[[Until We Become Lions]]

Chapter 94: Part 7 [[Sisters of Dawn and Dusk]]

Danijela had spent her entire life trying to hide the darkest aspects of what the world had to give from Evee, but today, she could not hide the horror of what those closest to them could do too. No one wanted to address the elephant in the room with Danijela's medical gown and the blood seeping from the spot between her legs. They only need to assume what Anton had done and shiver at the thought. Evee had grasped Danijela and draped her sister's arm around her shoulders. Danijela was a lot heavier than she looked, having lost a significant amount of weight living off rations with Libertad , but she knew Evee could see through Danijela's own marianismo that she was not going to be able to stand on her own strength alone for very long. The two sisters followed Diego who ducked into the hall and followed him into his father's presidential office.

Danijela tried to keep her breathing steady, but it seemed to be going in and out between long periods of silence to agonized groans as she tried to hold her own weight up. All the while she tried to keep a watchful eye on Diego. She knew he wanted to help. It's all he ever wanted. But she also knew how strong of a pull his father had on him, so, unfortunately, she had to consider the sliver of possibility that this too, could be a trap. After all, it had only been five minutes  since he shot her. Diego turned to the women and ushered them to follow him into a room off to the side, hiding what seemed to be an entirely separate surveillance system from the one that Hotel Paraiso used.

Danijela had never been in this room, despite all the times she had been in Anton's office. The door was always closed, and she never felt inclined to go inside. Danijela began to trip over own feet, her movement becoming more sluggish. Evee looked at her with that same worried look she had sported seemingly since she was born. Always worried about Danijela. Danijela always worried about Evee, worrying about her.  Danijela's palm was pressed firmly to her shoulder, so Evee was not able to see just how bad the injury was. Danijela gave her sister a reassuring smile.

"Just like old times." Danijela mused.

"Yeah, except you usually came home with a black eye..." Evee said with a tinge of a laugh. A coping mechanism. The only reaction she had to their situation. It was just like old times. The trio clambered into the security room. Diego shut the doors behind them and began to check the security feeds set up on a dual-monitor. The existence of this room made sense in that Anton would want to see who was approaching through the elevator to his penthouse, and one situated in the hallway, but that didn't explain why there was more than one security feed. What was there for the president to possibly watch for other than the feed that showed the elevator and hallway on the first monitor? From what they could see, no other soldiers had stormed the penthouse hallway just yet, but there were a handful of them boarding the elevator. From what Danijela could tell, they weren't armed, only brandishing riot shields. Anton probably assumed Diego had followed through on disarming Danijela by shooting her. Well, it partially worked.

Danijela looked to the second monitor. One panel of the screen was completely blacked out, but just as the first monitor had labels such as elevator_001 and elevator_002 to differentiate between the two camera angles, the blacked-out panel simply said ruiz_001 . The only other camera in view was playing feedback from a room Danijela was all too familiar with. Bookcases filled to the brim of poetry and astronomy. A telescope that she never quite got to use as much as she would have liked. A perfectly spot-on angle of her bed.

Danijela looked at the label at the bottom right corner. rojas_001 .

Icicles filled her veins as she stiffened. Anton had been watching them. This entire time he had been watching them. Her mind flashed briefly to their first week here. Her most intimate moments. Her most vulnerable and personal. Had he seen it all? Every thought she had of him. Every night terror that clawed its way into her dreams. He had been there. Always.