BENCHED (40 page)

"Princess. You will come with us,” Bjorn says.

I glance at them. "Come with you where?"

"Home," he says.

The word slips into me and through me like a knife, and my heart freezes solid. I can't speak; my throat is too choked. He strides forward and hands me an iPad. I take it, like a machine might, my movements jaggy and uncoordinated.

I find myself looking at the front page of
The Royal Exposé
website. On the cover are two images. On the right side is Jason… with me, my hood down, plain as day. On the left is Jason walking out of a room….

A locker room. With a woman. With Grandolf.

The headline reads,
PLAYER'S PRINCESS: How the quarterback melted the ice princess's heart! Will she shatter when he learns of his SECRET LOVE AFFAIR WITH PROFESSOR SEXY?

I begin to scream.

J
ason

"
Y
ou ready
, O Captain my Captain?" Akele booms.

Right now, I'm ready for anything. I grab my bag and head down the stairs to join the brothers. Today's game should be a breeze. We'll be playing the Penn College Warblers, who are about as intimidating as they sound. They don't have that whole "ridiculous name and dangerous team" thing the Honey Badgers roll with.

No game is easy, no enemy to be dismissed, but carrying Ana in my heart, I feel like I could lift the world. My blood sings in my veins, and my heart swells with joy for the first time I can really remember. The fact she'll be watching will only make my victory sweeter.

The brothers are praying silently, as they always do before we even leave the house. I leave them to it and drink a small protein shake while I wait. I don't want to take a bad hit and barf all over the field in front of Ana, but I can't go into battle on an empty stomach either.

A knock comes at the door. Coach might have sent one of the assistants down to hurry us up. The brothers rise from their kneeling prayers as I open the door and find Dee standing on my porch.

Her eyes are red and raw, tear marks tracked down her cheeks. I blink a few times and motion the brothers over.

"Dee? What happened? You look—"

She slaps me. Hard. There's a few different levels of woman-slap. This is a category IV. She puts her hips into it like a boxer and pistons on her foot. Her hand hits my face so hard, that after the pain and flash of light, my first thought is that she had to have broken her hand.

"You fucking disgusting slimeball cunt motherfucker predatory pig shit horselicker manslut fuckboy!" she shrieks, throwing herself at me.

Akele drags me back and steps between us. I'm still dazed by the whole thing, trying to figure out what the hell I've done now.

Akele holds his ex-girlfriend by the arm, mostly to keep her from clawing my eyes out. She's out for blood.

"What the hell?" I yell.

"You know exactly what, you fucking sleaze! How could you do this to her? I was starting to think you actually gave a shit about her, and now I find out about this?"

"What? Dee, you're not making any sense."

"You were fucking around behind her back the entire time!"

"What? No I wasn't!"

"Then how do you explain this?" she hisses, whipping out her phone.

I reach for it, but Akele grabs it, and his eyes widen. His bushy eyebrows climb up his head and he almost lets go of Dee. He points the phone at me.

Processing the front page of
The Royal Exposé
takes me a moment. First, I have to figure out what the fuck
The Royal Exposé
is. It's a tabloid, apparently. A royal-watcher tabloid. I thought people only cared about the British royals, but apparently not. Ana is front-page news.

So am I.

So is Grandolf, walking out of that fucking locker room right behind me, looking as smug as the cat that caught the canary.

"Did she see this?" My voice is robotic. It sounds like it's coming from fifty feet away, like someone else said it.

"Of course she fucking saw it."

"Where is she now?"

"She's gone."

"No she isn't. It's not true, Dee."

A
na

H
ow could
he do this to me?

I feel completely numb, like every nerve ending in my body has gone dead. Seated on the edge of my bed, I stare at nothing while Bjorn stands over me with his huge arms folded and my mother's men pack my things into large suitcases. I care not if they leave it all behind; it means nothing to me. I stand and walk a few mechanical steps from the bed while they pack up the sheets and blankets.

It's like watching ants sprawl over a dropped morsel of food. They tear down my life here—such as it was—with such efficiency that I can barely believe it. It's not long before I'm left alone with an outfit lying on the bare bed.

"Dress," Bjorn says harshly.

"Where is Thorlief?"

"Not your concern. The queen commands you return to Jyvaslka at once."

He steps out, at least. I quickly change out of my sleeping clothes and leave them piled on the floor in favor of a sweatshirt and a pair of jeans.

There is no use protesting or struggling. I don't care what happens to me now. My heart is a block of ice. My soul is freezing. Chill water runs in my veins. I can't even cry. I have never been so utterly crushed in all my life as I am right now.

How could he do this to me?

Outside, there is already a car waiting. Mother is true to her word. I take my seat in the back, and the door slams shut with explosive finality. I don't even glance back as they roughly throw my things in the trunk.

No one sits with me. A small motorcade forms, and I'm cut off from my driver by a glass partition. I could lower it, but I prefer the solitude.

When I am finally alone, I allow myself to cry.

A hissing, choked sob explodes from my chest, and I bury my face in my hands, as if I can crush the broken pieces of my happiness back together, but they've splintered along jagged angles and no longer fit.

Why?

I loved him. No—love, present tense, which only makes my anguish deeper, the pain sharper. I still want him, even after this. Not only did he betray me, but it was with
her
. That vile woman that's tormented me since I first arrived here, and Jason slept with her.

Lies
, a tiny voice whispers. No, screams. It's like a splinter in my mind.

I can't believe he would. I saw the pictures, I saw him walk out of that locker room with her, I read her words on the page. My head saw and my mind understood, but my heart does not believe. I clutch my chest as I weep, willing myself to turn to ice, to steel.

Is this what Mother felt when her lover was taken from her? No, she had to suffer her happiness being stolen from her. Mine was crushed into a ball and thrown away. I can't stand it. It feels like I swallowed frozen coal.

Why, Jason?

As the driver takes me away, I watch this little world I've lived in for years fade away from me. By the time we reach the highway, I'm in a strange land, the scenery half-remembered from my arrival.

I remember the airport vividly though. Our little caravan of cars drives to a locked gate and across the tarmac to a waiting private plane with the royal crest on its tail. Mother probably kept it fueled just in case she needed to whisk me home.

This was inevitable. It was going to happen no matter what.

I was a fool to fall in love.

J
ason

I
hand
Dee’s phone back to her and walk past her. My legs feel like they're moving on their own, like someone has hooked me up to a puppeteer's strings. Then the severity of what I just saw lands in my stomach like a prizefighter's punch, and I fucking bolt, slamming the door aside as I charge out onto the sidewalk.

I run so fast it feels like my leg muscles will burst. I run so fast I outrun my own breath. I run like the devil is on my heels. Usually, Ana's house is maybe a ten minute walk. I make it there in less than two, charge right up the steps, and start pounding on the door.

"Somebody's in there. Open up. Open the fuck up, god damn it."

No answer, nothing.

"Open the door! Ana!
Ana!
"

The door quivers in the frame as I pound on it with both fists. Terror and fury mix in my stomach and burn, flames rising up through my throat into my head. I feel like I'm made out of rubber and the world is made out of paper. This can't be happening. I'm going to wake up soon.

I'm hurling myself at the door, hammering it with my shoulder as Akele runs up, only a minute or two behind. Aheahe is behind him, literally carrying Dee on his shoulder.

Akele walks up and swings his huge body, and the door cracks loose from the lock and hinges in a single blow of his massive arm. I run past him and dart inside.

The house has been cleaned out hastily. There's still some random knickknacks and junk on the floor. They left all the basic stuff, the kitchen stuff and the like, but everything is bare, empty, the walls clean of pictures, the carpet rolled up against the wall.

I've never even seen this part of the house, but it fills me with dread. I run upstairs, screaming, "Ana!" like she's still here, like maybe I'm not too late. I shove one door open and find a bare, empty study room, just a desk and chair sitting by themselves.

Across the hall, I find an empty bedroom. The dresser drawers are all on the floor, emptied of their contents, upturned or laying on their sides. The bed is bare.

Except for the guy sitting on it. It's one of Ana's guards, the big bearded one, the older of the two that always followed her from place to place.

He doesn't seem to see me at all as I walk inside the room. I stop when I notice something lying on the floor.

I gather the pieces of a ripped-up Burger King paper crown in my hands and let out a sound like my soul is being yanked out through my nose.

Only then does Big Guy notice me. He stands up and takes a long pull from a bottle of Wild Turkey.

"You," he growls.

Eep.

He comes at me faster than an old man should, more nimble than he has any right to be, and it's all I can do to grab his wrists and keep his ham hands from my throat. He's fucking strong; I can barely stop him.

Akele steps into the room and pulls the old man back, hooking his arms under his shoulders to lift him bodily from the ground and away from me.

"Let go," he roars, "Look at what he did! You pig! I will kill you!"

"It's not what it looks like," I tell him. "I didn't do this, it's fake—"

"That picture is not fake!"

"Listen to me," I beg him. "I was set up. Grandolf followed me into the locker room, but nothing happened. I would never cheat on Ana. Grandolf has had it out for her since this started, and she's got a crazy thing about me.”

My phone rings.

Everyone in the room freezes.

I answer it. "Um?"

It's Coach. "
Where in the fuck are you?
The game is starting in fifteen minutes—"

"I don't care," I tell him and stick it back in my pocket.

"Talk to me," I tell the old man. "I want to help somehow. Where is she now? What did they do to her?"

"They took her back."

"Can you help us follow her?"

He shakes his head. "Even if I would let you near my little princess, you handful of garbage, I cannot. I have been exiled by the queen herself."

"What? Why?"

"For helping you," he snarls. "For helping the princess sneak away when she wished to see you. For helping you hook your fingers in her chest and rip out her heart. You destroyed her, you monster. I! Will! Kill! You!"

He tries to shake loose of Akele, but it's like watching a toddler try to get away from an angry dad.

"Calm down," Akele roars, his voice echoing off the ceiling. "I know this man. Jason Powell is the finest man I have ever known. He is a true warrior poet. He would never hurt his princess. This is all a setup. You must see that."

"Let him go," I say.

Akele blinks.

"Do it."

He releases the old man, who glares at me, still holding his whiskey bottle like a weapon.

He stares at me.

"Do it," I say again.

"Do what?" he growls.

"Kill me. If I can't get her back, you should kill me. I don't have anything left to live for."

He blinks a few times.

"I love her. That's it. That's all there is. I love her. I'd never do this. I didn't want this to happen. I just wanted her to be happy. If I'd know Grandolf was planning something, I'd have told Ana about it. I never imagined she'd do something like this. It has to be her. She got the security camera video and took stills. Had to be. She called the tabloid. It's all her."

"Why should I believe you?" the old man growls. "Why? You boys are all the same."

"Don't believe me. Smash that bottle over my head and get it over with. There's nothing left for me. Everything I touch turns to dust. Everyone I love is torn away. Everything turns to ash in my mouth. What's the point?"

I sink to my knees, and gather up the pieces of crown I dropped.

Anguish clenches my heart like a stony fist. I can't breathe. I can't live. A great frozen hole has been ripped in my chest.

My heart is already gone. If the old man doesn't finish me off, I'll just sit here on my knees until I die.

"Thorlief," the old man says. "My name is Thorlief. I've guarded Princess Ana since she was nine years old."

I look up. "So you're like her dad."

"If you say so."

"I guess this kinda had to happen, then."

He doesn't seem to appreciate the joke.

Akele picks me up. He lift me by the armpits and pulls me to my feet.

"We're going to the Deerhead," he announces.

"You can still make the game," I say, my voice tinny and distant in my own ears.

"Fuck the game," Akele says.

Aheahe nods.

Dee takes it all in, in shock.

"Are you just going to fucking give up?"

I look at her. "I don't even have a passport. What am I supposed to do?"

"Fight for her," she says.

"How? I can't punch a country in the face."

Her eyes remain locked on me as she starts texting on her phone. She looks at Akele and Aheahe.

"Get. Everybody," she says.

"For what?"

"Deerhead, like you said," Dee announces. "Come on."

I trudge down the stairs and up deserted Main Street. Everyone is at the game. The Deerhead stands open, big doors ready to let the air in and invite in revelers for a post-game drink. The bartender looks up when he sees us walk in.

"Ah, Christ," he says.

Thorlief finishes his bottle of sour mash like it's a bottle of fucking iced tea and tosses it in a wastebasket. He looms over the bartender.

"Barkeep, liquor."