The Rebel (#Wattys2016)

46. Thank You

As you may have noticed, I changed the layout of the Rebel a bit. I made the chapters shorter, so don't worry, I didn't binge write for a week straight and wrote like 20 new chapters, the content is the same, I just changed the layout. Also, chapters now have names! Hope you enjoy this new one!

Adeen was a machine. She was not human, she was not animal. She was something else, something broken. She wandered through the hallways, quietly, staring as the rebels struggled to build a country. She was always silent, speaking only when spoken to, and only because she needed to keep up her facade. She wanted to appear disappointed by the princes' departure, but she didn't want to appear miserable because Skander was gone. She was miserable, though. Voices screamed inside her head, they never shut up. She could almost hear the mechanical pieces moving inside her chest, the beat of her mechanic heart, so faint and so irregular she often felt the pain meant a piece had malfunctioned. They were almost like two gears, and sometimes, when somebody mentioned Skander, she would swallow their words as if the were rocks, and the rocks would go down, down, down into her chest, where they got into the gears and got trapped in them. Whenever somebody mentioned Skander, Adeen's already broken mechanical heart got stuck, and she would have to take a moment to force herself to breathe, to move those gears, to live.

Something was wrong inside of her.

But that never stopped her from moving, though. Everyday, she exercised twice, as soon as she woke up and before going to sleep, gave the rebels information, and trained the newbies that the Freedom Fighters recruited. Adeen was as ruthless with her apprentices as ever, only now her group consisted of barely ten people.

Only the best and the brightest got to train with the Prince Hunter.

Too bad her title was important to everyone but herself.

~

On her fourth day alone, Adeen wandered to the Infirmary. As always, stares and murmurs accompanied her, but she was used to them, and so she kept her head down and mouth shut. She went past the common rooms, where rebels were always being taken care of, to the deeper hallways, where the doctors slept. She walked and walked until she came to the end of the corridor, to a door guarded by two rebel guards. Adeen frowned at them; doctors had been replaced since the monarchy's fall. She got closer, and when she read the name on the golden plate pasted in the door, she was not surprised.

"I did not know they had soldiers guarding doctors." Adeen said and shrugged. The guards exchanged a glance but didn't do much. "Dr. Nadine Bartler. Psychiatrist." She faked confusion. "A shrink?"

"The King's shrink." The younger guard, the one in the left said.

Adeen smiled, but her happiness was true. So Bartler was only the King's shrink, not Skander's. She'd not be tortured. At least not until the rebels grew desperate, which would be in a week or two.

"And you're guarding her because..."

"High Command thinks she might have important information." Said the guard on the left, ignoring his partner's glare.

"It's okay," Adeen said, "I have level eight clearance." The guard on the right only narrowed his eyes. Adeen turned to young guard and sent him a smile she knew melted hearts. "I love a thrill. Would you mind if I got in there and see if I can get some information out of her?"

"I'd have to ask Command for permission, ma'am."

Adeen frowned and pouted. "But that'll take long." She grinned. "Just one peek. Nobody will know."

Young guard looked at his partner, his green eyes pleading. Finally, the older guard sighed.

"Fine." He said. "But nobody will know."