BROKEN WINGS • ACOTAR

Chapter 2

I had noticed the way the General of Night stared at me. It was petrifying. When men stared they wanted something. When men stared, those stares turned into wandering hands, those hands turned to kisses and those kisses. They turned into unwanted touches, fake smiles and jokes you had to laugh at. Just to live through another day.

I just needed to be unnoticed. Don't be seen. Hide. You know that saying, fight or flight? Well, I have a different one. Flight or die. Because men will not let us push and shove and scream, they will tear us down and call our pain insignificant. They will not let us do blatantly destroy them. So they kill us. Eliminate the competition.

But hey, boys will be boys.

When I first heard that saying, when I first realised that the only reason -the only reason- that women actually trust me is because they know I suffer with them. We used to be the same. We used to be that little girl who was being sent smiles by older men, who smiled back because it was polite. Who was taught that a smile was an invitation to them.

They trust me because I will not judge them. I will not ask stupid questions like, what were you wearing, did you fight back? Of course we fought back. We tried. It does not matter what we were wearing. We were children.

So when the General came up to me the day after, you knew that I would be scared. He was the General. He could kill me. He could rape me. He could do anything. And I could do nothing.

"Why don't you fight for yourself?"

That confused me. Who was he to just turn up and ask such a question? I can't fight for myself you brainless little-

"I saw you protect that girl."

Oh s***. He saw. I had stood in front of a girl as one of the men had raised their hand at her, as she had flinched away and cowered back. I took the beating for the girl. The girl whose body wasn't fully developed yet, who desperately tried to stop herself from bleeding. Who stood with a smile and a wave and laughed at jokes and let them touch her and let them wave it off and say it was nothing.

"Why can't you protect yourself?"

Mother, he just had to ask all these difficult questions. I can't protect myself. Because I'm not worth it. Because I am nothing, I am disgusting, I am wrong. I don't deserve anything. I won't die fighting for something long dead, a lost cause. I will fight for the girl who still has braids in her hair. Who wears dresses and skirts and smiles at strangers. I will fight for the girls who cannot fight for themselves.

"Why are you asking me these questions? Why did you approach me? What is it that you want?"

F***, f***, f***, I am so f***ing dead! This is the f***ing General of the Night Court. I am gonna be hung at the town center and the spymaster would be sent to torture me. He would scoop out my eyes with bloody wooden forks. He would rip off my fingers, he would-

The General chuckled.

He bloody chuckled.

This f***ing man chuckled.

"Woah, calm down. I was just wondering. I mean you know how to fight. Why don't you use those skills?"

And the General just looked so innocent. He looked like he didn't know the way we were screamed at, the way we cried behind closed doors so no one called us emotional, he just looked so unbelievably naive.

"Because we get killed for fighting back."

The General frowned.

I really need to go. I needed to wash my part of the laundry, cook the food, needed to pick up Butterfly from nursery.

I left. I just f***ing got up and left the bloody General of Night. He just stood there. I would not live to see tomorrow.

The next day, there was a rumour going around.

Apparently the General was fighting for women to have equal rights. He was fighting for women. The f***ing General was fighting for women!

And there, yes. Right there.

Trans people will not be misgendered and treated differently.