," I said, "No matter what I do people are
going to get hurt. At least if I marry
　
him
I can have some control over what he does."

"But you
don't love him!" Leigh protested. I was astonished that she was using that
argument, I had thought she would echo Michael in saying we could come up with
another plan. However, as usual, her explanation was completely innocent and
full of common sense that everyone around her didn't seem to see.

"No, I
don't love him. But sometimes you have to make sacrifices for the people you do
love," I replied.

"Like
Michael?" Leigh asked, "You love him don't you? I know you do, I knew
it would happen! You love him don't you? I know he loves you!"

"I don't
think I love Michael, and he doesn't love me, there's no time for that right
now."

"There's
always time for it! You just don't see what I see," Leigh said. She looked
less angry now and more frustrated. I half expected her to scream and stomp her
feet or give me a long lecture.

"I don't
even know why I'm arguing about this. I'm marrying Daman, it's already in
motion, maybe we'll get lucky and he'll die early," I almost laughed at my
own optimism, but I was afraid it would just aggravate Leigh even further.
Instead, I turned around to look through a window that offered a view of the
forest I'd spent the last few days walking through.

"But Daman
didn't remind you how to smile," Leigh said quietly. Her words barely
reached my ears, but the force behind them was so impactful I felt weak at the
knees. I faced Leigh and looked her square in the eyes.

"What do
you mean?" I asked slowly.

"When you
came here you wouldn't smile at all, then you met Michael and you started
smiling, at least when you didn't hate him," Leigh said.

"I never
hated him," I said defensively, "He just annoyed me."

"Either
way, he reminded you how to smile, and you reminded him too. You made him smile
so fast I thought he was faking it, but it was real! You make each other smile,
you're in love!"
　
Leigh
finished with a flourish. She looked triumphant and stared at me, daring me to
challenge her logic, I couldn't resist.

I was trying my
hardest to get around what she was telling me because it would only make it
harder to go through with the decision I'd already made.

"Just
because we make each other smile doesn't mean we're in love," I said. But
as my teeth grazed my bottom lip while saying the 'v' in love, I remembered the
kiss in the tree.

"Yes it
does," Leigh said matter-of-factly. She said it with such conviction I was
inclined to believe her. I'd never known such a tiny person who could be so
persuasive with so few words.

"I guess
we'll never know," I said. I shrugged my shoulders in an attempt to show
that I was nonchalant about everything that was happening, but Leigh saw right
through my ruse.

"You're
never going to be happy again!" Leigh shouted.

"That's
okay," I said quickly. I blinked furiously to keep myself from crying,
"As long as no one else has to get hurt, it's okay."

"No, it's
not," Leigh said, "Because no matter what you do Daman is going to
keep hurting people. It's what he does! He has a reason to hurt people here, it
makes him more powerful!"

I sat down
heavily on the floor and started toying with the carpet fibers, "Why is
death so hard? No one in their right mind would commit suicide to get here if
they knew what it was like. I thought death was supposed to be a break from the
world, it was supposed to be your reward for suffering through
everything."

Leigh sat down
across from me and waited until I looked her in the eye to answer my question,
"Because there's something even better waiting after this."

"How do
you know?" I asked, "Maybe this is just never ending. What if
　
we just
　
keep dying and going to new places only to find out
we have to die again to move on and it never stops?"

"Then at
least you get to meet lots of new people. And if there are other places like
this, they can't all be this bad," Leigh stated confidently.

"Why are
you so happy? Don't you ever just want to give up?" I questioned Leigh.

Leigh looked at
me with a puzzled look for a few seconds before replying, "No."

My jaw dropped
in surprise, "Never? You've never once wanted to give up? What about when
your dad left? What about when your mom died? What about when that girl killed
you? What about what happened to you in the hallway? Didn't you give up
then?"

My words were
cold and harsh, had they been said to me I would have broken down crying, but
Leigh took them in stride and answered each patiently.

"I've
never wanted to give up because I know someone has to show everybody else that
it's not impossible. My dad left because he gave up, so I kept going to show
him how to get back. When my mom died I knew I would see her again so I didn't
give up because I wanted her to be proud of me when I found her, I think she
was, she just didn't know how to tell me because of what she'd gone through.
The girl who killed me needed love more than I did, I was sure if I let her
keep hugging me she would remember how to smile and remember what love was
like. I don't know if she did or not though, I hope I meet her one day so I can
find out."

"As for
the hallway," Leigh continued, "I knew it wasn't real, it was just
all new. It was hard, but I knew I had to prove it was possible, so I did it
and I wrote it all down as soon as I got here. I just made a decision never to
forget how to smile. I practiced every day and it worked, that's why I tried to
teach Michael, but he was really stubborn until you came along, then he
remembered because he's in love. You remembered faster, even before I had a
chance to try to help you, which means it was all Michael, which means you love
him too."