Ugly Girl Read online

  “When the spiders start, don’t bat at them,” Bayard instructed. “Ignore them and breathe through it, and they’ll move through your body. People bruise and scratch themselves up pretty bad, thinking they’re actual spiders that can be smashed. They’re not, so best hold still when they come.”

  I wanted to scream that they were already inside of me, but I decided to endure this one in silence. I’d carried on enough when Remy had sliced open my leg. I wouldn’t be the weak one in this group. I wouldn’t let them look down on me. I would learn the ropes of Avalon if it killed me. I kept my limbs absolutely still, giving the spiders inside of me the mental middle finger, daring them to do their worst. It wasn’t a matter of freaking out anymore; it was a battle of wills – Avalon’s torment against my Commoner’s pride.

  Abraham Lincoln promised to eat all the spiders out of me if only Lane would let him down. It was sweet, and totally gross.

  My oversized wrestler guardian giant shushed me in my imagination, letting me know that he wasn’t scared, so I didn’t have to be, either. I pleaded with André to make it all be over, allowing him to see my fear, while I did my best to conceal my terror from the others. In my mind, André gave me a simple smile and hugged me, saying nothing, but giving me that serene look that chased away nuisance terrors.

  I would not cry out. I would not cry at all. If this was what I had to do to get through with this whole mess, I would do it without losing myself. The spiders crawled up into my chest, filling out my ribs like a thousand little pinpricks of annoyance mingled with my own personal horror. I tried to breathe through the torture, but each breath brought only more spiders into me, multiplying them until they filled my arms.

  I could move my limbs now, but I refused on principle. I wouldn’t dance for the things that tortured me just because they finally granted me the freedom to move, the jags. It was a battle of wills at this point to decide who would be in control of my body – me or the hordes of spiders. I wouldn’t make it harder for Lot to hold me upright. I wouldn’t be the wuss in front of warriors. Lot was sweating, his arm muscles tensed around me as he held the reins in both his hands, urging Marquis onward, despite the horse’s polite groans to me that this was really more than he bargained for.

  When the spiders danced behind my eyeballs, I pursed my lips and gave them all the filthiest curse words I could think of. I gripped my thighs tight to keep from clawing at my eyes and letting them know that they’d won.

  “Have the spiders started yet?” Bayard asked, his tone respectful over Lane’s quiet weeping. We galloped together, but other than the clip-clopping of hooves, they were mostly quiet, as if scared I might scream and give away our location.

  “No. I don’t think so,” Lot answered. “She’s still stiff as a board. We’re almost to the bridge, Princess,” he cooed to me. “Once we’re there, we can get you down and back to Duchess Elaine.”

  I wanted to cry out for Lane, but knew if I did, it’d break her heart not to be able to make it all better. Part of her prowess came from my blind faith that she could do anything, heal any injury, and be the person I needed in any and all situations. I wasn’t about to hand her a problem she couldn’t solve. That would crush her. So I kept my mouth shut and listened to her and Abraham Lincoln cry together in each other’s arms.

  “I see the bridge!” Gwen announced, and I heard everyone breathe in one collective sigh of relief. “Duke Henri!” she called, racing ahead, her golden locks whipping out behind her. “The princess has been infected by the poppies! Help!”

  I tried to pay attention to my surroundings, but all I saw was Bastien charging out to meet us on foot. His sturdy black boots pounded through the prairie, his arms pumping with a determined look narrowing his eyes and his mouth. “Give her to me!” he called to Lot as Marquis began to slow.

  Lot waited until Marquis came to a stop before lifting me with shaking muscles that had been tensed for too many hours. He lowered me into Bastien’s outstretched arms, and immediately I was engulfed in a warmth that made the terror scurrying around inside of me less of a threat. Bastien was there, and somehow that was a good thing, but I was too turned around to examine just why that was. “What’s going on? What stage of it are you in?”

  Lot’s breath was labored. “She’s numb. Next come the spiders.”

  I gripped Bastien’s back, holding him as tight as he held me, my face buried in his solid chest, as if he could chase away all the bad things. I was going mad, and tired of the chase. “She’s not numb! She’s standing and holding me. Rosie, what’s happening now?”

  I closed my eyes and whispered as Lane ran to me and held me from behind, pressing my front tighter to Bastien. “The spiders are i-in m-my head now. Almost g-gone.”

  “What? No. Rosie, we mean it’ll feel like spiders inside your skin. In your body,” Lot said, dismounting and shaking out his arms.

  I nodded, jostling the spiders around and feeling them shift to new crevices, threatening to make each one their home. “In m-m-m-my head,” I whispered, clutching Bastien tighter.

  Bastien smoothed my windblown hair back from my face. “Okay, then. You’re doing great. Everyone I know who’s ever gone through this has damn near clawed their eyes out. Just hold onto me.” He kissed the top of my head, feeling my anxiety at Lane’s audible sobbing. I didn’t understand how he knew exactly the right way to hold me, when I didn’t even know how I preferred something as intimate as that. His arms around me were strong, his grip firm and reassuring, letting me know without words that somehow he would handle the bad things that ate at my brain. In that moment, he was André Roussimoff, incarnate.

  Lane fretted aloud, “Baby, it’s okay to let it out. I know you’re freaking out! Tell me how I can help you!”

  Bastien took one arm away from me and squeezed Lane’s shoulder. “I get that you want to help, but you’re going to scare her if you keep this up. You want to be here for her? You can’t cry like that. She’s trying to hold herself together, and the waterworks aren’t helping. Why don’t you and Henri find us a place to keep her quiet once the tremors start?” His voice wasn’t unkind, but it did carry a direct command. “It won’t be easy to move her once the spiders leave her.”

  Lane nodded, sobbing into my hair and kissing me about twenty times before she ran off to find a place in the prairie for me to lie down unseen if someone should happen by us.

  “Th-thank you,” I whispered, closing my eyes and holding tight to him. Bastien didn’t save me from the spiders that infested my body, but he stayed with me when the bad things refused to leave. As much as I didn’t understand his mood swings, I was grateful for him all the same. When the spiders filled my ears, I could still hear, but it made my ear canals itch like none other. If I had a Q-tip, I’d jam that sucker way too deep in there. I had a feeling that was a no-no. “H-hold my arms d-down,” I begged, not wanting to hurt myself.

  Bastien clamped my forearms between his ribcage and his biceps, keeping me in place while he held the back of my head. He pressed my forehead to his chest to center me. “Breathe in,” he instructed, and then waited for me to comply before he said in his low voice, “Breathe out. You’re doing great.” My exhales grew more panicked when the spiders seemed to be taking up residence and multiplying inside of my brain. I thought they’d wander around for a minute and be gone, but apparently they couldn’t get enough of my skull. Bastien seemed to understand, and squeezed my jaw, massaging my cheeks with his thumbs. “I’ve got you. Hold onto me. You want to scratch your eyes out? Scratch me instead.” I’m not sure he expected me to take him at his word, but I did, digging my nails into his back and making him tense up as he held my face steady. “That’s it. Deeper, Rosie. Harder, baby,” he grunted. I complied, feeling a little more in control, now that my hands had a purpose. “Make me feel it. I left you in the stable with no one to guard you. Make me pay for it.”

  I had a feeling Bastien would be fantastic at dirty talk.

  I clawed him deeper, leani
ng my chin up and opening my mouth so I could bite into his shirt. Only instead of just his shirt, I latched onto his chest, chewing on the skin there as the spiders tortured me by lingering. They dared me to bat at them, to smack myself over and over across the face while they laughed and laughed at how they got me to dance for them.

  Bastien swore at the sting from my bite, but it only seemed to fuel his determination to stay with me, to talk me through the insanity I was keeping neatly bottled up as best I could. I bit him over and over across his chest, breathing like a horse through my nose. The spiders lingered when they should have been running. I wanted to run, but Bastien held me tight, letting me hurt him just so I wouldn’t have to suffer alone.

  “That’s right, Daisy. Tear my skin. I hurt you when I left with no warning. I wanted to kiss you so bad. It’s driving me crazy, thinking about your sweet little mouth. When you turned me down, I didn’t understand.” He winced when I ground my teeth together, piercing his chest and sucking my spit into my mouth as I seethed through the slow torture. His voice came out pinched. “I get it now. You don’t want to waste your first kiss on someone who’s taken. You’re a decent person, even when no one is watching to make sure you follow the rules.”

  The spiders were dissipating through my hair now, leaving me to catch my shallow breath and begin to process all my body had just been through. “It’s over,” I gasped, pulling fresh air into my lungs. “They’re gone. The spiders are gone.” I glanced over my shoulder to make sure they weren’t actual spiders leaving my body in droves. They’d felt so real, but I saw nothing scurrying away through the night across the grass.

  “Okay, then I’ve got to move you quick. The next wave’s coming, and I don’t want you out in the open when it starts.” His tenor picked up with a thread of distress as he scooped me up and ran to the bridge toward Lane and the others.

  “Take her under the bridge,” Henri instructed Bastien. “It’s the best we can do.”

  “What’s happening? It’s not over?” I hated how pathetic I sounded, but seriously, one wrong inhale and this was the crap I got? So far, Avalon pretty much sucked.

  “I’ve got you,” Bastien promised. He ran to the bridge that looked about long enough to fit five cars and one minivan underneath in the gentle river below. He ducked under the bridge and laid me in the muddy embankment. We were on the three feet of shore between where the bridge began and where the water lapped at the dirt. He rolled me onto my stomach and slowly crawled on top of me, flattening his body to mine and squishing the air out of me.

  “Bastien, what are you doing? Get off me!”

  “Sorry. Am I crushing you?” He tented his body by raising himself up on his elbows. “In a second, the tremors are going to start. I need you on your stomach so you don’t swallow your tongue.”

  “Wait, what?” The familiar panic I thought I’d given the boot home reared its ugly dragon’s head again, spitting in my face. “Tremors? This sucks super way bad!” I said angrily.

  Bastien crushed his pelvis to my butt and wound his arms over mine to pin them above my head with his forearms. One of his legs wrapped around my good leg so it stuck up in the air like a foolproof wrestling hold. “It’ll pass, like everything else. The more you breathe, the worse it’ll feel, but the quicker it’ll move through you. So breathe. That’s the one thing I can’t do for you. You’re in charge of breathing, and I’m in charge of everything else about this.”

  “Bastien?” I whimpered, closing my eyes.

  “Yeah, Daisy?”

  I wanted to ask him to take me home. Home to bad TV, good junk food and a warm bed. I wanted to see Judah and let him bore me with computer talk. I wanted to take the finals I’d studied so hard for. I wanted to show Bastien all those things, but I chickened out and reached for a joke instead of the truth. “Bastien, tell me the truth. Does this turn you on?”

  He wasn’t expecting a joke, and I wasn’t expecting his answering snorty laugh and a few comedic pelvic thrusts above my butt that made me chuckle. His laugh when he was caught off-guard was goofy and had an unpolished note to it before he smoothed it out to a refined chortle. It was imperfect, and totally endearing. “After this, we can do all sorts of things that turn us both on. How about that?”

  “I’m sorry I pushed you away. The engaged thing is really throwing me. And I didn’t want my first liplock to be with everyone right there, watching me screw it up. It’s all just a little confusing right now.” I swallowed hard. “But if I ever did want to, you know…” I couldn’t even say the word “kiss”, I was such a chicken. “It would be with you.”

  “Hey,” he tsked me, brushing his stubbled cheek to my smooth one. “You don’t get to apologize for that. You can say you’re sorry for all sorts of things, but not that one. I was a jerk. You’re right. Your first kiss should be with someone who isn’t tied down.”

  “Speaking of being tied down, this whole poisonous poppies thing? Total drag. Let’s never do this again.” I fidgeted under his weight, but he had me so pinned that I barely moved. It was a testament to how much I was beginning to trust him that I didn’t freak out and buck like a bull coming out of the pen in a rage. “What a waste of having a hot guy on top of me.”

  Bastien leaned his cheek to mine, and I could feel his smile.

  “Rosie?” Lane called, inching toward my head under the bridge. I couldn’t see much, but I didn’t need sight to know she was still bawling. “Honey, have the tremors started?”

  “Nope. It’s really fine, Lane. Honestly. It’s not nearly as bad as you’re all making it out to be.” I tried to keep my tone light to spare her worst fear. I knew mine was anything bad happening to her, and that hers was anything bad happening to me. “Hey, do you happen to know where a girl could get some popcorn around here? I could use a treat to pass the time.”

  Her tone came back sharp. “Don’t start making jokes. Not now. I know you’re in pain! I know how scared you must be. I was with my sister, Tyronoe, when she inhaled the poppies once. She tried to claw her eyes out in my arms! I can still hear her screaming through it!”

  I closed my eyes, trying to maintain my hold on the battle that was only midway through. Bastien lifted his head, surprisingly calm. “Hey, I’ve got this here. You want to check on Reyn for me, though? He used way too much magic yesterday using concealment charms around Remy’s house. I told him I’d do it, but you know how bull-headed he can be. He needs to sit down, but he’s stubborn. Can you ask him to sit with you and make it seem like it’s for you, not him? He has to recharge, or he’ll be useless once we reach the Inn.” He flashed her a grin that looked so friendly and sincere, I nearly bought the charade.

  “Sure. Of course I’ll check on Reyn for you. You’ll call when the tremors start and Rosie needs me?”

  “Of course. Bye-bye now.” He waited until she left, and then we both let out a long sigh. “Better?”

  “Much. I don’t like her to see me in pain. It hurts her too much. I don’t want to put her through that.” I was a master at faking my smiles for Lane. When the kids at school couldn’t see past the fact that I was the ugly girl, I tried not to let her know how much it tore me up. My angst quickly became hers, and I loved her too much to let her suffer as much as I did.

  “I know. I get it.” We both felt my foot starting to twitch of its own volition. “Steady, now. Just think to yourself, ‘Bastien’s got me. Everything’s going to be fine.’”

  “Has anyone ever died from this?”

  “Not while I’m around, no. That’s all you need to focus on. I’m here, and I’ve got all the moves.” He thrusted his pelvis pornographically above my butt again, making me laugh at the most inopportune time.

  The twitch started in my toe, but moved quicker up my body than the other things had done. My whole leg started spasming, and then the other. “Ah!” I cried out without meaning to. “Oh, my leg! Ow! Oh, make it stop!”

  “Remy!” Bastien barked over his shoulder. The healer came quick, ready to help.
“Hold her injured leg down. I can’t do it without hurting her more. She’s flopping around so much, I’m afraid she’ll tear something.”

  Remy grabbed my foot and slammed it to the wet grass, holding my leg steady. The seizure that moved like a wave up my body began to shake me with a force I couldn’t comprehend. “You won’t die if we keep you pinned like this. You won’t hurt yourself this way.”

  Bastien smashed the side of my face into the grass to keep my head from thrashing around. He shoved his finger sideways into my mouth just before my teeth started to chatter. I felt him wince when my seizure increased the tenacity of my bite.

  After a few minutes that seemed like hours, I figured the wave would be gone. But of course, it wasn’t. Why would Avalon cut me such a break? The seizure kept me locked in a high point of terror, unsure when my body might just up and peace out on me. Every muscle was tensed and vibrating like a tuning fork; I was scared it might never stop.

  Bastien leaned his weight on me, crushing my shoulders to the ground so my neck didn’t have as much room to jerk around and suffer real damage. I wanted to weep and moan and throw any number of fits, if only it would get me out of this mess. We hadn’t even really started trying to find Roland or the missing gems yet, and I’d had snakes pouring out of my leg, a non-anesthesia surgery, and was being pinned down by the heaviest guy alive all because I breathed wrong. Something had told me from the beginning that finding Roland and the gems wouldn’t be as easy as following my inner GPS.

  Someone was shouting something to Bastien, but I couldn’t focus enough to understand what was going on. All I heard was Bastien growl, “I’m kinda in the middle of something here! I’ll sort him out once I’m finished with her!”

  Bastien shifted, crushing the air out of my lungs. I tried to let him know I couldn’t breathe, but I couldn’t form words; my teeth were chattering so violently. I managed to suck in a breath that felt… wrong. Though I knew I wasn’t underwater, the sensation of drowning overwhelmed me as my limbs began to loosen from the hold the seizure had on them. Like a deflated balloon, I collapsed in the wet dirt. Bastien carefully removed his finger from between my teeth, leaving me with the piney taste of his skin mingled with the rust of his blood in my mouth. “Bastien?” I gasped. “Bastien! I can’t… breathe!”