Renegade (TRD #1)

3 | Plead Guilty

Numb is the only word I can seem to remember because everything is just that. Numb, frozen in time, and I’m trapped, a prisoner of my own shattered mind, a prisoner of the damned, corrupt government who are doing everything in their power to control me, and unfortunately, they’re succeeding. My fingers are the shade of the blood lingering beneath my skin, stiff from the frigid air of the holding cell where I’ve been confined for more hours than I care to count. The icy atmosphere is causing my body to shiver beyond my control while my lips quiver incessantly, gradually turning blue, and my teeth chatter violently. I can barely draw in a full breath, feeling as if I’m drowning in my own regret and frustration, and I can’t swim to the surface. It’s impossible to think straight, my mind swirling with possibilities and the terrors of what the future might bring, considering that none of the options are good and anything I’m left with will result in misery.

That’s all my mind has been focused on for the last few hours… How I’ll live the rest of my life. Will my crimes be deemed so terrible that they decide to execute me? What if they send me back to Golden Oak, perhaps another boarding school with a headmaster who is no different from Valery? I guess the least harrowing option would be months upon months of community service like Zephyr—Senior Official Alaya since I’m not sure if I should address him by his first name—mentioned. Or, what if they toss me in a prison cell for the remainder of my days to rot, exactly like I deserve? Speaking of prison, it made me wonder if the Senior Official lied to me. I practically begged him not to send me back to Golden Oak, and at first, he seemed to accept that outcome which, in that moment, gave me a sense of relief. But now, I’m not so sure because, the truth is, I barely know anything about him.

Sure, he’s the Senior Official of The Untamed, the leader of the government, the man who oversees the entire kingdom and, during our first meeting, he seemed… compassionate, maybe, with a hint of sympathy in those emerald green eyes of his. But, for all I know, he might change his mind during this afternoon’s court hearing, and he could turn out to be wicked, evil, the cruelest man I know. And if that happens? Maybe he’ll leave me in the clutches of Valery and Omari, lock me in a cell similar to this one so I can die a painful death… all alone. As I previously mentioned, I’m not ready to die. The truth about the afterlife scares me. But if anything is worse than dying in general, it’s dying alone.

All of these thoughts have left me anxious all morning. I was rudely awakened at six o’clock in the morning when a guard banged aggressively on the steel bars, causing them to rattle obnoxiously. With a flinch, I awoke abruptly, irritated and exhausted from barely receiving any sleep the night before. The mattress was thin and dirty, the air was bitter and suffocating. On top of that, I wasn’t given a blanket, a pillow, or really anything that would give me a semblance of comfort, so I didn’t go a minute without shivering, curling myself up into a ball and feeding off body warmth that I couldn’t find. In short, it was torture. Heart-wrenching, mind-altering torture, and if the Senior Official makes the decision to throw me in prison, I expect it to be much worse than this.

It’s currently ten o’clock in the morning. Every time I tried to fall back asleep, the guard would yell at me again to open my eyes or he’d find a way to force me to keep them open. So, in the meantime, I’ve been huddled in the corner of my holding cell with my knees tucked closely to my chest with my arms wrapped tightly around my legs, quietly and nervously rocking back and forth which, for some reason, is the only way to keep from losing my sanity.

Suddenly, a fairly short (at least 5’6), female guard with wavy brunette hair knocked firmly on the wall, and I snapped back to reality. She wore a black dress coat, the type issued to every Peace Agency member, the coat adorned with a red dragon symbol on the left side of her chest and her rank badge (a gold, double-headed eagle with two silver stars above it, representing a High Colonel) patched to her left arm. Along with that, she wore sleek black pants, a black leather belt, and polished, black leather dress shoes. White gloves were fitted onto her hands, and on top of her head, a crimson cap. She proudly wore several medals on the right side of her coat, and lastly, a crimson sash reaching from her left shoulder to her right hip. Wealthy, self-absorbed bastard.