The Dark Prince's Captive • Complete

𝐂𝐡𝐚𝐩𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝐓𝐰𝐞𝐧𝐭𝐲-𝐍𝐢𝐧𝐞 - 𝑹𝒊𝒗𝒆𝒓

I ran out of Jennie photos. Sorry.
Also... why the ever loving hell are there pink wads of cash in those cupboards?

The world exploded around them all at once.

BANG.

BANG BANG BANG.

It echoed off the walls so that it felt like it was everywhere. I jumped forward into Alex and he wrapped his arms around me. Holy shit, people were shooting at us!

Why were people shooting at us?

Alex yanked me back into a dark alcove we’d just passed.

Each successive gunshot made me flinch. Why did it have to be so loud? Alex held me tighter and I clung to him in spite of the fact that he was just being a jack-hole a few minutes ago.

“Come on, we gotta get you out of here,” Alex said in my ear.

He spoke so confidently. Did he know what was going on? Because I would really appreciate a clue in. Was this a thing that happened in his regular day to day? If I’d known that, I never would have agreed to this little adventure.

In fact, right about now, I was wanting off the roller coaster, thank you very much.

I wanted to go back to my nice, quiet, staid little life where I didn’t hallucinate voices in my head and where I 100% did not get shot at while running around an abandoned castle in the middle of the night!

What the hell were we even doing here?

Um… you dragged everybody here.

Not helpful!

Just saying.

Instead of taking me back the way I’d come through, ya know, towards the exit, Alex was pulling me deeper into the cavernous castle. Down stairways, pressing me against the wall when there were steps missing and quietly guiding my way even when it was pitch dark. It was like he could see just fine.

When he’d gotten me to the deepest, darkest corner of the castle’s basement, the gunfire had stopped. That only made it feel more ominous—knowing someone who wanted to hurt us was creeping around out there. Hunting us.

I shuddered down to my bones. Would we just hide out here together until morning, hoping they didn’t find us?

But right then, Alex started to pull away from me, quietly whispering instructions. “Okay, stay here. Don’t show yourself to anyone else except me. I should be back in an hour. If I don’t come back, you still don’t move. Not until daytime, bright daylight, you hear me?”

“What are you going to do?” I asked. Surely he didn’t think he — “You’re not going to try to fight them, are you? They have guns, Alex! Do you even have a knife on you?”

“Yes, I’ve got a knife.”

I scoffed. “Oh great, so you’ll bring a knife to a gunfight!” I said, my voice all but going up an octave. “Now I feel so much better.”

“Shhh,” Alex whispered, leaning in, his breath warm on my ear in a way that had me shivering for a whole different set of reasons. “Don’t worry about me, darlin.’ I can handle my own.” Then, with a wink I could barely see in the darkness and maybe imagined, he disappeared.

“Alex,” I whisper-shouted, reaching out for him. But he was already gone.

All I heard was the barely audible scuff of his boots against stone and then nothing.

Absolutely nothing.

It was silent apart from the creepy-ass wind moaning through the ruins and the tall, cracking, swaying pines outside.