Page 7 of Guarded

When she’s done entertaining the entire internet, she returns to the penthouse, showers, gets ready, and heads to work. She was punctual as fuck. I like that about her.

Ariella was interning under her older cousin Thalia, the Chief Financial Officer of Calavera Hotels. She worked and lived at the hotel and rarely stepped outside it. I would stand outside the office door or sit on the office couch reading while she worked away typing, answering calls, and sticking a million sticky notesover her desk. She had a sick obsession with lists and sticky notes. They were all over the fridge and bathroom mirror in the penthouse.

For lunch, we eat in her office or across from each other at the hotel restaurant Tres Coronas. She always asks for a corner booth where she glares at me between bites of her salad. Which she also recorded for her fandom. Letting the world know what she was eating, how many grams of protein there was, and her personal meal rating. On a scale between one and ten, everything always appeared to be a ten.

She makes dinner at night. The first night, I watched her from the living room as she debated whether to give me a plate. I went to my room to avoid the awkward conversation, but when I opened my door later that night, I saw a plate of chicken and rice outside my door, wrapped in saran wrap with a sticky note attached.

Protein: 120 g

Fat: 20g

Carbs: 50g

Cautiously, I threw the first plate of food she gave me away. You know, just in case, she poisoned me, but after the third night, I gave it a shot. So far, I’m still breathing.

She spends an hour in the bathroom doing some nighttime routine every night, then calls her parents. By the time I go to leave, she’s watching TV while working on a puzzle. When I get back, she’s usually fallen asleep on the couch.

I can’t help watching her like that. Something about her sleeping made her doll-like features more apparent. In an intriguing way, her breaths softened. Her body stills and tiny goosebumps run down the length of her creamy skin. This iswhat convinced me to cover her with a blanket every night before heading to my room.

I’d sleep for four hours, and then we start the process all over again—day in and Day out, all week. On the weekends, the routine shifts slightly. She skips the gym on Saturdays and takes Guapo to her grandfather’s house.

I catch up on laundry, drink a beer, and jack off in the shower.What?It was the only time I had to myself. I wasn’t sure what she did on Sundays, but when I’d get back, there were always more groceries, her meal prep containers filling the fridge next to my beer, and fresh pink carnations throughout the penthouse.

It was safe to say I could do this for a little while longer. Shadow the princess around the hotel, making sure there are no threats against her. Clear my conscious of the guilt that had been eating me from what I did- what I was forced to do.

I’d wait to see when Genesis showed up and get Leatherface whatever information he needed. It wouldn’t be long before Axel found the princess a husband, and I could get back to my life. That was the plan. Easy fucking peasy. Until it’s not.

After weeks of operating in sync, I wake up on a bright Saturday morning and grab a beer when I find Ariella standing in the kitchen. A blank expression on her face.

She doesn’t acknowledge me. I grab the beer and walk back to my room. An hour later, after I showered and set the laundry, she is still there in the kitchen with the same blank expression. I stop and watch her, but she doesn’t move.

I want to ignore her and keep walking to the door, but something tugs at me to check on her. As much as I convince myself it’s none of my fucking business, I can’t help the emotions that pull at me to see her like this. That look on her face. I had seen it a thousand times before.On Evangeline’s face.

It was usually the first warning sign I had before she would fly off the edge of reality. Before the bad thing came out. Before I became a target for her frustration. Ari is not Evangeline. I know that. Her blank expression, though similar, wasn’t rooted in anger. She looks sad. Tears rim her emerald eyes, and she doesn’t register my presence even as I walk to stand in front of her.

“Are you okay?” I ask.

She blinks the tears back and looks at me. It takes a second for her to register me. The moment she does, her face hardens.

“I’m fine.”

“Did you just wake up?”

She looks back at the clock on the kitchen stove—eleven o’clock. I follow her eyes to the clock, then back to the pink sweats and white tank top I recognize from the night before.

“Yes,” she says in a whisper.

She doesn’t look at me. Instead, she grabs the cup in front of her and walks back to her room. Guapo lets out a small whimper before following after. Something doesn’t feel right. I swallow down any concern rising.Not your problem.I remind myself. And I continue to remind myself as I make my way to the clubhouse.

“Hey, Nero,” Shawny says when I enter the empty club.

The redhead wears a tight white dress and six-inch heels. Shawny works at the hotel as a maid, but Jasper hired her to work part-time as a bartender for the club on nights and weekends.

Taking the empty seat at the end of the bar, I pull out my phone and search for Ariella’s Instagram page. I had found it a week ago to make sure she hadn’t posted a picture of me without my fucking consent.

She has over seventy thousand followers, and her whole life is documented here. Not somewhere I needed my photoplastered. The first thing I notice is she hasn’t posted her annoying “Buenos Dias Besties” video.

She does this religiously, even if she doesn’t go to the gym. However, there is no picture of her breakfast or video of Guapo, who also has his own Instagram account. I checked his page, and there was nothing.

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