Page 66 of A Queen and HER Bad Boy
Was she still dreaming? Nestor was no assassin! “He’s going for a rad—”
“He’s a Myrdon sympathizer. You heard what he said earlier—he officiated my parents’ wedding—my mother is from Aeaea, and he was there too. The revolution started on that island, and he is on intimate terms with all the players…”
“That doesn’t mean…”
“Then why would he try to cover it up? There’s no way he can’t remember that he headed the congregation in Aeaea. He’s lying to us.”
She was running out of excuses, and with that, her peace of mind. Her heart crashed through her frozen limbs in an icy chill as she recalled all that was said.
Achilles’s voice broke through her cold daze: “We need to sneak to his boat and get out of here.”
And leave the priest without a way out of here in the middle of a dangerous flood? What if they were wrong about him? He could die out here. “Absolutely not!” Achilles was letting his lack of sleep overtake his reason.
Frustration danced across his expression. Once again, she was turning to Queen Do-What-She-Wants. Had she learned nothing from earlier? She could take his appeals seriously, at the very least. “Why save us in the first place?” she asked. “Nestor could’ve just left us to die!”
The door opened. Nestor was back. He’d explain all this… except the steps coming for them were heavy this time, purposeful, hurried.
Was something wrong? She pushed her head over the pew to look through the shadowy chapel, seconds before Achilles shoved her back. “Down!”
Gunshots echoed through the cathedral. Splinters exploded against the pew as Achilles forced her against the ground, throwing his body over hers. Yiorgas woke up with a startled shout, caught underneath her arms. He clutched his textbook,crying out. She hugged him closer, not sure how any of them would escape this alive!
She’d been wrong again, and this time it would cost them their lives! They needed a way out, but how? Where? The footsteps moved closer. Their attacker had the advantage with the weapon and was taking his sweet time getting to them. Bris spotted the stone stairs beside them descending into the darkness. Nestor had mentioned something about the passageways being sealed, but at least this could buy them more time. What choice did they have?
“The steps!” she shouted to Achilles.
He made a sound that was half groan, half resolve. His hand against her back gripped her harder, and he pushed her towards the stairs with Yiorgas. They crawled through the pews. Her heart ran a wild staccato through her chest like Chopin’s Minute Waltz she’d been forced to play in those hated childhood recitals. The frantic tempo filled her ears, even as her every sense was trained on the steps moving steadily closer, but not firing.
The shadows shrouded her and Achilles’s progress through the pews. The flickering candles not providing enough light to reveal their precise location. Was the gunman preserving his bullets, or was he afraid of hitting the wrong target? Breaking through the pews and into the open, they had seconds to reach the stairs before they were hunted down.
Achilles’s hand on her back kept her in place. He crouched a moment, slipping something from his back pocket. She glimpsed the cracked screen of his phone before he flung it across the room. The heavy tech crashed against the brass candelabra, sending candles and metal crashing to the stone floor. Their attacker rushed for the noise, falling for the decoy.
They moved across the cobbled floor. Their only advantage was the dim lighting, but as soon as they reached the stone staircase, she realized that could easily turn fatal the instantthey plunged into the darkness. The walls cut off the flickering candles from the cathedral above them, and after a few more steps, the passageway going below had turned pitch black.
One wrong move on these steep stairs and they’d plummet to their deaths or make a sound that would send their attacker after them. Her hand grappled with the walls on either side of them until she couldn’t take anymore and reached for her phone. The lit screen was enough to see where they were going, the beam slanting past Yiorgas’ big brown eyes.
Achilles snatched her phone from her. “He’ll see you!” he hissed under his breath. And it didn’t escape her notice that he still used the light—because getting down the stairs was impossible without some aid. That only meant one thing: the maddening man was purposely making himself the target instead.
There was no time to argue. They wound down the circular flight, making at least three full rotations before their pursuer’s footsteps scraped above them in an ominous echo. This time the gunman was running at full speed. He had the weapon. The advantage. Their direction.
They no longer had to stay quiet. Not knowing where the stairs led, they scrambled down the worn stones and splashed into ankle-deep water… the next step took them to their knees, then to their thighs. She hoisted Yiorgas into her arms and took one last step and realized there were no more. Thankfully! They’d reached the ground level.
Her cellphone light scraped past tombs, revealing a horrifying scene. Stone sarcophagi jutted from the dark water like sleeping giants, carved faces of long-dead Tirrojan nobles staring blindly through the murk. They were in an ancient burial chamber.
Light flashed above them, followed by loud gunshots and sharp cracks as bullets shattered stone and sent spray ricocheting off the water around them. She screamed, ducking.The noise was followed by a floodlight. The man had found a switch. The harsh fluorescent light blazed down from above, turning their sanctuary into a death trap.
The darkness could no longer aid them. She could also see that Nestor was correct—all passages leading out of the crypt had been sealed shut. They had nowhere to go.
Achilles grabbed Bris’s arm and immediately the spray of bullets stopped.They wanted him alive!This had to be the Myrdons! And he was taking full advantage of this new development, covering her with his body as he threw her and Yiorgas behind a massive tomb. She nearly tripped over the fallen museum barriers as they splashed toward cover, brass poles and tangled rope floating in the frigid water.
The assassin called from them above. “Welcome to your new home, Your Royal Highness!” He moved horribly closer. “How fitting that you’ll be joining your ancestors…Babes.”
It was just as she thought—their attacker only wanted her!
Bris set Yiorgas on a small alcove carved into the side of the tomb, where ancient offerings would have been placed. The child would be safer if he was nowhere near her. Maybe he could live. Achilles could too—but how to convince the man that sacrificing herself was the only way?
The dirty water reached her chin as she crouched lower, the cold stealing her breath. Achilles’s back went rigid as he watched the assassin’s progress down the stairs. It wasn’t Nestor… this man was taller, leaner, younger, but the priest’s disappearance coordinated conveniently with the assassin’s entrance.
Perhaps Nestor didn’t want to witness the carnage?
