Page 27 of Savage King

I check under the covered dishes: bacon, eggs—scrambled, over medium, and hard boiled—slices of ham, waffles, pancakes. I'm not sure what army Antonio expected for breakfast. There is no way I can even eat a fraction of all this. It looks delicious, though.I've never been someone who throws money out the window, but neither have I not indulged on occasions, and this seems like one. I know it’s a waste of food, but I can't help it. I nibble on everything. A couple bites of waffles, half an over medium egg, a slice of bacon, a few bites of ham, another bite of pancakes—the most delicious, fluffy pancakes I ever had—so I take another bite, and then a third, and before I know it, I ate half of them, and I'm stuffed to the gills. I look regretfully at the yogurt parfait, croissants, rolls, and muffins—an entire breakfast buffet.

After I shower and wash my hair, I'm exhausted again and sleep for an hour; when I wake up and look at the clock, it's only eleven in the morning. I groan. What am I supposed to do all day?

I'm not used to lying around not doing anything. Even on the rare occasions that I'm sick, I always have my laptop to answer e-mails, check on new incoming artifacts, review notes from what I've been working on… shit. That reminds me. Work!

I hope Dad has thought about calling them. I don't want to lose my job on top of everything else, too. I wonder if Antonio will allow me to call my boss later and let him know that I'm out for a few days. Car accident sounds like a good excuse, just in case my cut isn't healed until then, or my face… oh, but then they're supposed to think I'm dead… shit… I hate doing that to my friends.

Restless, I get up from the bed, feeling stronger than I did earlier this morning. Wearing another one of Antonios’ shirts—I do need some clothing—I make my way to the door. I half expect it to be locked, but it opens. A man in a dark suit stands on the other side, watching me curiously. "Can I help you with anything, Miss Lambert?"

"Uhm…" I wasn't expecting this. "Can I go downstairs?"

He waves his hand in invitation and says something into a cord around his neck that attaches to his ear. He's probably telling other men like him that I'm on the prowl. I snicker at that word, but it popped into my head, and I like it. It makes me sound more dangerous than I am.

I nod at the man and walk down the long hallway that Antonio has carried me through a few times by now. The stairs look daunting when I look down, but at some point, I'll have to tackle them. Holding on to the banister, I make it halfway down before I notice how hard my heart is beating and how heavy my breathing is. I'm pretty sure I could make it all the way down, but there is no way in hell I'd be able to get back up. Not today. I sigh. Well, for my first outing, I didn't do too badly.

Two men stand by the entrance door, looking up at me. One asks, "Do you need help, Miss?"

"I'm fine, thank you," I reply, before turning to tackle the same stairs I just shuffled down. Unless the man down there is willing to carry me back up, I'm beyond help. And I'm not sure how I would feel about him carrying me.

Antonio has been carrying you for days, and you don't mind.

Maybe,I allow, unwilling to think about Antonio right now and the weird sensations he awakens in me.

By the time I make it back into bed, I'm out of breath, huffing and puffing like a ninety-year-old in dire need of oxygen. Shit. I'm in worse shape than I thought.

I take another nap. This one isn't peaceful, though. In it, I'm hanging from the ceiling, helpless, wet, and cold. It's not Hank and Marco who are with me, though; it’s my mom, brandishing her beloved switch.

I told you one day you would ruin him, she says.You're nothing but a spoiled brat.

Please, Mom, no, I beg in the same little girl's voice I remember from years ago.You ruin everything, you little brat. Everything. First, you ruined me, and now you've ruined your father.She swings the switch at me; I can already anticipate what it will feel like, the stinging pain, the blood. But before it makes contact, I sit up with a start. My heart is racing even faster now than before; sweat trickles down my body. I hate these dreams. Even worse than the memories. At least the memories are somewhat controllable.

A knock on the door startles me. "Enter," I call out tentatively in a shaky voice. A maid comes in, pushing another cart laden with food.

"I brought your lunch, Miss Scarlet. Is there anything else you like or need?"

"Besides an Uber to get out of here?"Shit, Scarlet,what the hell? "I'm sorry. I'm really sorry, that was uncalled for," I apologize to the startled maid.

She forces a smile to her lips, "No worries, Miss Scarlet."

She doesn't ask me again if I need anything else and rolls the breakfast tray out.

"Thank you," I call after her, but the door is already closing, and I'm not sure if she heard me.

"What the hell is wrong with you?" I mutter to myself. Never in my life have I taken my mood out on anybody else, least of all a person who is just doing their job.

I'm not hungry at all, so I don't even go check what's on the cart. Instead, I roll over, hug a pillow that smells of Antonio, and bury my face inside. A new wave of tiredness overcomes me. I try to fight going back to sleep, worried about more disturbing dreams, but I lose, and my eyes close.

My thoughts drift to my mom and why she hated me so much. I have had plenty of time to think about it over the last few years. I never went to a shrink, but it doesn't take a genius to figure out my mom's motivation, or at least some of it. She used to be a beauty queen. A real looker. She might have made it to Miss Universe, or so she said, but she never got to find out, because she fell pregnant with me. I wasn't wanted. She made that perfectly clear. She even tried to abort me with the morning-after pill, but it didn't work. She threw this tidbit at me during one of her rants; I don't think my father knew about it.

They had been married by then, and Dad had proudly shown his wife off to his coworkers. Mom, for her part, loved all the attention lavished on her. Not only because of her looks, but because she was ajudge'swife. Someone respectable. Someone educated, someone who would never again be recognized as having come from the wrong side of the tracks. I was sure that her looks had a lot to do with several doors opening for Dad. That, and my mom was an excellent actress. She could change her persona from one second to the next—one of the reasons why she was able to keep her abuse of me from my father for over a decade. She might have been born on the wrong side of the tracks, but she fit right in with the class of people Dad surrounded himself with. He came from old money; his father had been a mayor in his time. And Mom learned fast. Or so I imagined. Some of my knowledge of her and Dad comes from them, while others are sheer projections.

Anyway, my birth was hard on her. It ended in a c-section, which also ended her dreams of becoming Miss Universe. "Nobody wants to see this scar on a girl," she would whine. "It's all your fault. Your fault."

Her words followed me as I slowly slipped off into sleep.

"Call the Judge,"I tell Siri, drumming my fingers on the wheel to the sound of drums from the speakers.

Bruce picks up before the first ring even finishes. He's been waiting, "How's my daughter?"

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