Post by Eden Morgan on Jun 3, 2017 19:36:16 GMT -5
The rain was unrelenting, the clouds making the already darkening sky even more dreary. I wasn't often one for scenes like this, but I found myself more excited than I'd been in a long time. The smell of a story hung in the air, and I was hungry for it, hungry for the promise of it--
I could barely believe it when I got the call from her. She'd been so busy with other press, I didn't expect that call, so I'd made do with others, but she was the one I wanted. Always her. Everyone wanted her. Anyone who said otherwise was a liar.
Eden Morgan. The story of her climb from the bottom to the top was a fairy tale to the industry, all glitter and gold, confetti streamers. I didn't want that. I wanted the dirty underbelly of what I knew the woman was, the rotten core beneath the succulent fruit of the most infamous act at the biggest jazz club in town, her premiere time slot now threatened.
The stories told not only of her darkly innocent beauty, but also of her black widow embrace. She was manipulative, persuasive, greedy. Dangerous. She was reputed to have knives in her nylons and a dainty handgun swathed in a mink coat. It was said she brought the best and the worst out of men, a wildcat, who rumor had it, thrilled to the scent of blood. Loving her was like shaking hands with the devil. You might hate every vicious bone in her body, but you wouldn't be able to get her out of your mind. Men, women, none were immune.
Yeah, I knew what she was and what I was walking into. Eden Morgan, like Delilah and Jezebel from the Bible. A deluge of destruction. I knew, I was no stranger to the stories, and I was no beginner, wet-behind-the-ears and green with inexperience. I knew exactly what I was looking at when I walked out of the grey rain and into the colorful embrace of the jazz club. Her jazz club.
She sat there at a table tucked out of the way, staring out a window between the slats provided by the obstructive blinds into that dreary downpour. Darkness seemed to threaten her from all sides, though she was saved by a bright light casting its glow partially on her from overhead. Her elegant fingers were wrapped around the body of an untouched glass, and I knew the vision she painted with her own body was for my benefit.
I knew.
And yet-- yet I found it hard to believe that this creature, this vision with the shadows threatening to swallow her whole, the patch of light that illuminated her face her salvation and mine-- how could it be that such a creature could be guilty of the perfidy I had heard tale of? When she turned her eyes from the rain-soaked glass of the window to meet mine, I knew the truth.
She couldn't be.
I saw it all in those crystal-blue orbs, the unblemished porcelain of her skin a stark contrast to the beckoning truth within her sultry gaze. Before she had even spoken, she made me love her lies, love her games.
Love her.
Once I remembered how to speak, I cleared my throat.
“Ms. Morgan,” I said by way of introduction, ashamed at how my voice was so strangled before the siren. “Thank you for--”
“Oh, it's no trouble,” she said, waving away my concern with a graceful movement of a hand, and I was entranced by it. I knew I was in trouble already.
Breathy. Her voice was breathy.
“Please, Roxy, can I call you Roxy?” she asked, and I jumped, eager to give her something that might please her.
“Yes, yes please,” I answered eagerly, my words rewarded with a benevolent smile.
“Then you must call me Eden, of course,” she said, placing a hand on my arm, and I suddenly knew what it must have felt like to the ancients to be touched by the finger of a goddess. Long after her skin had broken contact with mine, I felt the tantalizing burn of those fingertips--
“Roxy?”
I started, and I cursed myself inwardly because it became obvious that she had been gracing me with her voice, but I had been too dumbstruck to realize it.
I was in trouble.
The angel of mercy smiled at me, again bestowing that benevolence. She held a hand out to the seat across from herself.
“Please, sit. Order a drink if you like. It's on the house.”
I sat woodenly and then shook myself. I dragged my eyes away from hers with great difficulty, turning instead to watch as my hands fumbled at the notebook I carried. I managed to get it open, but dropped my pen on the ground. I think I gave her a weak smile and some sort of mumbled apology, nothing at all worthy of her, but she graciously accepted anyway. I quickly bent to retrieve my writing utensil and hopefully regain some form of professional dignity, my gaze drawn to her stockinged legs, the garters at her thighs visible beneath the fringe of the dress she wore for her act. For so petite a woman, she was said to have the best gams in the business, and being this close, I couldn't help but agree. As if she could feel my stare, her legs started to shift, honed muscles moving with the silkened grace of a predatory animal beneath her skin, the skirt sliding centimeters at a time up her thighs--
I quickly righted myself, and I knew a blush stained my cheeks, but there was nothing I could do for it. A secretive smile curved the corners of her sensual mouth, and I knew she knew.
I was in trouble.
“That drink, Roxy?”
I stared at her in confusion before understanding took me.
“Oh-- no, I'm fine, thank you. I don't typically drink, and not this early--”
Her face instantly fell, her lower lip protruding just the slightest bit, a faint tremble taking it over as those amazing eyes turned to sadness.
“Oh. I hate to drink by myself,” she said, tracing designs in the condensation decorating the glass, the glass that practically begged to have her lips pressed against its surface. She flashed a coquette's look at me, almost hidden beneath a fan of thick, black lashes. I was stammering my drink order before I even realized what I wanted, and as I watched the waiter move away from us, I realized I wasn't even sure what I had said.
I was in trouble.
But then she smiled on me, and all was well again.
“Eden,” her name fell from my lips like a prayer from a worthless sinner. “You called me to-- to set this up. I assume we're going to be addressing the pervasive rumors---?” I left it hanging, open-ended, hoping to finally get the story started before I was completely lost. The server returned and gently placed my glass down. I stared at the clear contents of the glass, puzzling at the contents and the nature of the drink within. With alarm, I watched as the Ice Queen, as she was known, drew a pristine handkerchief from within the confines of her figure-hugging dress. She dabbed at the corners of her eyes before completely breaking down into wracking sobs, her delicate shoulders shaking.
I didn't know what to do, but I knew what I wanted to do. I wanted to destroy whoever had caused such grief to overcome this beautiful, shining figure.
“Eden, please, tell me what's going on?” I was unable to keep the concern for her out of my voice. It was all I could do not to rush to her, press myself against her side and offer her comfort, even if it meant my soul.
“I'm-- I'm in trouble, Roxy-- big trouble,” she said softly, her tears thick and clinging to her voice like a jealous lover.
“Tell me,” I was practically on the verge of begging, and I knew once again that I was in trouble, possibly more trouble than she.
“Who are you in trouble with, Eden?” I tried again when my previous question received no answer. It was then that she raised her eyes to me, eyes that had already been brilliant before but now were shimmering pools of bewitching blue, filled with unshed tears. Even after the crying jag, she still looked as perfect as she had when I had first entered the club. I knew that if I had engaged in such a bout of emotion, I would be red-faced, blotchy, and unattractive. Not so, my Queen.
“Everyone,” came the breathy, whispered answer, and I knew that I would go to war for her against anyone and everyone.
I knew what she was, but like so many before, she drew me in. As she drew me in, I knew I would be expelled in flame.
Just like so many before.
“Is this because of--” I began my question, but she seemed as impatient as I had been earlier.
“The Ultimate Melange,” she offered before dabbing at her eyes, careful of the eyeliner expertly lining those magnificent windows to her very soul. “I don't know what to do anymore, Roxy. I've been-- attacked, brutalized, seduced, and betrayed. Roxy, they want my spot,” her eyes fill with tears once more, threatening to overflow.
“Oh, but Eden, you're the Queen, everyone knows that, and you'll be the Queen even without that spot--”
“NO!” her dainty fist slammed the surface of the table, an immediate change in her demeanor, and in that instant, I saw the Ice Queen, I saw the dragon, I saw the downfall of us all. She was everything the stories made her out to be and more. “No. That spot is mine,” her words were a hiss now, slithering down my spine, and though I knew I wasn't her competition, I quailed. “I fought for it, I earned it, and I will not give it up,” her eyes were as hard as her words now, and I saw, and I knew what she was.
And then it all became a dream as the hardened and strong exterior crumbled before my eyes until I beheld the woman deserving of so much sympathy from only seconds before. The change spun my head.
“H—how have you been attacked? Who attacked you?” I found myself asking, my mouth gone dry. I scooped up the glass before me and drunk deep. My eyes watered as straight gin filled my mouth and burned down my throat into my gut, rendering me speechless for the moment. Eden raised an arm in a statuesque arc, caressing the back of her head.
“He attacked me from behind, I don't even know why,” she replied, her voice shaky.
“Who did, my dear?” I asked, on the edge of my seat in anticipation.
“Donovan Hastings,” she answered dramatically, her voice distraught, her eyes dancing with wiles.
May 29, 2017
After Synergy
“ Oi there, Eds, good to see ya,” Jordan King announces, looking up from the paperwork he was immersed in at his desk as Eden Morgan enters the Head Trainer's office, an ice pack held to the back of her head.
“You wanted to see me?” she asks, wincing. She holds a hand out, suddenly dizzy, Jordan leaping to his feet and taking her outstretched hand in one of his, his other hand steadying her at her back.
“You alright there? That was a helluva blow you took to your head. I'd say you've managed to get on the bad side of the Lord of Pain,” UGWC's Head Trainer says, Eden shaking her head carefully as she finds her balance.
“Does he have any other side?”
Jordan gives her a look.
“You provoked him, Eds. Come on, I want to put you through some tests after that hit to the head,” he helps her up onto a table placed against the wall.
“I provoked him? How did I provoke that?! He started it!” she insists as Jordan uses a penlight to check her pupils. Satisfied, he clicks the light off.
“You know good and well how Donovan is, and you know that what you did last week wasn't just a tit for tat move, it was blowing an ant hill up with a bazooka in his mind,” Jordan lectures. Eden rolls her eyes.
“He just can't take a joke,” she says with mocking innocence.
“Was it a joke?” he asks, Eden saying nothing. “And Jet?” Jordan asks once he's done inspecting her scalp, signaling for her to hold her hands palms up and resist him pushing against them. Eden presses back, her expression blank.
“What about him?”
Jordan raises an eyebrow.
“I've been with the two of you since the beginning, Eds. I know what's at stake, and I know the history. The two of you could either put on a bout worthy of match of the year or you could tear the goddamned place apart, depending on both your moods and how you're walking into this,” he indicates she should close her hands around three of his fingers, to check her grip bilaterally.
“I'm walking into this with both eyes wide open, Jordan. If I know what anyone's capable of, it's Jet. Nothing he does surprises me anymore. He'll paint it all black and try to martyr himself for the idea of me he holds in his big, beating heart,” she says cynically, Jordan watching her somberly.
“Is it just an idea, Edie?” he asks.
“I don't know, is it?” she counters, arching an eyebrow.
The Queen had finished off her drink and it was quickly replaced with another. She was done reciting her tale of woe, the tale of her attack at the hands of Donovan Hastings. I knew she was waiting for a response from me, but my brain was battling itself like one of those war reels from the picture shows. She was the victim, wasn't she?
Or was she?
“I can't imagine how you must feel, having such a target on your back,” I smiled at the diplomacy I'd managed, but her forlorn sigh negated any point I'd won myself.
“You mentioned you've been-- brutalized?” I asked, searching for the very word that had come so easily to her tongue.
“My very name has been brutalized, Roxy, maligned by bottom-feeders who try to claim my successes for their own and attempt to slide their slippery selves in beside me as if they are the reason for my successes when they've known nothing but failure,” she said bitterly, and I saw something else dancing in the depths of her gaze this time.
Anger.
“Who would do such a thing? Don't they know all that you have achieved? Why, you've broken down barriers for women in this business! It was you who made it believable and possible for a woman to thrive at this time slot, you who has reinvigorated the business with new life when it was struggling, you--”
“Yes,” she preened before me, my benevolent siren. “Of course, I am all you say. But some would twist the truth and make it into their own image, because the image they've created for themselves isn't fitting for polite society.”
It was then that I knew exactly who she had been talking about. It could be none other than Gabrielle Montgomery, the woman who had worked and worked years ago just to get within breathing distance of the act and time slot Eden had claimed within months of her arrival. How it must sting her vanity to know that she had climbed as high as she could, but her talent wasn't enough to take her as far as she wished to go, and as far as Eden could go seemingly with ease. I could well imagine the bitter pill it must be for her to swallow to stand in the back, clad in hand-me-downs, while the Queen, dressed in silks and the finest furs, headlined the show in the premiere slot. It was well known that only through her tawdry seduction of management had she managed to get herself and her failing partner out of the opening number and into another, even after they had recently been booed out of the very same act.
“No one could possibly take anything she says seriously,” I assured her, and she seemed satisfied with my answer, possibly grateful. I found myself wanting to bask in the glow of that light her thankfulness provided, but I knew my duty, and there was more to the story that I was aching to learn. One particular bit of gossip had reached my ears. I was eager to learn the truth of it, and one of her claims gave me my opening.
“I don't mean to change the subject, Eden, but you did also say you had been seduced, and it made me wonder at it, and also-- I hope you'll forgive me being a gossipmonger, but I've heard rumor that you and Mr. King are no longer together?” I asked the question and held my breath, not sure of what I was hoping for. Her dark lashes flitted upward in a sweep as she leaned back, disappearing into the cloak of the shadows for a moment, and for that moment, the spell was broken. I stared dumbly at the few words I'd managed to capture on the mostly white sheet of paper before me. I vowed that I would do better-- but then she moved once more, and she was framed perfectly within the light. She leaned forward across the table and glanced to either side, despite the fact that there was no one around us and the downpour outside kept gawkers away from the windows. She leaned forward and glanced about as if the secret she was obviously about to reveal was the most delicious piece of candy, and she wanted to suck on it for as long as possible before offering it up to my pleasure. Her perfume wafted out toward me and slipped into me like the most precious of gifts, and I was hers all over again.
I was in trouble.
“Killian and I-- he also has the opportunity to try to take my time slot.”
My eyes grew round in my head, and I couldn't stop the gasp of surprise.
“But surely he wouldn't-- he wouldn't take it, he loves you, he knows what it means to you, he wouldn't--” I started and stopped as I watched the vision before me shake her head sadly.
“He would. He's done it before. I saw what was coming, and I-- I tried to distance myself from it, and him, to try to prepare myself to compete against my love. At first he agreed to it as well--” she trailed off and lowered her lashes, a pale flush of color staining her cheeks. I waited for her to continue, but the silence held once more.
“And then what?” I prompted, unconsciously mimicking her previous movements as I, too, looked side-to-side and leaned in, my voice barely above a whisper. Her lashes swept upward, her eyes meeting mine, but my gaze could move no further than the crimson fullness of her lips as they moved when she spoke.
“And then he showed up at my door.”
New Orleans
Eden pulls the door to her apartment open, eyes widening at the sight standing there before her.
“Killian!” she says in surprise.
“Love,” he says smoothly, the scent of his cologne filling her and setting off a chain reaction within her body. He leans against the door frame lazily, his state of calm repose not fooling Eden. She was well aware his every movement was a calculation, measured and well thought out ahead of time. The sharp edge of the turned up collar of the trench coat he wears hugs his neck and draws attention to the perfect angle of his jawline. She notices the stubble there, feeling the urge to run her lips over it, to--
“Aren't you going to invite me in?” he asks, his words shaking her out of her stupor. “After all, you called and asked me to come by.”
Eden smiles, looking up at him from beneath her lashes.
“Maybe I missed you?” she coyly makes a question of it and moves to the side, gesturing for him to enter. He steps through the door, closing it behind him, and turns back into Eden pressing against him, winding her arms around his neck.
“You chose this distance, remember?” he asks, unable to keep his hands off of her.
“I had my reasons,” she says before pressing a quick kiss to his lips and then disentangling herself from him. She moves through the kitchen, putting the island between them.
“What's this about, Eden?” he asks, fighting the urge to lick the taste of her from his lips.
Eden raises an eyebrow.
“I missed you, I wasn't lying,” she says sincerely. Killian nods.
“I know you weren't, but your goal hasn't happened yet, and until it does, you'll tell every truth that's convenient for you to tell except for the right one.”
“Kill--” Eden starts.
“I know you, Eden,” Killian reminds her as he removes the coat, draping it along the back of a chair. Eden taps her fingers along the countertop, moving closer and closer to him, sliding her hand along the surface.
“Sometimes I forget just how well you know me, Kill. I mean, there are those who say they know me--”
“I assume you mean Jet,” Killian puts in, watching as she sways her way over to him. She stops, smiling at his words before drawing slowly more near.
“Yes, Jet would be one. He'll claim to know me better than anyone, but that's not true is it? He knows what he wants to know. Even with knowledge of my history and having gotten a behind-the-scenes look, he still doesn't quite know me, does he?” she finally reaches him, leaning up on tiptoe. When she speaks, her lips barely brush against his as she holds her body like a vibrating like just over his, their energies merging but nothing actually touching. “You know me, Killian, every part of me. You know what it's all about.”
His hands were suddenly on either side of her waist, holding her still before him, his fingers digging into her hips, and she knew there would be marks from this encounter.
“Don't destroy us again, Eden. It's not worth it,” he whispers almost desperately before his mouth comes crashing down on hers, the heat that had been threatening to alight suddenly a conflagration. As his lips trace a trail of burning kisses down her throat she whispers into the air.
“It's always worth it.”
I hadn't expected her to discuss so fully and explicitly the details of their meeting, but when she was done, I found that I had been holding my breath through much of it as I took in panting gasps in order to gain what I had lost. She sat as perfect as she had been the entire time, the faintest of glows gracing her heavenly flesh, as if the recitation of such sensual and sinful behavior had brought her pleasure. My mouth was again dry, and I hurriedly scooped up my glass of gin. The ice within clinked together as the edges slipped against and over each other. I looked down into that glass, wondering how something so cold could still manage to warm my already overheated body, and I realized that the movements of the ice replicated the movements of the bodies told of in the story I had heard only moments before. My cheeks were stained crimson when I finally lowered the glass, my attention caught as I noticed that we were no longer alone. The waitstaff had drawn up several chairs and sat slack-jawed and spent at the tale of passion we had just been regaled with.
Eden lifted her glass to her lips and slid its smooth surface along the suppleness of her pout in a manner that left me unsure of whether it was deliberate or not. I didn't know what she was drinking, but I watched her swallow, watched her throat work with the gesture and envisioned the path her libation would take through her body--
I was in trouble.
“And-- what did he say after you had-- after what you had shared-- what did he say?” I asked, and I knew I stammered, and I didn't care one whit.
She seemed to fold in on herself, her sorrow a painful knife in all of us.
“I had missed him so very, very much. His seduction was careful and well-planned, and aimed straight at my heart. I should have remembered that he had none,” she uttered softly, and I was struck by the recollection that it had been said just the opposite, he had the heart and she was without. I now knew the truth of the matter.
“I asked if he would withdraw himself from the competition and stand with me,” her words were steady, but there was the tiniest hint of a tremble to her voice.
“And will he?” I found myself asking, though I already knew the answer and dreaded to hear it fall from her lips.
“No. He will take what is mine, if he can,” the answer sounded like a thunderclap throughout the area, and I knew any hearts that weren't hers already had just become so.
“I can't believe-- so what happened after?” I demanded the question, wished the scoundrel Killian King and his partner Alan Wallace were there before me. I intended to give the two rapscallions a dressing down at the first opportunity, though I knew visions of what Eden had described had passed between her and Killian would slip into my thoughts and likely render me speechless.
“He left,” Eden said emptily, an audible gasp filling the air.
“No!” I breathed out the word in horror and outrage. How dare he use her so? How dare he not stand beside her in the place bequeathed to him, a place where he should be honored to be. There were suddenly mutterings around us. I caught the faintest whisper of one of the waitstaff plotting deviance against the duo known by the scintillating byline of Sex and Violence, the act of watching the two of them simultaneously tickle the ivories enough to send more than one lady in attendance into an attack of the vapors. Of course such a god of a man should be with a woman of Eden's likeness, but to treat her so—I could see that it pained her, and I wanted to spare her what grief I could.
“You mentioned-- a betrayal. Who?” I asked, and I realized I was as broken by her tale as I sounded. When I saw her face fall and tears filled her eyes once more, I wished for nothing more than to take my words back, the words that had so offended her ears and sensibilities. I cursed myself for uttering them and briefly considered ripping out my own voice box and handing it to her as a gift, dripping in my all too human blood. The one thing that stayed me was that she deserved to decorate her hands in far better.
“My brother,” came the beaten voice of the most heavenly of angels, as it fell on our unworthy ears.
Boston
“Four years, Jet. We've had other matches, but this particular one has been four years in the making.”
Eden Morgan sits atop a turnbuckle in the middle of a freshly built ring inside the arena known affectionately as “The Garden”. The UGWC World Championship graces her bare shoulder.
“The last time the two of us, and only the two of us, fought over a World Championship, you held it and I took it. My first title win, and my first run as UGWC's World Champion. The first female. The two of us ushered in a historic moment in UGWC's history when I sent you down the river in the Valhalla Burial match. When you crossed that curtain, history was made within this company, and my name became legend. But we all know that story, don't we? We all know the story of Eden Morgan and Jet Somers, a twisted tale that everyone around us begs us not to repeat. They know our history, and I wonder how many quailed when they saw the match to end all matches coming down the pipeline. Donovan and I may share sharp barbs between the ribs, but me and you? We prefer to bury our blades in each others' hearts and destroy everyone around us in the process.”
She kicks her feet against against the ringpost, her hands clasped easily before her.
“Four years later, and where are we now? Maybe the better question would be, what exactly have you done this year to make you believe that you're capable of stepping within the ring with me?” Eden raises her face, her blue eyes icy and hard. “You've lost every match that really counted, Jet, while I've been winning them all. You kicked one of the oldest relics UGWC has had the misfortune to sign, in your own words, from January to June. That is your headline for the last six months. Mine- I beat the man who ended Travis Roberts' streak so badly that he quit not long after; I then went on to not only beat the proposed golden child, the signing that all of management was so happy about, the one who was supposed to change UGWC to fit his image, CJ Wylde-- I not only beat him, he became a shadow of his former self afterward. So much so that he even lost to Gabrielle. CJ Wylde is a broken man, and he was nothing more to me than a toy; Mil Vidas Jr. is a broken man, and he was even less. Both are broken now, and it's because of me. Now are you absolutely sure you want to step into this ring knowing what's happened to the past two who have threatened my reign and given our prior history?”
She looks away and then looks back.
“'Do what you have to do.' That's what I told you, just a manner of weeks ago. I told you that, Jet, not just because I know what we're each capable of when there's something we want, I know what we sometimes find ourselves having to do. I didn't want there to be any excuses, I wanted us to have free reign, but mostly you. Call it the remnants of guilt I held over the things I've done that no amount of forgiveness could wash away. I wasn't aware that you were already playing by those rules. I was blinded then, but now I know that while we held hands out to each other in friendship and as a gesture of our familial ties, your other held a knife. I didn't know you were capable of such patience or that level of duplicity, but I should have. I learned it from you, and then the student became the teacher. But this- you've held that knife a long time, and I don't know when or how you planned to use it, but I can promise you it won't find its way into my flesh now. I know who you are, Jet Somers, and I see you.”
She hops down, padding across the canvas toward the camera.
“I see you, the man who insisted he was helping me, saving me from myself by having me locked away. And maybe you were right. But you had ulterior motives, didn't you, Jet? I imagine I've only just begun to learn them, but the answers are coming. So when I tell you 'do what you have to do' I hope you understand that the feeling behind it has changed for me; it's no longer something that I have to do because it's at the core of who I am, it's now something that I want to do. I want to know weeks ahead of time that you are the prey in my sights; I want to reel you in and taunt you with that knowledge and little bits of arrogance that we playfully bat back and forth; I want to take your deepest and darkest secrets and use them to sharpen my blade to a fine point, and just when I think it's enough, I'll continue; I want to set you on the hook that I put aside for you and you alone and watch you squirm, cast you away, then bring you back, because of course I could never do such a thing to the man I saw as my brother and my best friend. And then, when you've folded me into your supposedly protective embrace once more, I'll slide that knife into you; it will cut through your flesh like butter, and it will be so sharp you won't feel it until it's through your heart. And then, Jet, you'll know that I see you-- and you are in trouble.”
Eden reaches out, lifting the camera from the opposite ringpost, raising it to her face.
“I told you, I'll make you famous,” she says softly, the feed instantly dying.
Stunned, that was the only word for it. But amid my consternation at all these times she had been victimized, I heard the echoes.
Black widow embrace.
Knives in her nylons.
Wildcat, thrilled to the scent of blood.
None immune.
I sat and digested everything and found myself full to exploding. I looked at the siren sat across from me, every cell of her body impressing upon me just how drab and dowdy my own existence was. I looked at her, really looked at her-- and I wasn't sure what was real and what wasn't. Was she this embattled ingenue before me, or was she the scheming temptress I had heard tales of? I feared the answer, and I welcomed it.
“What are you?” I breathed the words. I thought I'd said the wrong thing, but realized I'd had the right of it. What, not who. I knew those words to be the most important question I had managed to ask during our entire meeting. And when our eyes met, I saw in the depths of hers with utmost certainty-- she knew. The smile that curled her lips was reminiscent of the one that must be given by the spider before it plunged its fangs into the juicy fly.
“What do you want me to be?” she asked, and as her words echoed through my head, I felt as though the rug had been torn from beneath my feet. When I finally gathered myself and pondered how seven simple words could have such meaning, I became aware that she was no longer across from me. Eden Morgan stood looking down at me, an almost pitying gaze.
“You should know by now, Roxy. There are no happy endings here.”
And with those words, my Queen gave me no further thought as she ascended to her untouchable throne.
I watched her go, and knew I was in trouble.