Codependency

Part 13 // Look at you, look at me!

(Shoutout to mish who always votes on my chapters and makes me want to keep writing this absolutely edgy novel)
(TW for abuse, victim blaming, trauma responses, victim not coping well after leaving an abuser, etc)

"Where's Shadow Weaver?"
Someone yelled over the wind that rushed past the seven getaways as they sailed through the Frightzone.

Glimmer was steering hard, a determined grit in her teeth as she narrowly avoided smashing into buildings.
"She told me that she wasn't going to make it out."

Adora paused her struggles momentarily to process that. Shadow Weaver had sacrificed or surrendered herself to the Horde to let Adora be kidnapped by rebels. She hadn't managed to drag out of Catra why Shadow Weaver was even with the Rebels in the first place. The rest of the group was also silent, minus the struggling pirate who was hardly able to hold onto his balance, much less Adora. She took his flailing around as an opportunity to rip her arm free of him and punch him square in the stomach. The man fell back against the ledge of the skiff, protectively holding his arms over his belly. A new set of arms grabbed Adora before she could do any more damage. It was Bow, who had to let go of her mouth to grab her free arm.

"Get off me! I'm not a traitor!" Adora demanded, her voice raw with fury.

"Glimmer, can't you make this junk go faster?" The ocean princess snapped.

The pink-haired girl was already nearing the end of the Frightzone compound, where the Whispering Woods would soon be in sight.
"Just hold her down and- and cover her eyes!" Glimmer ordered.

"Why her eyes?" Bow questioned, but he reached for Adora's face.

"I'm okay!" The pirate man announced, to which no one responded.

"She can't figure out how to get back to the Frightzone before I give her memories back to her." Glimmer explained.

Adora let out an indignant growl as Bow covered her eyes.
"You monsters won't trick me again." She spat.

"Does that look infected to you?" Adora heard Bow's concern as he spoke to someone, or possibly everyone who could see Adora's injuries.

"It's hard to tell. It looks like it was reopened... why did no one give her stitches?" Perfuma's voice had an underlying tone of frustration.

"Well... Resources and medics in the Frightzone are few and far between." Scorpia explained. "Adora, as a prisoner, wasn't on a priority list of who to use up those resources on."

"That's... awful." Bow murmured.

Adora was glad she couldn't see their pathetic expressions.
"I don't need pity from you people." Adora snarled. "Catra gave me these. They're what I get for betraying the Horde."

"Catra..." Glimmer sounded bitter. "I'd like to have stayed longer and beaten her to a pulp for what she's done to you."

Adora suddenly surged upward, almost throwing off her distracted captors, but they pushed her down fast.
"Don't talk about Catra that way!"

Adora's heart hammered in her chest. What had even happened to Catra after Adora had been taken away? Was she okay? It sounded like Glimmer had only been distracting her before teleporting to her companions. Catra wouldn't have gotten hurt, right?

"Let go of me!" Adora roared. "I can't leave the Frightzone!"

Blinded and restrained, Adora was ignored as the skiff maneuvered through the Woods. Between her struggled grunts and shouts, she managed to hear passing calls of animals, birds, bugs, things she had vague images of in her mind but couldn't place names to. These were some of the creatures that the Horde would protect from the Princesses.