Octavia Girl

Chapter 25

Forking Fallcet

“You miserable piece of rotten garbage!” Jenna exclaimed, looking at the crown on Fallcet’s head and unable to word anything more offensive in her near-blackout anger. “I fricking hate you. I would have crowned you ages ago if you’d been a little bit less of a fecking weenie!”

“You think I like this?” Fallcet yelled, fighting back. “I don’t like this any more than you do. You think I wanted to become a diplomat to the Octavians?”

The way he said the word Octavians was so disdainful, so arrogant, and so wrecked that Jenna almost kicked him in the junk.

Sardius held her back. “They crowned him because he was the only person you interviewed, Jenna. He’s the only one who could slide in without an uproar. They’re still trying to keep this little kidnapping incident secret and on the down low. If that wasn’t the case, I would have already shattered his skull. Fallcet,” Sardius said, turning his focus back toward the diplomat. “Have you got Jenna’s earpiece? Is Favel on his way here?”

“Not quite. We still have more to discuss.”

Jenna made eye contact with Sardius, giving him the look that let him know that she was no longer in danger of beating Fallcet. When he let her go, she straightened herself. “All right, Fallcet. I know what you want. You want it to look like I crowned you. If you return my earpiece and return to the floating palaces with me at once, I may be able to work with what you’ve done.”

“That was one of the things I wanted to talk to you about. I don’t want to live on the floating palaces before you’ve crowned eight diplomats,” he said.

“Kill him,” Jenna ordered Sardius through clenched teeth. Jenna knew the reason Sardius held her back wasn’t because he was opposed to Fallcet getting hurt, but because he didn’t want Jenna to get hurt hurting him. If Sardius did it on her behalf, it was a whole different story.

Sardius didn’t wait a moment and came forward. He didn’t even crack his knuckles, but he open-palmed slapped Fallcet so hard he fell to the ground.

“Wait!” Fallcet screamed. “You’d kill me right here?”

“Obviously,” Jenna said, standing over him and crossing her arms. “There is only one way to get a crown off a diplomat and that’s to kill him. You know that. You know that’s why so many diplomats to the Octavians die. Or didn’t you think about that?”

Fallcet put his hand to his crown and Jenna got her wish. He cut himself on it. He jerked his hand away from the crown of his head and looked at the gash. He put his middle bleeding finger in his mouth. “I’ll call for help!” he warned, speaking around the finger in his mouth like it was an extra tongue.

“Break his head open,” Jenna ordered Sardius.

Sardius pulled his leg back in preparation to obey Jenna. “Are you sure you want to do that? His brains will be everywhere.”

“I’ll live on the palaces,” Fallcet agreed in distress.

“And you’ll get my earpiece? Now?” Jenna persisted.

“Yes. I’ll call for it.” He pulled on a button on his collar and started relaying instructions to whoever was on the other end of it.

When he was finished, Jenna reached down and pulled the communication button off him. “Who’s there?” she asked into the pin, but no sound came. She looked down at Fallcet. “Very wise to keep this isolated so I don’t know who you’re working with or who in the AAMC has these plans.”

“You don’t know what you’re doing,” Fallcet grunted, pulling himself into a sitting position. “I’m trying to help you. I know you don’t want to deal with the AAMC, but times are changing and someone needs to tell the Octavians what is happening.”

“That’s my job,” Jenna said briskly. “You guys just don’t want me to do my job. The AAMC is unwilling to share information with me and then they’re mad at me for not knowing their perspective. Your position in all of this is just fortifying their power grab. You know what?” Jenna said, crouching in front of Fallcet and looking him in the eye. “If the Octavians wanted to cause trouble within the Adamis ranks, they’ve chosen the perfect way to divide us. The high-ranking members of the AAMC can’t bear for anyone else to be in control, they fight me and we are divided amongst ourselves. The Octavians don’t have to fight us. We’ll fight ourselves like morons. And you are the biggest moron of them all because you fell for it. You fell for their little speech and you gave into their power lust, but their power isn’t for you. It’s only for them! You think you’re one of them because of your family ties, but really, you’re a little sacrificial lamb because as long as you’re on the floating palaces, you’re mine. You will do everything I say. You’re going to tell them you’re a little mole who will tell them everything. Leak information until you’re blue in the face. I’m not hiding anything.”

She stood up and glared at Fallcet who looked as cheap as a paper bag on the floor even though he had a crown on his head.

There was a knock at the door.

“That’s probably your earpiece,” Fallcet said huskily, trying to piece together his dignity.

Sardius opened the door, but the earpiece was merely abandoned on the carpet. Sardius looked both ways down the hallway, confirming that there was no one there. He bent, removed something from his shoe, and dropped the earpiece into a black bag.

“What’s he doing?” Fallcet asked, watching Sardius. “There’s nothing wrong with it. It’s not a bomb or anything. If we wanted to kill Jenna, we could have done so already. I could have done that at the Dahlia Palace when I first got there. Security isn’t that tight.”

Jenna slapped him up the backside of the head since Sardius wasn’t close enough to stop her. “You don’t get funding for a security detail once we’re back at the floating palaces. I want someone to kill you.”

“We need to talk,” Fallcet said, rubbing the back of his head.

“I need a change of clothes and something to eat. I’ve got low blood sugar,” she said, before slapping the back of his head again.

Sardius inspected the hallway and returned. “The way out is just a little further down the hall.”

He took Jenna under his arm and pulled her forward. Fallcet followed behind them with his suitcase trailing behind him.

Outside, an Octavian transport was pulling up to the dock. When Jenna saw Favel peering at them from behind the wheel of the hovercraft, she relaxed.

Then she kicked the back of Fallcet’s knees and he fell headfirst into the water.

Sardius kept his hands off her and put a reasonable distance between them, so they looked like a normal diplomat and her bodyguard. “This whole thing has messed everything up. Having that weenie on the palaces is a major breach of security. I don’t know how we’re going to manage it.”

“We’ll think of some way to keep him on a leash,” Jenna said, wondering if their little kidnapping escapade had been all bad. After all, she had finally discovered what happened to Sardius. Having him turn out to be Ryatt really was the happiest ending she could have hoped for. She hadn’t realized how her feelings for the two men had been pulling her apart. Now she was one person and whether he liked it or not, she was completely in love with him.

She looked at him, giving him a look like she would never tire of looking at him.

“The Octavians picked up Fallcet,” he said conversationally, pointing at the drowned rat they pulled up from the water. Then he saw the expression on Jenna’s face. “You really shouldn’t look at me like that. I’m only going to disappoint you.”

“Oh… I know. I’m disappointed right now. I expect I’ll be disappointed a few minutes from now and then a few hours after that. It will just go on and on.”

His eyebrows came together. “Don’t be such a little minx. I’m still your bodyguard and I still have a job to do.”

“Yeah. I need a good night’s sleep tonight, so protect me all night, will you?” she said coyly.

He groaned and looked like he might say more, but Favel had brought the transport right up to the dock and was beckoning for Jenna and Sardius to get on board.

“We need to have a debriefing about what just happened,” the blue Octavian said darkly, the words like shadow whispers sneaking out from between his tentacles.

“Of course,” Jenna agreed. “We should poison that guy to death, or flood his room with gas, or drown him, or suffocate him with a pillow, or…”

“I can hear you!” Fallcet called in irritation from his seat on the deck where he was draped with an oversized towel provided by the Adamis members of the crew.

“I’m joking,” she called to him. Then quieter, she said to Favel, “I’m so not joking. Let’s kill him.”

“Slowly and painfully?” Favel suggested, absolutely ready for whatever Jenna wanted.

“Maybe we can just scalp him. I want that crown back,” she said darkly.

Sardius rubbed the back of his neck. “Don’t pay too much attention to her, Favel. Jenna changes gears quickly. Just a moment ago she was thinking about something completely different.”

Jenna pursed her lips. “It’s true. I do change gears quickly. I want to go home.”

Favel gave the order and they pulled away from the dock.

But Jenna didn’t make it to her palace before she fell asleep with her head on Sardius’ shoulder. He shielded her eyes from the light with the palm of his hand.

“I hate and love all of this,” he whispered.

He thought that she couldn’t hear him, but she did. She smiled and let herself fall the rest of the way asleep.

THE END

Continue the story in Octavia Girl Vol. III