Power of M

Chapter 8

8. Me, Ash and Arthur get sent to the corner

Violet grabbed her falling hair which was like a black wig and looked embarrassed. I guess she could have a normal expression if it happened really rarely. She was after all human.

She put it back on her head and I'm not going to lie, she looked even better with black hair. Irrelevant. And it went really well with her green eyes. Also irrelevant.

"Alex Slogan." She said taunting me. "I will kill you. But I will make an exception. Since you are Jennifer and Thomas Slogan's son your death is going to be a lot slower."

She must have given some sort of signal because Mavis immediately removed the hand cuffs from off the chair and hand cuffed me properly with the chain that reminded me of a dog chain. She bowed towards the queen and dragged me out of the room firmly the hand cuffs cutting into my wrists.

As we walked back presumably to the room where Ash was, I muttered stuff to Mavis through gritted teeth.

"Is it just a coincidence that I have had two in a row, or is everyone in the grand city of Twilight betrayers?"

She didn't reply and just pulled harder but I think she was feeling guilty and regret was written all across her face. She stopped at one of the doors, unlocked it, pushed me in and I heard her relocking it. Before I could see where I was, something or someone pounced on me. Ash. Her face was wet against my shoulder and I realized she was crying. She was only fourteen of course she would be scared. I was scared too. I always found it stupid that people laughed at kids who were scared of things. I would never admit it if I was scared either but I feel like we all deserve to be scared once in our lives without feeling ashamed.

"I'm so sorry." She mumbled into my shoulder and feeling slightly brotherly and extremely awkward, I gently nudged her off. "Why?"

She looked at me with wide light brown eyes. "It was all because of me. I slapped her and then she got angry and she kicked you. So hard. When you blacked out I could have strangled myself." All the words practically tumbled out of her mouth and took me a while to figure out what she was saying.

"Ash, slapping the queen was about the best thing that happened today."

She smiled through her tears. "Really?" I rolled my eyes inwardly. "Yeah. Anyway what happened after I fainted like a grandma?"

"A guard came and slung you over his shoulder like a sports bag. At one point while he was taking you, you almost fell on top of Violet and she had to lift your smelly old feet back onto the guard's shoulder." She giggled and despite everything that had happened to me I couldn't help joining in.

"Looks like both of us are good at annoying the queen." We fist bumped grinning and at that exact same moment Violet walked in. She scowled at us possibly wondering why we looked so happy. Happiness is a crime here. Unless it's her happiness. Maybe she thought we had a plan to escape. Who knows?

"You have a new cell mate." She said grumpily and pushed someone inside and locked the door. Guess who it was. Arthur. I almost flung my arms around her, I was so glad she was alive. She tried for a smile but her eyes revealed the truth. She was scared and worried. With the most powerful jewel in the hands of evil, anything could happen.

I told Ash everything that happened after I came to and Arthur patted her stitches lightly with a pained expression. Ash was horrified.

"So now she knows we are the Slogan children?"

"Next thing we know she will be cutting us open." I said. Ash grimaced. Suddenly I had an idea.

"Arthur can you teach us how to use our tattoo magic or whatever?"

"Stigma magicae" she said softly.

"Huh?"

"Latin. Soul magic." Ash said slowly. Then she looked surprised. "How the hell do I know that?"

"Great." I grumbled. "I'm the only one here who can't speak a different language."

"It's because of her tattoo. She will possibly understand any language. She won't be able to speak it but understanding shouldn't be a problem. Yes, I can teach both of you. It will take some time though and time is not something we have."

"What do we need to do first?" Ash asked.

Arthur shook her head dismally.

"For the stigma magicae you must sacrifice a certain thing that you are attached to or is literally attached to you. For magic, you sacrifice your hair – she gestured to her wig – for memories you sacrifice a tooth and murder......." She shook her head sadly.

"What?" I asked.

"You sacrifice someone you love."

"There's got to be another way." I said. She didn't respond. Just looked at me pityingly.