PRESENTLY

I TRY NOT TO THINK.
It interferes with being nuts.

With said wise words in my head, I walked towards the dining hall. 

My eyes droopy and my legs in a world of their own. Somehow, by some great miracle, I managed to get Oren and Avery off my tail for the whole day up till dinner. I didn't want to explain to them what happened because, in completely frank honesty, I didn't even know what happened.

I didn't want to know.

So, stepping into the artistic marvel of dining, I forced myself to focus on the rich architecture instead. Spiraling chandeliers, high columns reaching up to them, and enormously grand windows, letting in the evening lights and view. The table itself was long and elegant. Each chair having intricate designs and luxuriously polished wood.

That night, in honor of Thea's visit, Mrs. Laughlin made a melt-in-your-mouth roast beef, orgasmic—Ave's words, not mine—garlic mashed potatoes, roasted asparagus, broccoli florets, and three different kinds of crème brûlée.

Sitting down beside my family, I kept no clue of pettiness on my face. 
Clearly, Mrs. Laughlin had favorites.

The massive table was set for eleven. I cataloged the participants in this little family dinner: four Hawthorne brothers. Skye. Zara and Constantine. Thea. Libby. Nan. Avery and me.

"Thea," Zara said, her voice almost too pleasant, "how is field hockey?"
"We're undefeated this season." Thea turned toward Ave. "Have you decided which sport you'll be playing, Avery?"

I let the idle chatter play around me. My mind drifting away in its sea of thoughts.

"They think she's back," The man gritted out.
His eyes almost as sharp as his aim had been.
"They think you're her." He let out a dry scoff, 
"Same face doesn't make same person."

"Oh?" I asked. My voice once more foreign.
"Tell me about this... 'her'."

The man shrugged, looking up and taking in the ceiling as if
gazing at a star-lit sky, "You don't deserve the grace of her name."

"And nor do you deserve freedom," My voice was controlled. Full of it.
"Not after trying to assassinate me. Definitely not from me." I held his

gaze. Toying him. Hooking his attention on me and me alone,
"But, guess the blue moon rises."

The man faltered, his eyes betrayed his desire. "They won't save me," 
he whispered, "I'm but a soldier. A clown of the grand circus. I know my place."

"Do you? Do you really think you're that expendable? A name," I said,

"A name and intel is all you pay for the reward of being a free man."

I slid a card toward the male and stopped it just as he went to touch.
"This is your way out," The man's eyes were stuck on the card. He obviously
tried to, but the conflict etched his feature, "Answer my questions. And it's yours."

He opened his mouth to speak but no words came. A moment turned to two.
The air was tense and his breathing was the only sound in the room.

And finally, he spoke.

"What do you need to know?"

"Right." Thea dabbed at her lips with her napkin. "No feminism at the dinner table."

"A toast," Skye declared out of nowhere, bursting my little bubble, holding up her wineglass and slurring the words enough that it was clear she'd already been imbibing.

"Skye, dear," Nan said firmly, "have you considered sleeping it off?"

"A toast," Skye reiterated, glass still held high. "To Arlene and Avery."

For once, she'd gotten our name right. I waited for the guillotine to drop, but Skye said nothing else. Zara raised her glass. One by one, every other glass went up.

Everyone but me.

Instead, my drink was caught in the gaze of gold.
The red was too deep.
The fluid was too thick.
The stench.

My lips curled up.

"What was that?" Don't specify the subject, and see your opponent do it for you. See them confess all their dirty sins.

"The shooting? Orders from above. If I'm a free man, I would like to be a living free man." The man leaned back. And then gave me the answer to the question I wanted. Not the answer. "And that drink?"

He looked me, dead in the eye. "That was plain, simple water."

"My my," I smile at the swirling scarlet in my glass, "what do we have here?"

Not noticing the curl of my lips, "To Emily," Thea added suddenly, her glass still raised, her eyes on Jameson. "May she rest in peace."

Jameson's glass came down. His chair was pushed roughly back from the table. Farther down, Grayson's fingers tightened around the stem of his own glass, his knuckles going white.

"Water?" I blinked in disbelief. "Lying won't get you freedom, I hope you realize that."

The man simply dropped his shoulders into a shrug, "I do. And I'm not."

The air got thicker. The sounds got louder.
"The liquid in the glass was nothing but water," said he, "that acidic taste in your mouth? It
was a pill, wedged between your teeth during your surgery by the Doc himself."

The colors started to get brighter. 
The shadows, darker.

"And that pill," the man's voice dropped to a low whisper, "Do you know what was in that pill?"

The glass was cool to my lips. 

The chaos was ignored.
Everything was, except when Lottie Laughlin ran into the dining room with a white face and terrified eyes.

"Don't!" Screamed the elderly woman, "Put your glasses down!"

"They believe that you may be her," The man's eyes narrowed, "A lot happened to her.
She was extraordinary. She was the most deadly weapon to exist—a demon. Sealed under drugs and medicines, her power went weaker and so did her memory and identity,"  The air felt sticky again. The light was too sharp yet the darkness was too black.

"She was quick as the wind, quiet as night. Her senses were beyond human. Her strength, beyond human. Her tolerance—pain, poison, everything—beyond human. She was no human."

"Mrs. Laughlin?" Avery stood up, concern washing over her beautiful feature, "What's wrong?"

The elder looked at me with horror as she watched the red disappear into my lips. The entire room, so wide and spacious, felt like a tiny cramped box.

"Arlene," yelled the woman. All eyes on me. The red disappeared quickly, "Stop, that is not wine that is—"

"They believe that you maybe her. So the pill had the key to unlock her," The prison felt otherworldly. The man wasn't there. The walls weren't there. I wasn't there. Infront of me was nothing but black and void.

And a girl with a gun in hand.

I didn't need to hear the man's next words to know who exactly that was.

Laugh. A laugh escaped me as the final drop of the liquid bit it's glass farewell.

All eyes on me.

"That's no drink," There was something off about the way my lips refused to curl down. The way my tone refused to let go of that sinister edge in it.

"That... is poison."

The girl infront of me was young.
The girl infront of me was covered in blood.
The girl infront of me was ready to bathe in red once more.

La Bambola Mortale.
The Deadly Doll.

I held the empty glass high, "A toast..." my every word was a knife cutting through the impossibly still silence.

"To every person wanting me dead."

·······•✦•······

Apparently Oren took the toast to heart.

"Do it," he ordered for the umpteenth time. His dark eyes, narrowed into a sharp glare.

I leaned against the balcony railing. The moonlit sky was soft and peaceful.
Nothing like my life right now. 
"How long do you plan on following me around with that bucket?"

"Long enough," He came to stand beside me, "'til you empty the toxin you knowingly drank up in one fell swoop."

A snort escaped me, "One fell swing, you mean."

"Are you suicidal or do you just enjoy making my job more hectic than it already is?"

I smiled. 
My head was, like the moon, in some vacuum-like space, far far away.

"Damn it." the man let out, so soft I could barely catch it.
But I did. And so did I catch the way he eyed that card.
No longer with longing.
But regret.

Fear.

"You know," He smirked a bitter chuckle, "This is useless to me now."

My face remained carefully plain, "Changed your mind about freedom? Or is it that you think I'll give you more?" My golden eyes felt carved out of ice, "Do not assume you are my only means of information. You aren't as indispensable as I make you think."
Even if his assumption might have been right. 
He didn't need to know that.

The man didn't lash out. The man didn't scoff or roll his eyes.
The man suddenly started to look duller.
Wearier.

"What good is freedom," he curved his lips up barely. Not quite a smile. And yet not quite not a frown. "to a dead man?" He gazed at the ceiling once more. As if the open sky and twinkling stars.

"Now that I've told you about the Red Stage."

"Leena?" Oren's firm grip on my shoulders brought me back to the world real. And yet I chose not to look back. "Vomit."

"Why must you be so adamant?"

"Because," some irritation crept up into his voice, "If you die, I will be fired and jobless."

"If I die, who will fire you,? You work for me," The memories were heavy still. But the light (for me at least) conversation helped ease it a bit. "Admit it, you care about me, Johnny."

"I do," He whispered. I blinked. Well, at least one thing came out good from these shenanigans: I got my bodyguard to admit he cared for me. "And that is why I need you to listen. You promised me you would."

Promises. Empty words.
No meaning.

"I did, didn't I?" He let the silence play. He wanted me to keep those hollow words.

I couldn't. I smiled at the older man, "Fine. Fun fact, I'm supposedly immune to poison."

"You are what—"

"Haven't you noticed?" I held out my hand. The cold wind made my skin crawl. The redness and little blisters aside, there was—"Nothing. And, it's been seven hours." I let that sink in, "Most people are dead by now."

The realization hit Oren like a ton of bricks, "Your body..."

"Got a system... reboot, I should say."

There was a chance.
A chance that within the next few minutes, I'd drop dead.
A chance that my body was not actually immune.
A chance that my wounds would open again.
A chance that my bones would give out.

Or a chance that everything that the man had told me... was true.
A chance that I might be who 'they' thought I was.
A chance that the pill indeed was a key.

A chance that I may not really be Arlene Amira Grambs.

There was always a chance.

"John," I couldn't recognize my own voice. A thing I'd slowly started to get accustomed to, I noticed. "Tell me, and tell me with utmost honesty."

The moon was bright. The shadows were dark.
I wonder if I'd awaken the devil, with what I was about to ask.

"Have you heard of the Red Stage?"

·······•✦•······

Fear.

It's a word that was quite complex to me.

What was fear?
Was it fear when I'd seen Avery burn her hand on the pan while cooking eggs?
Was it fear when I'd seen Libby go through her old texts with that conflicted expression?
Was it fear when I'd been first mentioned in Tobias Hawthorne's will?
Was it fear when I chose to get shot for a Hawthorne?
Was it fear when I realized my surgeon didn't exist?

Was it blood-curling, heart-stopping, complete and utter terrifying fear, that I saw on Oren's face when I said that name?

If silence could kill.

The man's dark complexion paled so much. His eyes wide as plates and his pupils dilated.
His built physique was taut. Every muscle frozen, as if carved from ice. John Johnathan Oren was a strong, confident man. His posture, face, and everything told so.  
Everything but the way his hands tried to curl into themselves.
The way he was trying entirely not to.

"Never," it felt as if every word he spoke was a struggle beyond measure, "Never ever speak of that again." There was no light admonishing in his voice now.
This was firm and final.

This was an order.

"Arlene Amira Grambs," That tone. It made me want to take a step back. To look away.
Was this fear?

Or doubt?
Doubt that I was the Amira Grambs he was talking to. 
I stood as still as stone. "I was given the sole task to protect you. And I will. For that, I will personally make sure of it, you never utter those words again. Is that understood?"

A heartbeat went by.
"Understood."

Hollow hollow words of mine.

·······•✦•······

"The amount of scandals you've gotten yourself into with that one little stunt of yours."

How fast hours went by, you couldn't pay me to guess.
It was the afternoon of the next day.
And another set of hours was going to fly by because I was going to get dolled up.
For a royal ball.
With royal people.
And a whole lot of press.

Yippee.

Alisa was in charge of supervision of my dolling up. "Honestly, it's like you're a natural controversy magnet."

The comb in my hair and the makeup on my skin felt heavy. "Oh don't act like you don't find joy in all of this." I looked up at the ceiling as my stylist started applying the eyeliner for the fifth time. My eyes just wouldn't let her. Tearing up like a baby.

Thankfully they had some mercy this time.

"Guilty as charged," Alisa smiled her professional smirk, "Now about the details of the ball,"

Like almost every idle chatter in my life, I let her words play in the background.
My stylist started to tell me about my hair, so I focussed on that instead.

"If you hate your existence," she held it up in a messy bun, "You could work with a bun."

I studied myself in the mirror. Not feeling for a moment that this was Arlene Amira Grambs.
"And if I doubt my existence?"

She smiled and let my hair free, "Let loose."

She soon began curling and combing the locks.
Alisa finished speaking.
And this, only her I could focus on because she said:

"The ball will go on the entire night and," the next words made me break my manicured nail,

"You're attending with a date: Grayson Davenport Hawthorne."

·······•✦•······