She likes to wear dresses. She likes the long sweep of them against her feet, cool silk and muslin and smooth cotton against her legs. She thinks, when she was younger, she took this for granted.
Sometimes, she has trouble with the fastening, and so one of them comes up from where they wait in the parlour, and, with deft, slim fingers, does up the zipper, or the buttons, or the elaborate lacing. And then, rough brush of knuckles against the bare back of her neck, or light sweep of fingertips over the pale curve of her shoulder. She flushes dark under her makeup, and they slip from the room like fireflies.
They go to parties upon parties, cocktails and banquets and dances. Her arm is always taken, led in, by one of them, while the others slip into the crowd, around the crowd, blending in as always. She finds the stems of glasses look delicate and fragile in their hands, and when they smile, she hesitates.
The assassination attempts come more and more often, and she wakes in strange rooms, heart beating noisily, painfully, against her ribcage. She strains her ears for the sound of death, and destruction, but all she can hear is her own rapid breath. They eat cheap takeaway for breakfast, lunch and dinner, and watch the news on a TV that has more static then picture. They wait for the phone to ring. She takes showers, and the hot water cuts out, and she sits on the toilet seat wrapped in a thin towel with her wet hair scraped back flat and dark against her skull, while they hit pipes, and apologise, and bribe people. And all she can think is is this what it was like?
When they're busy, she slips into their rooms, and searches through drawers and bags and boxes, until she finds the spare gun. She likes to sit in the empty room, sometimes only for a few minutes, with it cradled weighty and cold in her palms. Afterwards, she'll slide it back into its hiding place, and try not to think about the stillness it invoked in her.
She attends council meetings and conferences and gives great speeches to the public, and all the while she can feel them at her back, can see the weighted fold in their jackets, or the pale twist leading up across their necks, and her heart buzzes in her ears. But the glasses will not break, and the windows will not shatter, and she will dance with each of them in turn.
And always, by the end of the night, she finds them gathered by the window, or out on the balcony, silent and still. Sometimes, but not all the time, she finds herself waiting with them.