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TWELVE 「et tu, brute?」 ＊*•̩̩͙✩•̩̩͙*˚
IT WAS DARK when she opened her eyes. The slight outline of a figure above her was the only thing she could make out, the press of a warm hand against her shoulder. She groaned, her head a foggy mess. The sterile air stung her nostrils.
“Hey, Syl?” Thomas’s voice echoed above her, the empty cavern accentuating his voice. He moved a piece of hair from her eyes with his finger.
“Get off me you shank,” she muttered, “I’m alive.”
Thomas stood and held out a hand to her. She let him help her up, her legs wobbly. Her mind was a messy string of confusion, everything she’d seen bouncing off each other, blurring together. She’d noticed that, despite her movements, she had yet to feel an ounce of pain.
Confused, she lifted her shirt and saw the flat plane of her stomach, a thin scar a few inches away from her hip bone where she’d been stabbed. It was completely healed. She was astonished.
“How…?” She trailed off.
Something cracked, then hissed, interrupting her train of thought. The door started to open, slowly swinging outward. Teresa stood there in the pale light of early morning, her face streaked with tears. As soon as there was enough room, she threw her arms around Thomas, pressing her face against his neck. Sylvia watched with disgust.
“I’m so sorry, Tom,” she said. “I’m so, so, so sorry. They said they’d kill you if we didn’t do everything just like they told us. No matter how horrible. I’m sorry, Tom!”
Thomas said nothing, his eyes wide and unsure over Teresa’s shoulder. Sylvia looked back toward where Teresa entered and noticed Hayden, standing there and watching her.
“Syl…” he started.
“You.” She sneered. Before she could even think about holding herself back, her arms were already raised and ready to strike. Her knuckles met his jaw with a crack and he flew backwards, his back hitting the ground. She punched him again, and again. Eventually her arms found his throat and she squeezed with every fiber of her being. His eyes pleaded with her, his face red, small sounds escaping his throat. She had no mercy.
She heard discordant noise in the background before she was being ripped away from Hayden. The rage furrowed itself in her bones. There was nothing else to feel. That lying backstabber.
Thomas put himself in front of her, “Sylvia! Look, I get it okay? I’m angry too. More than angry. But we can’t just kill each other if we want to find our way back to the group.”
“I could slap you,” she said lowly.
“But you won’t.”
“It was all an act, Syl,” Teresa said. “You have to believe us. We were promised from the very beginning that you wouldn’t die. That this chamber thing had its own purposes and then it’d be over. I’m so sorry.”
