The Emperor

16

ADELINE

       I stare, eyes wide, at Kaiser.

The fear is radiating through my body. He pushed Dawn down the stairs. My mind doesn't seem to want to wrap around that fact, I've seen it. I witnessed it. But I can't understand what I saw. Why would he do this? What kind of person would be heartless enough to do this?

My hands are shaking as I wrap my fingers around his wrists to try to pull his hands off of my face, a useless move. Those green orbits of his flare with anger, they're shadowed with something else too, something deeper, darker, scarier. As if his anger wasn't enough.

I try to step away again but his grip on my face only tightens, forcing me in place. He isn't squeezing my cheeks or anything, but his fingers are pressing against my jaw, my cheek bones and my temples. He digs into my skin like he's trying to claw his way inside my skull, trying to take a peek into my brain.

Every single bone in my body tells me to run, to escape, to save myself. To atone for my sins.

But I've been damned since he asked for those lessons, perhaps before then, perhaps ever since I met him. I should have known better. What good would it be to help a man who only seeks to please himself? What good would it be to help a man who thinks of himself as a Lord? What good would it be to help the devil in disguise?

       Kaiser is by far one of the most complex human beings I have met, and I haven't met many people. I always thought Mare would be at the top of this list, that she would always remain the question mark of my life.

Mare was a chaotic person by nature, she didn't care about anything or anyone but me. I was the only one that mattered to her. She would have done anything for me, I know that now and I knew that back then. I also know and knew that Mare was not the healthiest person around me but she felt like the safest. She was my Mare.

       She never would have done anything to hurt me.

Kaiser, though, is a depraved man. A man who holds no regard for his rights or wrongs. A man who shouldn't even be allowed into society. A man who shouldn't be looking at me with this sick obsession reflecting in his eyes. Kaiser could crush me in a second, he could snap my body in two and there is no telling if he would actually do it or not. He is unpredictable. It terrifies me.

       He just threw Dawn down the stairs!

       I don't know what scares me the most, his actions or the thoughts behind it. The thoughts behind it or my own ideas of it. I should have ran to help her, I should have begged him to stop, I should have fought him to free my friend but no. I hid like a coward and found myself having my hair braided by his brother.

       Dawn would have helped me. She would have been the first to throw herself at him to help me. That's what she's been doing, helping me. Saving me. Or at least, trying to do so. She knows more than me, she's braver than me, she's better than me.

        I stood there and did nothing while he abused my friend and I hate myself even more for the insect that grew in my stomach at the sight of what he is ready to do to keep me by his side.

       I should be terrified. I am terrified. I am scared to death and I want to die but not all of me. The tiniest part of me, as small as an atom, got weaker for him.