Page 27 of Kept 4
“She may indeed kill me,” I said when he finally wound down. “But I think not – I plan to destroy her so that Josephine can live a long, unmolested life, and then, if a Hunter should happen to stake me shortly thereafter, so be it.
I pause reading again.‘I knew it.’
Looking at the time, I decide my restaurant spell is almost up, and I need to cut and run.
I swipe away the remaining journal entries for later and press my phone alarm. Pretending it is a call, I answer it, speaking low, and quickly, sounding as disappointed as I can for the benefit of the waiter behind my shoulder.
“Very well, I’m on my way,” I add, before pretending to hang up.
“I have to leave,” I tell the waiter, “dear Mummy and Daddy will be here shortly for their celebration, and they will pay the bill. Please don’t say I was here, I still want to surprise them for their anniversary, but an urgent call beckons me away at this instant.
“Of course, Madam,” he says solemnly, “I’ll fetch your coat.”
I shrug on my coat, and step outside into the busy, snowy street, but take a deep breath and turn back inside, reaching into my pocket, to withdraw my credit card.
“Are you sure, madam?” the man on the desk frowns, “this is most unusual, I’m sure your parents…”
“I want to pay,” I smile, a sudden light feeling coming over me, “it’s kind of an American thing, I guess.”
“Of course,” he says, charging my card and handing it back to me.
It will be traced, of course, but hopefully I will be in another country within a day and stay ahead of my pursuers.
I slip it back into my pocket and walk back outside, taking a new deep gulp of the cold night air, and feeling, finally, like a weight has been lifted off me. I feelgood.
It occurs to me that I have so much money now, due to Nicholas and his ridiculous insistence he paid me for my cooking, that I could pay off all the meals I had eaten illegally in every restaurant; here and back home in the States.
“No,” I grin and shake my head, “I’m good, but notthatgood.’
When I reach my youth hostel, a cheap, shared room, all four of my backpacking roommates are asleep.
After a brief shower, I curl up on my bottom bunk, determined to rest well to give myself the best chance of staying alert for the journey to Ereston tomorrow. But sleep eludes me, and once again, I open my phone and my mind to Nicholas and pick up reading where I had left off.
But while Gerald droned on about Elsbeth andherpowers, another thought entered my head. Josephine’s discussion with Margarita about my dear friend andhis‘additional powers.’
“Gerald,” I interrupted his renewed ranting, “do you have any additional powers that might aid in my destruction of Elsbeth?”
“You mean aside from the fact I am a better fighter, lover, rider…” he chuckled.
I laughed along with him.
Josephine has her doubts, I know, and she is an intelligent woman whose opinion I do value – but she should not have believed her gold-digging little friend so readily.
Gerald probably did seem to be omnipotent to such an ill-educated little tramp.
Still, Josephine is loyal to her friend. And I love her all the more for her reluctance to share her dislike of my own dear friend with me straight away, and for her trust in me, in eventually bringing her thoughts into the light – but she is wrong.
Focussing once more on Gerald, I decided I owed it to him to help him find the murderers of his Kept – regardless of whether he had tired of her, she was his. I resolved on the spur of the moment to accompany him to the continent and wipe out the Hunters he has found. Then, hopefully, he will help me battle Elsbeth.
“A better lover?” I laughed out loud at his prior assertion, “I think not, dear friend. But I will, regardless of your reckless disregard for the truth, accompany you to Europe.”
The entry ends there, and thankfully I have no more to read.
Rising resolutely, I tell myself that I had read the journal entries to find out information, and I had discovered something valuable; Nicholas and Gerald are likely now in Germany – I am safe to travel to Ereston tomorrow.
And I need to kill my phone.
I slide quietly off the bed and into my sneakers, place my phone on the floor, and smash my heel down upon it again and again until it is nothing but a pile of black and green flecked plastic and tiny bits of copper.
