The Girl Who Would Be King(142)

“The problem with that,” he begins. “Is that I think you’d get out. I think someone, somewhere along the way would screw up and you’d get out, and I think you’d make it a point to come after me and kill me. Maybe torture me to make up for whatever happens to you in the meantime. I think I wouldn’t have a good night’s sleep for the rest of my life, no matter how much money they gave me or how long my life lasted,” he says. I nod, acknowledging that this is probably true.

“Good point. I hadn’t thought of that,” I say. Adrian smiles out the side of his mouth.

“Of course you did. You’re just trying to trick me.”

“No, no, I really hadn’t thought it through.”

“Sure you didn’t. You know, you’re no rocket scientist, Lola, but you’re smarter than you let on sometimes. Maybe even wise beyond your years,” he says while going to the briefcase in the corner and preparing a new dose of whatever elephant tranquilizer he’s using on me. The irony of my situation, after what I did to Delia, does not escape me.

Fortunately, by the time he fills up the syringe, I’m pretty sure I can take him.

He comes closer and as he draws up to plunge the needle in my arm I steel myself for the puncture. When he hits my skin the needle snaps off violently and I know I’ve got it. I didn’t know if I could do that, but sitting here I suddenly didn’t see why not. Adrian looks at my eyes, shocked, and then hears the clang of metal. A flash of confusion passes over his face and I smile up at him briefly before swinging my body around and nailing him in the face with my metal bound hands. I watch him look at the broken ring dangling impotently from the bottom of the mittens, where I’ve ripped it out of the concrete, before he faints dead away.



°

I go into my bedroom to pull myself together. I change into some new jeans and a clean white t-shirt, trying to avoid a few of the still raw wounds. Afterward I sit on the floor, my legs crossed, hands laying on my thighs and focus all of my energy into healing the rest of my injuries. It takes a lot of my strength, but it’s worth it. I sit there for a long time after, just trying to think about all the balls in the air: Lola has taken over part of Los Angeles, hundreds, maybe thousands have died, and perhaps thousands more are held hostage. She may or may not actually even be there running her own operation. Someone has kidnapped Clark, and stolen my stone. It’s a safe assumption that Lola has or will soon have the stone again. That will make her stronger and faster and enable her to find not only me, but probably Jasper, since I was able to find him with it. There’s nothing left to do but to take her out, if that’s even possible. Everything I’ve seen and read says ‘no’, from the paper-women to the book, but they wouldn’t object so strenuously if it wasn’t even possible, right? The idea of killing Lola frightens me to no end. Not because she doesn’t deserve it, but because I’m afraid of what happens if I kill her. My mother said it was geis. Prohibited.

What happens to her if I kill her? What happens to me if I kill her?

We’re clearly linked, the same in some fundamental way that I still don’t understand. Does she just go away if I kill her? I suspect it’s not that simple. That seems to fly in the face of the idea of there even being a Lola and a me in the first place. What happens to the world when there’s no more balance? It seems wrong. I’m afraid of it. And not just because I don’t want to die. I feel a thousand years of instinct telling me to be afraid of it. Those women, my ancestors I guess, straight up told me it was impossible, and my mother warned of consequences. Also, I’m something called The Morrigan. Is Lola also The Morrigan?

Liesel comes in. “You okay?” she asks.

“Not really.”

“Anything I can do?”

I’m about to say no when I realize that just simply knowing what The Morrigan is might help. “Actually, yeah, can we Google ‘The Morrigan’ on your laptop?” Liesel wrinkles her forehead at me but goes to get her laptop without a word and is back in under a minute. She pulls up the desk chair and types as she talks.

“What’s The Morrigan?”

“Apparently I am,” I say.

“Seriously?” she turns away from the light of the screen to look at me.

“Seriously,” I say. Liesel turns back around and types. We end up on Wikipedia. Of course.

“The Morrigan…” Liesel begins and then pauses.

“What?” I urge. She clears her throat.

“‘The Morrigan is a figure from Irish Mythology that was once considered a goddess’,” Liesel reads and then looks back at me, her eyes huge in her tiny face.