Page 85 of We Are the Match
Milos’s expression is unreadable as he takes my hand. It is cold and limp in his, and I do not feel it.
The sensation is gone from my body, hidden away. I am somewhere above it all, pieces of me in the high marble ceilings and the ladder we could use to escape and the railing that juts out over the sea. Part of me everywhere, in grains of sand and whispers of wind and the poppies, scarlet against the night sky.
And none of me is his.
Not when he takes my hand, not when he pulls me in for a kiss.
Milos,I would tell him if I were there.It’s time for you to leave. I don’t want you here.
“Are you ready?” Marcus asks me.
“Can you—can you tell me what is happening?” My voice carries so much weakness that I do not want Paris and Tommy to hear it, not when they kneel there with such unwavering courage.
Milos draws me closer to his side, still holding my hand.
We were meant to walk together, hand in hand, through marble hallways and through the years. We are every inch the king and queen.
I had thought I could rule. I had thought, even, that I could rule and dobetter.
But perhaps this is all that ever waited for me. Perhaps this is what it meant to rule.
My father draws closer. There is the fury of war in his eyes. I have seen it before, before he avenged my mother’s death, before he destroyed the whole island of Troy in his rage.
“Helen.”
“Father.”
“Milos, give us a moment.”
Milos drops my hand, and I return to my body, if only briefly.
My bracelet burns my skin, this homage to my mother. I rub my thumb along the thin band of metal, over and over and over again.
Méchri thanátou.
Unto death.
“What is the meaning of this?” I manage the words, manage to drag myself back into my body. Paris and Tommy, kneeling just there.
No.
No.
“Do not play coy with me, little girl. You have been knee-deep in this game with Paris,” he snarls. “Did you really think you could do as you pleased in my house?”
“Do not pretend you cared for my life,” I tell him coldly. “Do not pretend you care aboutanylife when you treat them all as if they are at your disposal.”
He looks as if he wants to raise a hand to me now—but something stops him. Is it something he sees in my face? Is it the fact that after all this, I am still a bomb-maker, still my mother’s daughter?
“Am I a daughter?” I ask him again. “Or a bargaining chip? Which were you afraid to lose to Paris?”
“You are both,” he says. “Helen, youknowthat. You have always known that. I can love my daughter and value my business. I can care for you and value your contributions to ourFamily. Do not play, little girl. Not after all this.”
“How long will you keep me small? How long will you deny that I have the power to rule at your side?”
“At my side?” he asks. “Or in my stead?”
Paris and Tommy are kneeling there, guns trained on them, and I will do what I must.
