Chapter 0061

“Fiona…” I say, my eyes widening. “I don’t know if I can – that’s so dangerous. If Kent -”

“Please, baby,” she says, true pleading in her eyes. “I know what I’m asking you to do, and I wouldn’t

ask it if it wasn’t so important. I promise you, I promise – no one you love will be hurt by you doing this.

Okay?”

I bite my lip, considering it. Fiona backs away from me, leaving the note in my hand.

“I’m going to leave it with you,” she says. “And if you want to flush the note down the toilet, Fay, I

understand. I’ll be disappointed,” she gives me a stern, sisterly look then, “but I will understand.

Please.”

She puts her hands together like she’s praying and backs towards the door.

“Fiona,” I whisper, “please, stay – just tell me what’s going on –“

“I have to go baby,” she whispers, her hand on the knob now. “He – he doesn’t know I got out. They’re

going to come looking for me.”

My eyes go wide at that – I hadn’t considered that she’d be a prisoner –

My god, what did she do?

And what did he do to her for her transgressions?

“I love you, Fay,” Fiona says, pressing her hand to her heart and looking at me with real affection in her

eyes. “I’ll see you again sometime – I promise. But now I have to go.”

She blows me a kiss and slips out the door, closing it behind her.

I’m speechless as I stare at the dark space where she was just a minute ago. Then I blink, wondering if

maybe I dreamt it all – it happened so fast –

But when I look down into my hand, the note is still there.

Shit. Shit. What the hell was I going to do with this?

It’s a little bomb, really – I know that. If Kent finds me with this note, I am done for, relationship with

Daniel or no.

But to whom, really, do I owe my allegiance? Should I give this note to Alden, my father, who I know

loves me?

Should I give it to Kent, out of allegiance to Daniel? Or to Kent himself, out of allegiance to him? After

all, he protected me last night – kept me alive –

But what, really, happened last night? Was it just coincidence that my father and his family weren’t in

the room when the attack happened?

Kent said it was a kidnapping attempt, maybe for me, but was it? Was I ever really in danger? Did my

father perhaps arrange it as a way to get me away from Kent, to get him out from his clutches?

I groan, leaning back against the pillows, feeling far too inadequate to answer these kinds of questions.

The fact was, I had absolutely no idea what was really happening, and here was this stupid note, this

test of my loyalty.

Everything depended on my actions next - who I gave it to, whether or not I flushed it down the toilet

like Fiona said. But even if I did that, and my dad or Kent ever found out that I had this piece of

evidence and didn’t give it to them –

God damnit, I’m screwed either way.

Swiftly, I peel open the note, hoping that its contents give me any hint about what I should do next. But

it’s just two lines of cryptic poetry.

The little wren sleeps, warm in its nest,

The mink at its door doth it detest.

What? I wrinkle my nose at the verse, written in Fiona’s hand. What the hell was this?

It doesn’t even make any sense – nests don’t have doors -

I grit my teeth and fold it up, trying to decide what to do.

My eyes fall on my desk then, and I make a decision, then.

Well, I make a decision that allows me to defer the real decision. I hurry out of my bed and over to the

desk, grabbing some scotch tape out of the top drawer and crawling underneath to tape the note to the

back of the slim central drawer.

There, I think, crawling out and dusting my hands off. Now that it’s safely hidden, I can decide later

what it is that I want to do.

I get back into bed and lay my head back on my pillow, wondering and worried. Damnit, things have so

grown so very complicated.

What was going to happen when Kent discovered that Fiona was gone?

I purse my lips and stare at the ceiling, knowing that I won’t get a lick of sleep. I’ll be too busy staying

up all night worried about what my next move should be.