Original Summary: A father long gone, a traitor revealed, and blood, blood...everywhere...
Captured by the very people Harmony tried to run away from, she has taken ten steps back from where she begun to a dark dungeon in the capital Vainglory. Brendan has lied to her. Tabitha and Gordon are searching for her. Mallory and Kasie are relying on her. And she is still in love with the idea and memory of Rush.
Meanwhile, Harmony attempts to speak through to Brendan while she begins to figure out a way to tear down the corrupted city through somewhere the Rebel Children have never looked before: from their very core.
Mr. Lizard always said chop off the head and the body will follow...
“We each have a story. They did this to us. There was no outside aggressor. They wanted an Apocalypse. They wanted the end. And they made it happen. It was orchestrated - who got in, who didn't. There was a master list. We weren't on it. We were left here to die. They want to erase us, the past, but we can't let them.”
― Julianna Baggott, Pure
the halfway point
Pain is a way to make people talk, they said when the stabbed those needles into my skin and let the toxic liquid infiltrate my bloodstream until I was screaming for the phantoms to stop.
Stop, stop, stop, stop, stop — STOP!
“Stop,” I croak out, my throat scratchy from screaming incoherently. “Please.” It was false pain that felt so real that it was pounding my skull in with a heavy hammer. Yet, when it was all over, I was still alive.
It may have been the most I've spoken and cried in my entire life. Salty tears were released onto my sweaty skin, making a trail down my cheeks onto the soiled floor.
Blood, tears, and sweat splattered the floor in an almost decorative manner. The splotches of red and brown so random that I eventually began to see a pattern in it through my hazy delirium.
Blood is a rich wine, they said. It gets better with age.
Pain is a song, they told me. Sing, they told me. Sing, they screamed. Sing, they yelled while they sliced through my skin, letting the blood pour like silky red ribbons that used to decorate the hospital during celebrations.
I cried for the pain to stop, but they only laughed at me. Cackling voices filling the air, cruelty so tactile that I could almost reach out and feel the harsh edges cutting into my smooth skin.
And the entire time I suffered, he was there, watching. Those green eyes of his gleamed in the darkness. Sometimes I cried out for him and he flinched away from me. Other times, he grasped onto my hand, but while I saw it, I felt like I was holding onto nothing. But during the rare times that I was lucid, they were never there. Though I felt them burn into my skin, they were never there when I looked. I felt like they were everywhere, watching me coldly through the glass window.
Always watching.
YOU ARE READING
Lies & Harmony Trilogy
Science FictionLeaving the hospital was something Seven Young has always daydreamed of; rejoining the society and eliminating her mental sickness. But the truth is, no patient has ever left the hospital, or have memories of the world beyond the white walls. Wantin...
