RIPPLE

{Seventeen}

On the morning of Lucien's execution, Waverly is an absolute and unconsolable wreck. From my bedroom, I can hear her scream and throw things and her hysterical tears. She played music from her stereo loud enough to be heard in the entire East Wing.

        She screamed at every servant that came near her slightly open room door, and skipped over breakfast in the meal hall which was heavy in silence without her.

        Mikhail tried to talk to her already, fresh out of the Infirmary still dosed on medication. But Waverly wouldn't talk to him. She wouldn't talk to her mother. So I tried next. I brought a big plate of breakfast food and orange juice with me as I knocked on her room door, slowly opening it, “Waverly? Its Nerissa.”

        She didn't scream for me to go away. So I inch open the door as slowly as I could, nervous as I find her in a heap of clothing on her floor.

        Her bedroom is bigger than Lachlan's and mine, and is as large as a hotel suite. Clothes are everywhere and Waverly is laying in the middle of them. Her dark eyes are rimmed with red and she's naked aside from her undergarments. There's a bite mark on her right arm, and there are tears running down her eyes.

        Her bed is huge, and the covers are entirely messed up. Everything in her room is a mess of broken glass, torn book pages and ripped up clothing. There's a book shelf along one wall, and a flickering broken television. A stereo is skipping her favorite CD. I set the breakfast plate down on her bedside table, turning the music down before coming to kneel beside her.

         The bite mark doesn't look fresh. But I know she must have let Lucien bite her.

          “I can't let him die like this, Nerissa . . . ” Just like that, I knew Waverly was going to do something insane in attempt to save Lucien. He used her, and Waverly still wants to save him. There's no talking her out of this, which is why she's a complete mess this morning. Waverly allowed Lucien to bite her and now she is willing to betray her family for a boy she barely knows.

         Waverly sits up and I play with her hair, undoing the messy braid and  letting her dark hair come down her back in ringlets. “I understand your pain, Waverly. I'm living in it. All I ask is that you think about what you're about to do. Your family loves you, Wav.”

        She sits and cries in my embrace for a long while, mumbling again: “I just can't let him die like this.”

        After a while, Waverly wanted to be left alone and I retreat to my bedroom. I choose a long, flowing black gown that looks simple enough and by the time I zip it up, I move to the windows.

        I miss Lachlan. I miss his touch, his kisses — his comforting words — even his sea salt scent. Maybe Glimmer couldn't send any sign that they were both okay. And that flash of an orange tail . . . why did it look so familiar when Lachlan leaned over the edge?

        Waverly wasn't in her room anymore, and maybe she was attempting to have her last few precious moments with Lucien. Wherever she was, the bite mark on her arm kept flashing before my memory and something told me that this fight is far from over. Waverly is young, submissive and has a dark attraction to wolves. She's an easily corrupted Royal, and if she saves Lucien this morning, than what will happen to her once she is out of the palace?

       A knock on the door interrupts my aching thoughts, and I barely manage the words “come in”, not knowing if whoever was on the other side heard it. But moments later, Mikhail inches the door open with a small smile on his face as he gazes around my new bedroom.

        “I like the new room,” he smiles as he shuts the door behind him. Mikhail badly limps and was released from the Infirm on King Ronan's orders, watched heavily by newly hired guards with more muscle than brains. The guards thankfully trust me enough to wait outside the door. Mikhail comes to join me by the window. “I can't believe you're leaving already, Nerissa . . . ” Mikhail too, was made to dress as though in mourning — in an entirely expensive black suit. His messy hair was a nice touch.