There's something horrible about knowing your entire world is about to come crashing down around you and not being able to do anything about it. Victoria makes a grab for the blanket, but she barely has time to pull it up over her breasts before Gabriella sticks her head into the bedroom.

 

A moment passes where no one says anything. There are footsteps in the main room. Her father is here, too.

 

Victoria feels faint. She sags against Matt, the man who’s stuck here, forced here, unsure of what's about to happen. “Mother,” she says, voice weak and wavering. “What happened to knocking?”

 

Gabriella stutters for a moment. She lifts up one hand, pointing a finger at the bed. It's trembling.

 

“It's okay,” tries Victoria, desperately trying to think of something to say that might make things a little better.

 

She can't come up with anything.

 

This entire situation feels like Hell come to Earth.

 

Victoria says, “It's okay,” a second time and tries to smile. She can't.

 

“You little bitch,” is what Gabriella is finally able to say. “I can't believe you would do this to us! I can't believe…I can't believe you would be such a little whore!”

 

The words sting. Victoria flinches back, as though struck. “Mother!”

 

“Don't talk,” says Gabriella. “No, just don't say anything. I can't…I can't bear hearing any more of your lies, Victoria.”

 

“I haven't lied to you about anything!”

 

“You told me that you would stop,” hisses Gabriella. She gestures towards the bed, towards a stunned Matt.

 

He might be a biker from the South, but even Matt's never been faced with a situation like this before. He sits there, stunned silent, and watches the horror unfold.

 

And that's what it is, at the very end of it. This is a horror movie, sure as any that Victoria has ever seen. She feels like she's moving in slow motion when she sits up, unable to stand lest she uncover herself before her mother or worse, lest she uncover Matt in front of the Queen.

 

“Mother,” she tries. “Mother, please. You know you don't mean that!”

 

“No,” says Gabriella. “I've been trying to guide you, Victoria, but I can tell you just aren't going to listen. You've never planned on listening, have you?”

 

From the living room, the King asks, “What's going on, darling?”

 

“What's going on? What's going on? I'll tell you what's going on! We have a skank for a daughter! We have a skank for a daughter, and she has a man in here!” Gabriella spins around, hands up in the air like she's trying to knock the image out of her mind. “I didn't think I'd raised a whore! Where did I go wrong?”

 

“Mother,” insists Victoria, but she's drowned out by the Queen's rambling.

 

“No! No! I don't want to hear it! I will not bear any more of your lies or your excuses! A whore! A harlot! It's a wonder you haven't gotten yourself knocked up before,” rages Gabriella. “Or have you? Have you just destroyed the others?”

 

Tears burn at Victoria's eyes. She bites back on a sob. “There haven't been any others, Mother, children or otherwise! This is…this is him; this is the father.”

 

The King doesn't step into the bedroom. He lingers in the hallway, unwilling to see his daughter in such a state of undress. He's not, however, unwilling to add his two cents to the fight. “I don't think I have ever been so disappointed in you. Victoria, what were you thinking?”

 

“I'm thinking I love him,” sobs Victoria. She hides her face in her hands. In doing so, she lets go of the blanket. It falls down around her waist, revealing bare breasts and dark bruises where Matt's teeth had sunk into tender flesh the night before. “I'm thinking you have no right to marry me off. I'm no slave!”

 

“You're our daughter,” insists the King. “We have every right to make sure that, as heir apparent, you do what's best for the kingdom!”

 

“I want to do what's best for me,” rages Victoria.

 

Matt, uncertain what else to do, tries to grab the pair of dirty jeans off the floor. He throws one leg out from under the blanket but makes sure to keep himself covered when he bends down to grab the denim. “I should leave. Tori, I should—”

 

“Tori?” Gabriella spits out the word like it’s some sort of insult. Her face is twisted up, pinched in a way that Victoria has never seen before. “How dare you? How dare you come into my home, defile my daughter, and demean her in such a way? Do you even know who she is, who we are?”

Gabriella gestures at her chest. “We are royalty! You have slept with royalty!”

 

Matt looks from the Queen to Victoria and back again. He clearly doesn’t want to stay quiet, but he doesn’t know what to say, either.

 

In the end, he sits there and says nothing.

 

This isn’t his fight, after all. This isn’t his battle to rage in.

 

Victoria finally pushes the blanket off her. She stands up, grabbing a pair of panties from her top dresser drawer. Even though she’s sobbing, the young princess tries, and fails, to keep her voice at least somewhat steady. “Please leave.”

 

“I will not,” hisses Gabriella. She marches across the room, grabbing Victoria by the shoulder and spinning her around. “Did he do this to you? Is that why you slept with him, because he made you?”

 

Victoria sputters.

 

Gabriella takes hold of her wrist, the one where Killian left a bruise in the shape of his fingers. “Did he do this to you? I will have him shot, Victoria. Tell me—tell me he made you do this!”

 

“You would rather I have been raped than understand I love this man?”

 

“There’s nothing here to love!”

 

“There is so much to love,” counters Victoria, yanking her hand away from the older woman. “There is everything to love! He didn’t make me do anything, Mother! I had sex with him because that’s what I wanted to do!”

 

In the chaos of the fight, no one hears the door open again. They do, however, see the blinding flash of a camera.