Wicked Ugly Bad (A Kinda Fairytale) (26 page)

Prince
Charming continues to pester me with phone calls, wanting to discuss Scarlett
and Drusilla’s progress.

I begin to
worry that he might be in a deep state of denial.  Could he really doubt that
they are guilty?

And, if he
does, do we want someone so gullible in charge of a kingdom?

Psychiatric case notes of Dr. Ramona
Fae

Cinderella
looked down at the man handcuffed before her.  “This isn’t Scarlett.”

“No,
majesty.  This is Dower.”  Gustav said seriously, as if it wasn’t obvious to
everyone
that the male wolf on the ground was just a
tiny
bit different from a
redheaded ugly stepsister.  “This is one of Scarlett’s friends, though.  He
escaped with her.  The monkeys caught him this morning, near the Enchanted
Forest, and turned him over for interrogation.”

“I’m
not Scarlett’s friend!”  The wolf named Dower shrieked.  He was shackled and
kneeling on the floor of the throne room, looking like he’d been attacked by
--well-- pissed off monkeys.  “I was just in prison with her.  I swear, I can’t
stand that bitch.”

“We
need to know everything that happened.”  Charming stepped forward.  “Start from
the beginning.  No.  Wait.  First tell me if Letty and Dru are alright.”

Cinderella
exchanged a look with Jack.  It infuriated her that the prince had stuck his
nose into this.  Jack and Gustav could’ve extracted all the information they
needed from the wolf without all this pointless bullshit, but Charming just
had
to be involved. 
Had
to stop the mice from doing what needed to be
done. 
Had
to be underfoot with his tedious morality and busybody ways.

He
was such a dope.

“Scarlett’s
fine.”  Dower stared up at Charming like the prince was going to save him from
further simian violence.  If he thought those winged orangutans were mean, wait
until the mice got him alone.  “Dru was gassed by the purple smoke and is out
of it, but she’s still alive and all.”

Charming
frowned in dopy concern.

“Where
are
they?”  Cinderella snapped, unwilling to wait for her brain dead
fiancé to get to the heart of the matter.  She loomed over Dower.  “Answer now
or you’ll be fucking sorry, wolf.”  She hated wolves.  They were such a
disgusting, worthless, breed.  She gave him a kick, just because she could.  “Answer!”

“Jesus!” 
Charming scowled over at her as Dower crumpled to the ground.  “Is that really
necessary?”

“
Yes
. 
If you weren’t such a pussy, you’d realize that we need to be tough on Baddies
or they’ll walk all over the rights of Good folk and…”

“Letty
said they were going to her grandmother’s house!”  Dower cried, cutting her
off.  “She’s looking for a glass slipper!”

Cinderella’s
eyes slashed over to Jack.  “Get him out of here.”  She hissed.

“Wait!” 
Charming kept his attention on Dower.  “What glass slipper?”

“What
fucking glass slipper do you think?!”  Dower screeched as the mouse started to
drag him towards the dungeon.  “Letty says she has Cinderella’s shoe, only it’s
not
Cinderella’s shoe.  Letty says she can prove Cinderella is a liar.  She
says she can prove she’s not your bride!”

Well
shit.

Charming’s
head whipped around to face Cinderella, something like triumph filling his
expression.

In
that second, she knew the prince believed that dirty wolf criminal over her. 
He believed
Letty
over her.  Even through the spell, Charming had
always
sensed
that something was wrong.  He was
happy
that Cinderella
was about to be exposed as a fraud. 
Happy
that she wasn’t his destined
princess.  Two days before their beautiful wedding, the son-of-a-bitch was just
looking
for an excuse to leave her at the altar.

“I
knew it!”  He jabbed a finger at her, his eyes bright with satisfaction.  “I
knew
you weren’t my True Love!”

Cinderella
did what any poor mistreated girl would do when her delicate heart was broken
by her handsome prince.

She
slugged the bastard.

Her
dainty manicured fist slammed into his face, bending the wire rims of his
glasses into his nose.  Charming stumbled back in shock and pain.  Cinderella
closed the distance, hitting him, again.

Jack
dropped his hold on Dower and rushed forward.

“That’s
all it takes?
”  She screamed.  “The secondhand word
of an escaped mental patient is all it takes for you to dump me?!”  Jack seized
Charming by the arms, holding him still so she could keep hitting him.  “I am
the most perfect woman in this kingdom and you want a
fucking ugly
stepsister
instead?!
”

“Oh
great.”  Dower groaned as the mouse wrestled Charming to the ground.  “Damn
Marrok.  This is all
his
fault. 
He’s
the one who wanted Letty. 
Not me.”

Cinderella’s
head came around with a snap.  “What?”

“Marrok
Wolf!  He’s the one you want!”

“The
Wolfball player?”

“Yes! 
He’s obsessed with Scarlett. 
That’s
what started this.  I didn’t even
want to leave the hospital.  I was a hostage.”

The
handsomest man in the Four Kingdom’s wanted
Letty?
  Jesus!  The bastard was
a mindless animal, but he could probably fuck better than three other men
combined.  She’d never met Marrok, but Cinderella could certainly imagine all
the nasty things someone like him would do to a woman in bed.  All the marks
and bruises and degradation as he took his fill.

How
did Scarlett always get so lucky?

Why
was everything in this world so
unfair?!

“What
do you think you’re doing?!”  Charming roared as Jack cuffed his wrists.  “I’m
the prince of this kingdom!  You can’t
do
this!”

“It’s
already done.”  Cinderella stood over her fiancé and hated the jackass.  “I
wanted to do this the
pretty
way, with the cake and the flowers and the
all the peasants throwing rice at me.  But, you couldn’t let that happen, could
you?  You
want to ruin
everything
for me.”

“You
aren’t my princess.”  The spell was failing now that he’d realized the truth. 
She could see awareness entering Charming’s eyes as his memories came rushing back. 
“The shoe didn’t fit you.”  He breathed in astonishment.  “The wolf is right.  It
wasn’t
you!
”

“No,
but it
was
me who slaved over the seating chart for our wedding!”  God
knew,
he’d
been no help at all.  Cinderella had tirelessly planned an
entire reception and he’d never once said thank you.  But somehow
she
was the villain in all this.  “I have a hundred and fifty-six lobsters coming
in tomorrow, you selfish bastard!”

“You
locked up my True Love!”  Charming struggled to get free.  “You
bitch
.”

“She
deserved it!”

Goddamn
it, why did every little thing in Cinderella’s life have to go wrong?  Didn’t
she deserve one special day?  Especially, when Letty was being pleasured by The
Big Bad Wolf at that very moment?  How was it that an
ugly stepsister
got
a man like that and all Cinderella got was this pitiful bleating goat?  How was
that fair?!

She
pressed her hands to her temples and bit back a scream of frustration.

When
she thought of all the time she’d spent selecting the perfect pink for her
color scheme.  Her beautiful ice sculptures and a whole fleet of doves couldn’t
just be
wasted
.  Everyone in the Four Kingdoms
needed
to watch
her walk down the aisle.  She
needed
to bask in the glow of their envy.

Charming’s
stubbornness was not going to ruin it for her!

“What
now, majesty?”  Gusatv asked.

Jack
dragged Charming to his feet.  “We should kill him.”

“No. 
He’s going to marry me.”  She couldn’t give it up.  The royal wedding was her
due!
 
“I don’t care what it takes, get that asshole back here to recast the spell and
make Charming forget all this, again.”

“Majesty,
that won’t work.  You know that once a spell is broken…”

“Do
it, Gustav!”

He
obediently bowed his head, but she’d have the other men punish him later. 
Strenuously.
 
No one questioned her orders and got away with it unscathed.

“I’ll
die before I marry you.”  Charming spat.  “There’s only one woman I love.”

Cinderella
rolled her eyes.  “Oh, shut-up.”

“This
is why Scarlett escaped.  She’s coming here.  She’ll set me free and…”

Jack
smashed Charming’s skull against the wall, which did them all a favor and stopped
her groom’s blathering.  The prince dropped to the ground in an unconscious
heap.

“About
time.”  Cinderella looked over at Jack and reached up to fluff her hair.  “Now,
call the news stations.  Tell them their princess has something to say.”

Why does the
wolf persist in ignoring my Good advice?  He looks right through me during our
sessions.  Instead, all his attention seems fixed on an ugly stepsister, who
throws herself at him in

increasingly
shameless and disgusting ways.

Psychiatric
case notes of Dr. Ramona Fae

Scarlett
stepped out of the tub and dried off.  She hadn’t had a hot shower in six
weeks.  The water at the WUB Club never rose above “tepid,” so it had felt
wonderful to stand under the scorching spray and let all her problems wash away.

Except
they hadn’t
really
been washed anywhere.

Cinderella
was still ensconced in the palace, planning to kill Scarlett and Dru and everyone
else who might cross her.  Until Cindy was gone, no one was safe.  Scarlett
hated to leave the steamy warmth of the shower, but she had a thousand other
things she needed to accomplish if she was going to overthrow her evil stepsister
and save the Four Kingdoms.

The
bathroom looked exactly the same as it had when Letty was growing up, the walls
covered in a hand painted mural of happy bunnies and sunshine.  In fact,
everything
in the house looked the same as it had looked ever since Letty could remember. 
Jana made sure to keep everything familiar and unchanging.

…And
camouflaged as the cheery cottage of a sweet little old lady.

Wrapping
a robe around herself, Scarlett headed out into her bedroom.  The room was
decorated in warm yellows and bright blues, with a canopy bed draped with
breezy fabric.  It was designed to allay suspicions, should anyone come
snooping around, but Scarlett had always
liked
the pretty, girly space.

She’d
spent most of her life in the Westlands with her mother and stepfather, but
Jana’s house had always been Letty’s home.  Luckily, she kept some clothes in
the festively painted armoire.  She never wanted to see those red sweatpants
and “EVIL” shirt again, but she couldn’t exactly wear a fuzzy bathrobe on her
mission.

She
was debating which outfit would be best for infiltrating the palace, when she
spotted Marrok.  He was sitting on her favorite sunflower pattered arm chair as
if it was the most natural thing in the world.

…In
his hand was the glass slipper.

Letty
mentally cursed her grandmother.  Jana was the only one who could’ve given it
to him.  The two of them were like the tag team from hell.

“What
are you doing?”  She demanded, afraid to move for fear of what he might do.

“Look
at this thing.”  He held it up with a baffled shake of his head.  “What kind of
dumbass makes their footwear out of glass?  One stubbed toe and you’re crippled
for life.  It’s just soooo breakable.”

“Put
it
down
.”

He
casually tossed the delicate crystal shoe from palm to palm.  “What would
happen if I smashed it, do you think?  Would Charming believe you about
Cinderella being a fraud even without the proof?”

Letty
tried to brazen it out.  “Of course he would.”

“
I
would believe you.”  Marrok’s eyes stayed on hers.  “I would always know you
were mine.  But, I’m going to bet that Charming would need more proof.”  He
pretended to brighten.  “Hey, maybe you could tell him something that only the
two of you would know.  Like maybe… something about that night in the garden. 
You guys were the only ones there, right?  He
has
to remember that.”

Scarlett
took a determined step forward, only to freeze when he held the glass slipper
at arm’s length over the hardwood floor.

“Because,
God knows,
I
can’t get the images of you two together out of my head.”  He
dangled the shoe by one finger.  “My True Love and the Prince of the Westlands
rolling around in topiary and flowers… It’s burned into my skull like acid.”