Seven Deadly Sons

Melanie. (17)

Air. Fresh air, wheezing into my lungs. 

Coughing heavily, I have a sudden great appreciation for simply being able to breathe. I'm lacking so much oxygen that everything around me is completely irrelevant - but I am still keenly aware of the dead body on my floor. 

I know that she is dead because she has not moved in the minutes I've been hyperventilating, the man still present had rolled her body towards the window with the toe of boots. He had grumbled and spoke angrily to himself throughout the entirety of the process; it was so painful to watch him struggle I bet pulling teeth would be more comfortable.  

But who was he? One of the Others? Someone I had met in the hallway?

Maybe a Prince? I had been extremely rude to them. Were they lashing out?

While I steadied my breathing as much as I could, I took in what was around me. I was most certainly not about to end up like that wicked girl on the floor - though she certainly deserved the comeuppance she got. The wooden desk in front of me looks like it has at least half an inch of wax or some kind of oil on it, giving it a high shine. Someone has ruined the surface right under the edging, by the drawer - the drawer! - by scratching several straight lines into it. the indentations are so deep, it must have taken a while to create if the lady had used something small like a pin. 

I carry on hyperventilating now even though I'm fine, thinking to carry on the illusion as I edge the drawer open as slowly as I can. It must have been a new addition to an older dressing table because it keeps sticking as I pull it out. The draw is velvet lined and filled with blunt objects like another stupid hairbrush, but feeling in the gap the drawer has made under the table shows that, ahah, I am right. A few nails are sticking out, and I'm sure that I can loosen just one...

"For my sake, stop making that stupid sound, would you? You do know I can literally hear your heart beating? And it has been quite stable for some time now." I hear his brisk footsteps. 

I carry on heavy-breathing anyway, for real now, as I quickly try and wiggle this stupid piece of metal- 

BANG.

The prince - because, by the entitled way this man/thing/Other speaks, he is no peasant - has slammed the drawer shut and clipped by forefinger in the process. Worrying the finger with my thumb, the nail is definitely broken though I cannot feel any blood. I carry on going at the nail, even looser now with the force of the drawer. 

Resting his hand on the edge of my vanity, he crowds over the front me. 

"Hello again, poison ivy of mine."

I abruptly stop wheezing, confused, and ask, "You what?"

Affronted, the stranger says, "That wasn't very polite." 

I say stranger because he simply is. I would not have known he was a prince because no crown sits on his brow, and his outfit is positively askew and his hair is so bedded it sticks in every direction. The only way I know for sure he is of royal position - potentially not even a prince - is simply from the way he holds himself. He looks at me unapologetically, so I have to hide my eyes, and he carries himself confidently and so used to the stares of many. 

"I do not know you, sir." My nail is broken, and I fiddle with the jagged hangnail. "The only Other people I have met are the Princes of passion, envy and pride, sir." When I press on my nail-bed, it stings and I enjoy the distraction the pain brings. 

"Don't be obtuse, Ameline." 

"Who?" 

"You told me your name was Ameline, under ensorcellment too." 

"No, I did not."

"Yes, you did."

"No, I-" 

WHACK.

The prince has slapped me round the face with the same hand that previously rested leisurely before me. I am so shocked that I hadn't even realised the force of the blow sent me flying toward the window, and I now looked into the dead girls dead eyes on her dead face. Why does death follow me? I think as I raised a hand to my sore cheek, but the tears do not spring. 

"Why?"

"Why what? Why are you so obtuse?" His boots attached to legs appear behind the dead girl. "I'd certainly like to know."

"No, you prick, why did you kill her?"

"As if you care."

"I don't. But I'd still like to know," I paused as I pushed myself up with one hand. "So I don't end up like her."

He laughs like I have said something outrageously funny, and I'm not talking about a dead girl.

Ignoring him, I really take in what this girl looked like before, moving my hand from my face to hers to tear away the wires. She was very pretty, much more so than I am; with high cheekbones and full lips. Even though I wished for it when I realised she had played me a fool, she did not deserve to die so young. I say so to the prince, prince of what I still do not know.

"You think she is young?" He laughs so heavily he falls onto his arse, leaning back on his elbows alongside me as he howls. "This bitch is over a hundred years old, stupid cow." He punctuates the insult by nudging her towards me with one of his asymmetric brogues.

She has rolled forward towards me so her face is shoved into the carpeted floor. She doesn't have a single white or grey hair on her head, so he must be drunk or lying. I expect the latter.

"Anyway, I don't believe you still." He drags his hand down his face as he continues, "I expect your simple mind is still in shock at seeing that you did not, in fact, succeed in killing an immortal prince."

"Quite silly of you really." He says as he looks over at me and assessed my deep frown, before standing again.

"To answer your question, I killed her because she was being irritating and wouldn't do your hair for the ball. Now get ready."

He pauses as he tries to straighten his impossibly creased jerkin. "I need to see what you'll look like for when I inevitably embarrass you horribly and deviously tomorrow as revenge.

You can't embarrass me."