The hotel room was gorgeous, but I couldn't enjoy it after seeing the condemnation in the eyes of the staff as Pearl escorted me through the corridors. One and all, they all turned away from me in disgust, with some of them even suggesting I was a monster and ought to be put down. Pearl's iron will kept me from bolting, and once the door had slammed shut behind us, Pearl took me into the bathroom.
"See that?" she said, forcing me to look at myself in the mirror. But I wasn't looking at myself - I was looking at Pearl. Pearl was wearing a psychotic smirk on her face - which was actually mine, and I felt like throwing up.
"What have you done?" I demanded, rounding on her in a rare burst of temper. But my anger soon fizzled out when I saw her face smirking at me. I shot a panicked look at the mirror, and saw the horror written in "my" eyes as I turned back to my cousin.
Pearl's smile turned feral. "I can't have you running free," she told me. "So I decided to do a little bit of work. You're me now, and I am you. You won't be allowed to leave this hotel room alive, and I can go about and live the life I've always wanted. But it comes at a price."
I blinked. "What price?" I said.
"This swap won't last forever," Pearl said. "It will only last for a week before we revert back to normal. But that gives me more than enough time to take back the life you and your faithless pack stole from me when you got me jailed. By the time the week is over, I'll have all your friends wrapped around my finger. But that doesn't mean you'll get to undo the damage I cause; I'm going to smear you in the dirt, and when you do approach your friends, they'll turn their backs on you, and you'll soon find yourself on the outer, just as I was."
I felt like throwing up all over again. "And then what?" I said.
"Well, I can go to jail knowing you're ruined for the rest of your life," Pearl said, smiling as if it made the most perfect sense. "I can spend the rest of my life content that I ruined yours, just like you ruined mine. Have fun finding a friend to take you in on either side of the Channel. You won't be able to weasel your way back into anyone's good graces by the time I'm done with you, so get used to being an exile like I was."
"I'll find a way to stop you," I vowed, but Pearl laughed. 97Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡhJSiyWMHY0
"Good luck," she derided. "You haven't the skills I do, and I've been practicing. I can run circles around anything you try, and I'll leave you wishing you'd never crossed me. Now, I have to go to your packhouse and assure them 'I'm' okay. Henri will probably fall all over himself with relief, and that should give me all the opening I need. Ta-ta." She left with an airy wave, and I sank onto the bed, burying my face in my hands as the tears came. In one merciless stroke, Pearl had guaranteed the life I'd worked so hard to achieve was over. I wanted to believe she was lying, but I had the nasty feeling she was telling the truth. 97Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡAxhMmm7aha
And yet, a small, defiant fire rose to life inside me. Pearl had guaranteed I'd have no friends in either the United Kingdom or France. She'd said nothing about any other countries, and my tears dried up as I began making a new plan. Once Pearl had returned to the United Kingdom to serve her sentence, I'd be free to act and get allies to help me build a new life, no matter how far away I had to go. And if Pearl had my face and memories, then I could easily access hers. It would be a simple matter of finding out how far her sphere of influence extended, and then going outside that sphere so I could undo some of the damage she was promising to inflict on me as her final act of revenge.
It just all depended on how good I could be in the next week.
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