As evening went on, I became more and more wakeful, until finally... I couldn't sleep anymore.
It was bad timing, really, I suspected it was pretty late. The hospital outside had gotten very quiet- the muffled voices from the nurse station and the sound of feet moving along the hallway were the only sounds that came in through my closed door- and outside I started to hear less and less cars coming and going.
So I lay there, wide awake, staring at the stars in the near-darkness. My body was pretty worn out, I could barely reach the remote, so once I'd managed to flip on the light I thought I wouldn't bother with the whole 'hold up remote, point at TV, adjust volume/channel' routine. TV was rarely any good to begin with and my arm wouldn't hang around in mid-air for the usual channel skipping acrobatics.
It was amazingly frustrating to just lie there. Wide awake. Unable to do much. The ice chips vanished earlier on so I didn't even have those to play with. I supposed they'd have been melted by now anyway. What had Intern Jenny said? Nil by mouth. Right.
Of course after an hour of lying there feeling too warm, my body starting to increase as pain as whatever painkillers had been offered earlier wore off, and feeling my throat grow dry once again, I changed my mind quickly about the TV. Once it was on a channel I let myself be entertained. By anything.
Jenny reappeared soon after the TV was on and thankfully she seemed to know how to get to cable. Movie channel. She brought ice as well- just a few pieces- and topped up my drip with more pain killers. By the time she was gone I was lying there, grinning like an idiot, watching Ponyo and wishing Roberto was around to watch it with me.
It was as I lay there trying to entertain myself that I had the biggest shock of my life.
I saw Prince Keith.
Holy ...cow.
It was just a brief glimpse, the sight of a man striding along the hospital hallway at 'power walk' speed, but ...holy cow. No wonder why Roberto had mentioned those eyes. The hair. The eyes! You didn't need to know he was a Prince to guess he was something powerful, he had this kind of ...arrogance, mixed with beauty, which was incredibility intimidating.
Three steps, a seconds glimpse of pale brown hair, stunning green eyes, and a frown, and he was gone.
"Prince Keith... is in the house." I muttered. "Or a lookalike."
Not likely. If there was one thing I had learnt about these Princes- it was that they had this aura about them that was nearly impossible to match or copy.
Jenny rushed in, looking pretty flustered, shutting the door behind her. She hissed, "He's here!" as she moved over to the other side of my bed. It was almost as if she was hiding from him.
"Who?"
"Prince Keith himself!" She was kind of breathless, which amused me, her face bright pink, and she grasped the last ice chip. "The heat's a bit warm in here, isn't it?"
It wasn't THAT warm. I grinned and shook my head as she slowly retreated from the safety of my bed. Very slowly.
"I... how's the pain?" Jenny turned to me, brushing her hair back, trying to compose herself.
"It's-" Before I could tell her it was fantastic thanks to the injection she'd given me ten minutes earlier...
We heard a voice. Echoing. Prince Keith's voice- no one else would talk like that- as he demanded to know where Sophia's room was.
Something in Jenny's face faded, excitement or something, and her back squared. "Oh no. He can't come shouting in here. You should be asleep at this hour anyway."
"Jenny, it's okay." I wasn't sure about that. He was threatening to allow the police to qustion me if he wasn't. That wasn't okay by me.
Jenny glanced at me, breathed in deeply, and then marched to the door. "Pretend to be sleeping."
She did it almost to the same pace as the loud feet approaching my door from the other side. It was kind of funny when she swung the door open, just as Prince Keith was apparently going to grab the door handle, their height difference only adding to the strange situation.
"You can't question her. She's asleep."
"How dar..."
"So if you excuse me, sir, I have some work to do in here..." Jenny actually curtsied. I saw her hands were shaking and her legs looked pretty weak too, for all the strength in her voice, all her nerves forced into her limbs.
"Do you even know who I am?" Prince Keith's voice rose quite a bit as Jenny planted herself in the doorway between him and my room. "I have a right to question this woman!"
"I know who she is, Your Highness, my patient! You cannot come in here and stress her out just because you want to!" Jenny stunned me. She'd been so cheerful and nice before but now... the woman had balls of steel. "You can't come in!"
"How dar-" Prince Keith shot me a stare that made me want to piss myself and stared down at Jenny. His face had gone bright red before he turned and stamped off."You will regret this!"
"If I'm doing my job then I won't regret it!" Jenny snapped.
When she turned she had this look on her face, a mixture of anger and disbelief, almost slamming the door behind her as she met my face. Then she muttered, "Oh my god, shouting at Prince Keith, I thought I was going to faint..."
Before I could answer Jenny had slumped to the floor in a boneless pile.
Oh boy.
The door opened again and Prince Keith stormed in, ready to do battle, only to find... my bewildered look and Jenny missing. Someone slid in behind him. I didn't have to be introduced to know that was a butler.
"Righ-!" Prince Keith's shout cut off as he found himself nearly tripping over Jenny, who didn't move, only staying upright with the quick actions of his butler.
Luke quickly lifted her up and settled her on a chair as Prince Keith stared at Jenny for a few long moments, his breathing fast, face still red with anger. Then he turned to me.
Oh crap.
"You assisted in the invasion of Oriens?" He glanced dismissively at the movie before he tossed the remote to Luke. Luke moved to mute it.
"Your Highness, please, keep your voice lower..." The butler was quite young, younger than any of the others I'd met so far, and he bowed to me as he added, "Please excuse us for coming in when you're unwell, at such an hour, but Prince Keith has questions. Excuse us for waking you."
"I'm awake." I muttered. Oh god. Prince Keith was pretty intimidating... I wasn't sure what to do. Roberto's warm face, his hands, his jokes, I missed them suddenly. "I didn't assist."
"But you didn't prevent it either."
"No..."
"Then you are guilty." Prince Keith decided, crossing his arms, a hard look down at me. "Do you know the penalty for willingly allowing such a crime? Against the very ruler of your Father's own country?"
"No, I was … afraid!" I spat, just as he looked like he was about to leave, and he didn't move. "Come on! You have no idea what Father does to people he doesn't like and if it was me, he'd probably be twice as harsh, and... he … he's got money, he gets away with it... and I didn't think he'd seriously do it anyway! It was crazy. I just assumed he was being … I don't know." I'd started to ramble a little, heart pounding, my head hurting again as my voice rose.
"Upon his orders he had Prince Glenn shot. Murder and Treason are not something we take lightly here. I could have you taken to a prison hospital, rather than allow you to be here in the royal hospital at my expense-"
At his expense? I froze as he pointedly looked to the door. There were actually police outside. Woah. "Wai...wait... I..."
"If that's it-"
"I tried to help! Why are you so rude?" I burst out. Oh god. I had to stop trying to be polite. "Robert-"
"You're on first name bases with Prince Roberto?" Prince Keith didn't seem impressed. If anything it just increased the distrust in his face. "Is that your plan?"
"Pl...plan?"
"Marry a Prince?"
"Wha... No! I did it because Rober... Prince Roberto... asked, and … anyway, that's not the problem here."
"The Heir to Oriens is in a critical condition right now, woman, and if he dies-"
I got it suddenly. He cared about Prince Glenn. Some of my intimidation faded somewhat. Prince Keith was worried about his friend. His brother 'of another mother'. I sighed. "I know."
"Do you?"
"And … I probably should have said something before it even happened. I didn't really give much help in the end either. They ended up rescuing me... not the other way around." I agreed, slumping back, feeling tired all of a sudden. Yeah. Here I was, injured, leg in sling, and probably not being tormented by my Father because of them. "I owe them a lot for that. So... I guess I am at wrong, huh."
Prince Keith relaxed somewhat at that. He strode around to one of my sides, inspecting my leg, arms crossed. "You were injured during their escape."
"Yeah."
"Who by?"
"The Oriens police. I don't think they were aiming at anyone though- we were just running, and they were shooting at the sunflower field, probably just to scare us out. Prince Glenn had it far worse than I did- I didn't even realise what it was till after."
Prince Keith didn't give anything away as I talked. He stared at me with a emotionless gaze, this giant figure that could intimate with just a stare, and probed, "And then."
I couldn't speak.
"Claude also reported to Luke-" I had to assume Luke was the butler who had hung back trying to wake Jenny, "-that you had an opportunity to ask for assistance from police, after being shot and left behind, but instead hid until you were found?" Even though his voice had softened- only a tiny bit- Prince Keith's voice was still cutting deep and his amazing eyes were cold as he stared at me.
"I don't know what Father would do if I came back now. I mean. It's kind of obvious to him now that I was helping." I breathed out slowly.
"Then what would you have done if they hadn't come back?"
"I don't know. Gone and found my own boat? Hidden? Who knows." Boy was I glad it hadn't come to that. Anything was better than finding out what Father's punishment would be. It wasn't going to be grounding.
There was a soft cough from behind Prince Keith then as Luke stepped forward. He bowed low as he suggetsed, "Perhaps you'd feel comfortable talking to me, Miss Sophia, and Prince Keith can take a seat?"
"You?" I blinked.
Prince Keith didn't even bother answering this suggestion. He moved to stand further away, eyes on the window now, the air tense.
"Please, Miss Sophia, tell us in your words. From start to finish." Luke slid a chair beside me. "You're under protection here- there's no need to fear us. We're simply trying to undestand how to assist Prince Glenn."
"Okay." I tried to relax. Luke was nice enough, I supposed. "Um. The start?"
"If you please." Luke added softly, leaning forward, adding, "Prince Roberto has already made your safety his responsibility. But by understanding what your Father has done, we may be able to find a means to undo it without blood shed."
"Oh." I sighed. "I guess … when he was planning it, I didn't really know much, I just overheard bits and pieces. Mostly about the technology. People coming to Father's mansion. Meetings that'd take place. I didn't hear the plans but I picked up on bits and pieces." I gazed up at the TV. Ponyo was adorable.
"Such as?"
"Hacking, I'd hear him discussing things on the phone, or discussions with my half-brothers, stuff like that. I wasn't even sure what he was planning on taking over in the months leading up to it. I was … distracted. Doing other things. For all I knew he was going to take over a business or something." It sounded stupid even to me. "He just seemed like a mob boss, in a way, just trying to take over something new using any means necessary. I didn't want to... question into it much. It seemed kind of dangerous. I mean- one guy who argued with Father over it appeared on the news the next morning, apparently had an accident, and he didn't make it..."
That'd been one hell of a shock for me. Waking up to find out Father's friend, who I'd seen arguing with Father the night before while we were at dinner, had 'fallen off a bridge while walking home drunk'.
"Mhmm." Luke seemed to agree with me. "But you knew..."
"I found out the day before." I agreed. Prince Keith seemed to look at me a moment but I was pretty happy focusing on Luke right now. "He rented a penthouse, was very pleased with himself, wanted his only daughter to have a front row view. When I asked what... he told me that he'd be taking over the country. Went on this kind of bad guy rant about how the Royal families had lost touch, about how Father deserved more, how our family had been hanging around for this for hundreds of generations or something, always behind the Oriens royalty but never ...acknowledged. Or something. I didn't pay much attention. He seemed to be pretty angry and unreasonable."
I could see it even now- I'd been made to get dressed up. Hair dresser, makeup, new clothing, and then Father had brought me a bottle of the best wine the hotal had, sat me down on the sofa in the penthouse, and had paced up and down as he explained in great depth about why the Oriens royal family no longer deserved their role as Leaders. It had been a bit weird at the time, actually.
"Unreasonable?" Luke probed gently.
"You know, just … in his own world. It's hard to explain. He made the body doubles he'd found and trained come and demonstrate for me, they were almost perfect, and told me that they'd trained for six months for this job. Said he'd take over the country without spilling a single drop of blood from any commoner- a bloodless cival war- and that he had all this support from a lot of people who thought the royal family had lost touch. Then Father asked me to please enjoy my front row ticket. He left. I stayed there overnight, woke up, hair and makeup redone, before taken to see the real Royal Family. Captured. He made them walk up and down beside their doubles so that I could see they were the real ones."
"He had them paraded in front of you?" Prince Keith had apparently decided he wanted to talk again. He moved across, standing there, arms crossing again. "And you didn't feel that was wrong?"
"Course I did! As soon as I saw Prince Alan crying... " I hesitated suddenly. "Where is he?"
"Safe. Very safe." Prince Keith responded. "Don't change the subject. Continue."
"Well, there's not much more to say. Father was used to me getting drunk a lot so … I planned to drug the guards, made sure that Father saw me holding a bottle of wine in every security camera around, and I thought I'd just get them out, take them to the coast, and then everyone would be fine. It didn't work out so well..."
"Claude explained that he drugged you by accident."
"Oh." That explained a lot, actually. I shut my eyes a moment and felt a hand roughly shovign at me.
"Stay awake! I do not have time for this!" Prince Keith snapped.
"I'm awake!"
"The rest we know." Luke spoke up, softly, eyes meeting Prince Keith. "Would you like to hear the rest?"
"No." Prince Keith stood back. "It is enough. I believe we can ask the police to listen to this-" I realised, suddenly, he had a taping, and blinked, "-and let you rest."
"You taped me?" I stared at the tape. Woah. Was that even legal- taping someone without them knowing?
"Prince Roberto requested that you be spared the stress of a police interrogation. He also requested that you be spared a Prince Keith interrogation but... unfortunately, I could not entertain both requests." Luke stood up slowly.
"Wait." I said, suddenly, as they moved for the exit. "Have they gotten here safely?"
"They are sailing in and will be here in the morning." Luke spoke up as Prince Keith turned to him. "There are several bodyguards on-board to assist with their protection."
"You're not permitted to leave Liberty." Prince Keith gazed out the window suddenly. "You will remain under guard in the Manse, not permitted to leave the rooms, and will remain there. The surgery is scheduled for the morning and you will be moved there afterwords."
"You'll wake in your room with a private nurse and doctor." Luke explained, as I blinked, speaking up. "Please don't be alarmed at a change of surroundings. All these flowers will come with you to ease any discomfort."
"Okay." I nodded and sighed. Prince Keith turned and was heading out the door as I asked, "So... am I going to be charged or something?"
He hesitated with a door on the handle as he turned, slowly, and we stared at one another for a long time before Prince Keith spoke. "Not in Liberty. Prince Glenn, on the other hand, may choose otherwise. That is not my control."
Prince Keith and Luke vanished and I sighed, resting back, shutting my eyes as relief flooded over me. I wasn't sure what 'consideration' would equal to... but maybe it wasn't going to be so bad.
Jenny coughed lightly. I saw she was awake now, standing up, looking a little awkward. "I... shouldn't have heard any of that."
"It's okay." I sighed.
"Okay." She didn't seem certain. "Would you like help sleeping? That's what I came in here to ask."
"Thanks." I nodded faintly. It'd probably help. After Prince Keith I probably needed something to help me relax again.
I woke up in a wheelchair. It was so strange, someone walking behind me, and I raised my head slowly to find myself being wheeled out my door and down the hall. Was this how people were taken to surgery?
But why was I dressed? And who had dressed me?
The reflection in a window, the outside still pitch black, showed a nurse I hadn't seen before. She was walking along, face taunt, her steps quick.
O...okay then.
"Patient's discharged." She explained to someone at the lift. A security guard? He seemed uncertain but she thrust paperwork at him before almost wheeling me into him and into the lift. "Out of my way. The car's waiting."
"What about my surgery?" I asked as the lift doors started to shut. Something seemed really odd about this. Really odd. Just as I was thinking this I saw Jenny- who looked exhausted in regular clothing- turning a corner and coming face to face with the lift.
Her jaw dropped. "Wa...wait a se-"
The doors shut.
"Please relax." The nurse smiled at me in the elevator's mirrors, before jabbing a needle into my neck, her smile somewhat … put on. I cringed and shoved her hand away, twisting around, trying to grasp her wrist. That was not normal. None of this was normal.
"What the hell?" I snapped, nearly falling off the wheelchair, aware that the Ivs were gone as well- my arm was bleeding. Bleeding! What kind of nurse just yanked out IV things from an arm and left it bleeding?
"Your Father has grounded you."
I froze at those words. Her smile slipped off as she shoved my shoulders back down and added, "Sit down. He's waiting for you."
I didn't really have much choice. My brain was starting to go numb and drowsy, body growing weak, with whatever she'd injected burning up and down my body. Ow. Ow. Ow. "I..."
"Quiet."
As the elevator's doors opened she shoved me out into a carpark and the cold air of the basement was matched with the sound of running feet. Someone charged into the side of the 'Nurse, tipping the two of us over, wheelchair flying and our bodies crashing into the cold cement as a car skidded around the basement.
I lifted my head to see Jenny standing, a long scrape down one arm, panting hard as she tried to grasp onto the woman's hair. Woah. When had I thought she was cute? The two of them were wrestling, tugging at each other, shoving, as the car came to skid at a halt beside me.
No way could I stand, the wheelchair knocked a bit too far away, but I skidded along the ground for it anyway. A pair of feet knocked it aside easily and grasped me by the scruff of my neck, dragging me up, as my half-brother stared at me with the same cold psychotic look I'd seen on my Father's face. Even as I fought to stay awake, I felt my body tense automatically, an instinctual response that warned me, 'This isn't good, this really isn't good!"
"Come on home, little sister." I was thrown into the back seat. I wasn't sure if I hit it or not, some part of my mind passing out a moment, because when I woke I was against the window of the car and my half-brother was sliding the door shut behind him.