The Girl Who Would Be King(113)

It’s a note.



Bonnie,

You must help me – and all of L.A. Lola is building an army and she’s keeping me hostage. Please come and put a stop to this madness. She’s sick – she needs help – but I think at this point you’re the only one who can stop her. She gets more powerful all the time, it seems. Our base is located in a warehouse in downtown Los Angeles somewhere between Alameda and Virgenes. Please come as soon as possible.

Dr. Elizabeth Grant.



The paper flutters in my fingers as I try to calm the tremble in my hand. The corners of the world pucker and peel back revealing black everywhere. I put my hands on the railing to steady myself. For a minute my head reels and fireworks explode behind my eyes. I put a hand to my face, digging my thumb and pointer finger into my eye sockets lightly, as if I can wipe away what they have seen – today, this minute, or maybe further back, maybe all the way. Delia, Adrian, Felice, Lena, Joan, Bonnie, and now Liz. I hold the banister and it bends and crumples under my grip. My eyes snap open.

“Liz!” I call.

“What?” she yells back from somewhere in the loft.

“Come out here,” I say. I hear her grumbling to herself, but she emerges dressed in her linen skirt and silk blouse from the day I abducted her. She hasn’t worn it since before we went shopping.

Until today. Today, she chooses to wear it.

“Well, I haven’t seen that outfit in a while,” I pause. “Special occasion?”

Liz sniffs. “It just called out to me today.”

“I wonder why,” I say, holding up her white note between my fingers briefly and then letting it fall to the floor. Liz’s eyes pop just for a second and then lower, following the note to its concrete resting place.

“Lola-” she starts softly.

“Save it, Liz,” I say, looking away from her. “Man, you’re a shitty therapist,” I whistle.

“I thought I was your right-hand man?” she offers almost lightly.

“Well, you’re shitty at that, too, I guess,” I say to her, resigned. If I’m honest with myself she’s been defiant in her own way all along, but I’ve so wanted to believe that it was just a friendly evolution for us, that our relationship had changed from just therapist and patient, kidnapper and kidnap-ee. “I would have thought you of all people – my therapist – would know what this would do to me, Liz – betrayal by my inner circle. You know everyone I’ve ever known has betrayed me.”

“Maybe I did know what it would do to you,” she says, a little bit of steel in her voice.

“What? So now you’ve got a death wish?”

“Maybe just for you,” she hisses, looking up at me, as much steel in her eyes as her voice now. I’ve never seen this look in her eyes before but I match it.

“What? You suddenly think you can take me?” I ask.

“Not in the way you think,” she says, the edge in her voice sharpening. I don’t really know what she means, but nothing much matters anymore. I walk over to her and see that despite her hard eyes and voice, her blouse is shivering against her skin and a light sheen of sweat covers her neck and chest. I’m standing so close to her that her hair is tickling my face and I can hear her racing heartbeat as loud as thunder in my ears.

“You’ve hurt me horribly, Elizabeth,” I say, my lips nearly touching her ear.

“As you have me, Lola,” she returns, her voice breaking over the words. Standing so close to her that it’s almost as if we’re dancing or making love, I raise my hands to either side of her face. Her skin is soft and damp now with both our tears. “Lola, don’t-” she begins, but before she can finish the sentence, I turn her head sharply to the left, and a little cry comes out of me as I do it.

The crack of her neck snapping is the saddest, loneliest sound I’ve ever heard.

I’m holding her up – her weight falling into her feet, her toes dancing lightly over the concrete, suspended only from her head, my hands pressing into either side of her skull. Her face looks like a doll’s, her eyes still open wide, blank and blink-less, staring into me, glassy and lonely. There’s a softness in their chocolate brown color that I’ve never noticed before. I catch a sob in my throat and let her drop. She falls into a silky little pile – pretty and worthless. I slide down against the wall, like the air has been siphoned out of me, and stare at her – all akimbo limbs and finely tailored clothing – for hours.

Something breaks in me.

Maybe for the first time, or maybe again. Maybe for the last time. I don’t know. Nothing makes sense; nothing matters.