VILLAIN

Chapter 6

 "Please don't let me fall," I begged him, squeezing his hand as hard as I could.

He raised an eyebrow, his mouth turned down into a scowl. "I should, shouldn't I?" he replied coldly. "Hero to Villain?"

He spat the word at me, and I flinched, opening my mouth to retort. But my life was hanging on this boy's mercy, so I instead summoned the most vulnerable expression I could, staring straight into his eyes.

"True," I said, "But what about person to person?"

He scoffed. "You aren't a person, you're a Villain. And you don't deserve my help."

"Then why did you catch me?" I asked, grasping at straws as I desperately tried to find a branch I could grab onto. This task was made more difficult by the fact that I still held my mirror in my left hand, which meant I didn't have any free hands to grab a branch with. But I couldn't let my mirror fall. I wouldn't.

The boy didn't seem to know what to say to that, his confidence briefly halted. Then he recovered, his stone-cold expression back in place. "I thought you were a Peasant," he told me. "A Hero's job is to protect the Peasants, so I caught you. But a Hero's job is also to defeat the Villains, so..."

He loosened his grip, but I clung onto him.

"Wait!" I screamed, frightened tears blurring my vision. "Please! What, what about the Measures of Justice? I'm still in school, I, I –"

A horrible smirk curled his lips. "Not anymore you aren't. The Measures only protect you until you complete or voluntarily leave the school. And since you're outside the school grounds..."

He left me to fill in the rest of that sentence. I gulped, my blood running cold as my sweaty palm slipped in his.

"Please," I whimpered, never hating my green eyes more. "I'm begging you."

This seemed to amuse him, but he didn't drop me, which I took as a good sign. "And what exactly will you do if I save your life?" he asked.

"Anything," I blurted, even though I knew that was probably a mistake. "Anything at all. Please...I don't want to die."

His eyes were still locked on to my frightened ones, and I could see the coolness draining from his expression, if only a little. I held his gaze, begging him with my eyes. He tried to remain cold, but I could sense the change beneath the mask. He was just as afraid of dropping me as I was. He stayed like that for an agonizing amount of time, his jaw muscles twitching and his arm shaking, but his eyes still stone-cold. Then, finally, he muttered a curse underneath his breath and pulled me back up onto the branch.

As soon as I had regained my footing I stuffed my mirror back into my nightdress, grabbing onto the steadiness of the branch with both of my arms. My heart still hammered in my chest and adrenaline pumped through my veins, but it had never felt so good to have something solid beneath my feet as it did then.

I turned to the Hero, taking a deep breath to compose myself. "Thank you," I told him with as much earnestness as I could put in my voice.

He had returned to scowling, clearly irritated that he'd been cajoled into letting me live. He didn't even reply to my thanks, but as I began to climb back down the tree, he grabbed my wrist again.

"Oh, no you don't," he said, eyes glinting. "You still owe me anything," he reminded me.

I swallowed hard, my anxiety returning in full-force. "And what do you want?" I asked, somehow doubting it was something as simple as a vial of Giggle Serum.

"I want that," he said, nodding to my back, where my mirror resided.

My eyes widened, and dread knotted my stomach. "No," I whispered. "No, no, no, please. You can't have that."