Chapter 5: She Loves Me, She Loves Me Not

There wasn’t much to make out from this grey slate. The cold air was dry and the land was even drier. After a while, I got used to the sulfuric fumes constantly riding up my nose and churning my stomach. My body acclimated, while the princess a few steps behind me continued to complain. I get it, she was agitated and wanted nothing more than to go back home. So was I, but the difference was that I wasn’t theatrical about it.

I shouldn’t expect much grit and perseverance from a girl like her. I could be being judgmental, but based off her appearance, she seemed like she was from the upper class. That being said, it made sense why she’d know how to use a gun. Rich folk in Ebonmere had the power and tools to equip their estate and their children with weapons to keep criminals at bay, while the rest of Ebonmere barricaded their homes and prayed for a quick death once their time came.

I had nothing against her. It was her upbringing that made her snobbish and over-privileged, believing the world needed to cater to her needs at every turn. Didn’t mean that she didn’t annoy me, though.

“This is… as far as I’ll go,” she panted, dropping her hands on her knees and slouching over exhausted.

I turned my head over my shoulder and looked at her. “We’ve only been walking for under thirty minutes.”

“You might be accustomed to the rough and rugged outback, but I am a woman of high class and social stature! I will not survive in a place like this! I need a roof over my head! Clean clothes! Clean water!”

“And a caviar bar with the finest selection of aged wine. Yeah, I get it. But we aren’t at daddy’s vineyard anymore. Hate to break it to ya.”

She gasped, shocked that I’d insulted her. Then she scrunched her face angrily at me. All of a sudden she had enough strength to march right up to me and run her mouth. “You don’t know anything about me! You might think that I fall under the stereotype, but I’ll have you know that my family comes from a long line of social workers, and farmers, and philanthropists, doctors and lawyers!”

Her statement made me stop my stride, and I gave her my full attention. “Is that right?”

“So before you cast judgment upon me, recognize that I’m a Belmauer. Faye Eloise Belmauer, of the grand Belmauer Manor!”

I narrowed my eyes on her. “Sitting in the castle on top of that hill, can you honestly say that you can see the suffering of your fellow people?”

She held her breath.

“It’s pretty hard to see, beyond the large golf course, the lavish poolside and your father’s corrupt system of overturning capitalism with an iron fist. He may be supplying Ebonmere with goods and resources, but he is also forcing small businesses who have been helping those less fortunate to shut down, thus building toward his empire. If he is as giving as you say he is, then he wouldn’t feel the need to steamroll over homes to expand his businesses, forcing more people into poverty. All the while, blackmailing the press to stuff media headlines with juicy cover stories which make him out to be a great Samaritan. The people forced to live in the slums know better. But he has power, and we have, well… rats.”

“That is not true!” she defended. “My father made sure those homes had been abandoned before building on the land! His competition, they are making up false stories about my father, to make him out to be the criminal!”

“What competition? No one is competing against a tyrant like that. And if you’re too blind to see it, well, I can’t really help you, now, can I?” I turned back and continued my stride. “Not to mention, no one is abandoning homes in Ebonmere. No matter how filthy and rundown they are. Anything is better than living in the streets.”

“You are wrong,” she persisted, marching right behind me. “My family is helping Ebonmere! If we weren’t, then my father would have made us leave a long time ago!”

“And leave a goldmine?” I replied. “He makes money here, draining the gullible dry. Why would he move his businesses elsewhere, where he would have to rebuild and re-strategize? Your father might be a crook but he isn’t stupid. And those doctors and lawyers you speak of, I see them hovering over the upper class districts. Helping anyone who has money. They aren’t as charitable as you’re making them out to be.”

“I’m done trying to convince you! You seem to have your mind made up about my family, and about me! Ebonmere would have been a worse place without them! These people would have died out a long time ago! You might think that you’re doing the citizens of Ebonmere a favor by slaughtering masses by the hundreds, but you are only making things worse! You’re demonstrating crime, showing everyone that criminals like you will not be punished and persecuted! That within itself creates more monsters, more villains that our once flourishing home doesn’t need! You’re no savior! You’re not the answer to these people’s prayers! You’re just like them, the same as those savages who continue to populate our world with maliciousness and sin!”

I snorted. “A bit religious there, aren’t we?”

“I am a child of god, while you are a child of sin!”

“Sweetheart, you’re no saint.”

She grunted, storming ahead of me as if she had an idea of where she was going. “I should have killed you when I had the chance!”

A Belmauer—I already knew that I was going to have my hands tied with her. This must have been what Karma felt like, because her father was supposed to have died by my hands a few months ago. I remembered being called by a few townspeople to do them the dirty deed, and the favor was to assassinate the great Belmauer himself. My guts had told me no on a few occasions, stopping me from taking on the assignment no matter how many times they had begged me to. I couldn’t say why I had not gone through with it. Maybe because he didn’t quite fit my bill. He was an asshole, but he wasn’t the type of asshole that spilled blood.

And I had no proof of him hiring out to kill either.

I guess if I had went along with it, then this little adventure would have been real awkward. I was pretty sure then, she wouldn’t have had a problem putting one between my eyes back there. Faye was the youngest of the three Belmauer sisters, but also the one no one really talked about. She made it her business to stay out of the public eye, unlike Fiona and Francesca who had a nasty habit of preaching their father’s good work through exploitation. Which begged the question—exactly what in the hell was she doing in the dark parts of Ebonmere tonight?

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“Hey, look! Over there!” she beamed, pointing her finger forward. I noticed a stream beyond the thinning fog and heard the sound of water crashing into rocks through my frost-bitten ears. Beyond the stream was a forest line, with soaring trees and thick foliage. I scanned the horizon for a path and didn’t see any, but I doubt this section of the wasteland hadn’t been discovered yet. Especially if us outsiders didn’t have a problem stumbling into it.

“What the hell are you doing?” I asked her, the girl giddily leaping over rocks and stone to make her way to the stream.

“It’s water, what do you think I’m doing?” she sassed back. The blond in the red dress knelt along the brim and dipped her head forward, looking back at her own reflection under the cloudy moonlight.

“It looks like you’re considering drinking out of that thing,” I retorted, keeping a few yards behind her.

“It looks safe and clean,” she said, making me wince. “I say we take the opportunity while we can. Who knows if we will run into another stream again.”

“I know you are desperate, but don’t let that cloud your common sense.”

She snapped her neck at me. “Listen, I am thirsty, I am dirty, and feel the incredible need to wash the stench of that foul beast off my skin! Now, unless the next words that come out of your mouth are, go right ahead, then I suggest you be quiet and mind yours!”

I smirked, surrendering my hands up. “Go right ahead.”

She brought her hands together into a cup, then went for it. “Oh, it sparkles!” she happily said. “And the water… surprisingly warm for such frigid temperature.”

A sparkling warm elixir?

Right… this had red flags written all over it. But I allowed the classy lady to indulge, watching her sip the mystery liquid. The first taste must have been amazing, because she went in for more. One gulp after the other, engorging herself like someone who hadn’t had something to drink in days. She even went as far as to submerge her face in it, making me shirk back a step.

What the hell— was the stream made out of wine?

I didn’t have to know Faye to see that this was outside of her norm. So I walked up behind her, putting my hand over her shoulder. “Hey, that’s enough,” I ordered her, but instead of snapping at me, she turned around, and I got to see the love drunken look in her huge stargazed eyes. 

“You must try this, Butcher,” she cooed, as if she were in a trance.

I raised a brow up and refused. “No thanks. We need to keep heading north. If there’s a bank, then civilization may not be too far ahead.”

“Civilization?” she mumbled, her cheeks growing a hot rose color. “Who needs a civilization when we have each other?”

What?

She sprung at me, catching me off guard with the outpour of affection and lust. Faye wrapped her happy arms around my neck, with her perky breasts sitting on my chest. “We can start our own village, with a farm, cabins, and inhabit them with a few kids of our own,” she purred with a raunchy look on her bright face.

“I’m convinced that you’ve finally lost it.”

“No, handsome, it’s quite the opposite,” she said, strumming her delicate fingertips along my jawline tenderly while she gazed at me awestruck. “I’ve found the man of my dreams! Strong, brave, and sinfully sexy.”

What in the hell was in that stream? One second she hated my guts, and then the next, she couldn’t keep her hands off me.

I didn’t have time to decipher this code, hearing something brush along the ground behind us. When I looked back, I saw nothing there, just the same old barren wasteland smiling darkly at me. But the longer I honed in on this fleeting sound, the more this looming feeling continued to surround me. I grabbed the hilt of my dagger and grounded my feet, Faye taking the hint and stepping behind me.

“Something is staging for an ambush,” I whispered, my eyes shifting left and right. “Stay behind me.”

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