Sub Rosa

Chapter four • The Haven

That night I sat in a steaming bath, the water a slight rose colour from the trickle of blood seeping from the cuts running up and down my body. I hissed in pain as I picked the remaining shards of glass from my skin using a pair of blunt tweezers that I utilised quite frequently to pull at the left overs of the nights antics. My hair separated itself into thick strands as the bloody water and dirt sat in the ashy blonde locks falling onto my back. Pulling the last piece of broken glass from my thigh, I threw it towards the metal tray and aimed at the silver basin near the door as I flung the tweezers across the room, silently cheering at the sound of the ringing of metal against metal. I presumed that that women at Sub Rosa had given me something for the pain of falling through a window as my body significantly hurt a lot more that before. Letting the pain intensify, I curled my arms around my pale legs and finally let the soft cries I had been suppressing wash away into the water. It was a daring move to throw myself off that building and an even more dangerous decision to speak to Kit like that. He could have easily have thrown me to the police as I doubted he was uneducated of my criminal charges but for some reason that brow haired bastard handcuffed me to a chair and decided to have a civilised conversation, not that it ended up ending like that.

Despite spending my night robbing the gilded I knew it wasn't going to be my last. Nor was Sub Rosa my first. I had been robbing the gilded since I knew how to but up to now it had just been petty and only making a minuscule dent in the massive empire. I knew that they would easily remake the money I threw off the roof in less than 24 hours and were most likely rebuilding that stacks of green as I lay half dead in a bath tub. My plans to take back the money us diseased once had had been simmering in the back of my mind for months now and I had barely managed to put together any ideas on how to come about my schemes while performing my preliminary work on a couple of corporations, take Sub Rosa for example. I only went tonight to see the inner workings of that place. How many employees they had, how adequate the security was and how easy it was to break in. Obviously I had my fair share of knowledge on Sub Rosa; spending half my life there running around with Kit and messing about in the back halls used for maintenance gave me the upper hand. But judging from my lack of familiarity from last night I knew Kit had changed the way everything worked since his reign as CEO.

Wrapping a blush towel around my body, I made my way over towards the heap of springs I called a bed. Laying my body across the white linen, I rummaged through the draw beside my head board and pulled out a pile of bandages and cloth. I bit my tongue as the pain from tying the bandages around my wounds burned across my skin. I had successfully wrapped the cuts and I let out a loud groan while throwing myself back and into the abundance of pillows I had nicked from some rich landlord who lived on the outskirts of
the Gilded sector. Despite my apartment being a shoe box sized room stuffed at the top of one of the hundreds of metal boxes that make up the diseased sector, it was my safe haven.

You see, four years ago the Gilded started stealing more and more from each of us. One by one our bank accounts were washed out and we weren't happy about it to say the least. Rebellions broke out and corporations were targeted. But everything grew out of hand, instead of taking down places like Sub Rosa people were attacking Gilded schools and assaulting Gilded mothers and young in the middle of the street. The night I witnessed a teenage boy stab an elderly Gilded during a riot I knew it needed to stop. People forgot why we were fighting in the first place and their minds became clouded. I was known around my sector for my interactions so to speak with the large corporations and I had the most authority among those who chose to fight against the Gilded. I called off the riots immediately and people crawled back into the darkness, slaving for coins and begging for food.

Over the following year the Gilded economy sky rocketed and everyone in the Gilded sector were practically swimming in gold. But with the Gilded's growing fortune came the diseased down fall, even further than we already were. With the harsh weather that came with our new world people became sick from the blustering winds and heavy downpours. We were dying. As our numbers fell the Gilded watched from their ivory towers. We were on the brink of extinction and resorted to begging the Gilded for some kind of attention. After months our cries were finally answered and the Gilded found a way to shut us up and silence their consciences, they decided to build metal boxes that towered over our shattered homes and offered we lived in them. We knew it was only a way for them to keep us off the streets so that they wouldn't have to look at us and feel their hearts bleed while they drove towards their gold plated lives. Nevertheless people started to take refuge in the skyscrapers, their last resort besides homelessness and after my parents passed and I had grew sick of sleeping in the streets, I too took shelter in the Gilded's peace offering.

And that's how I ended up here, stuffed between two maroon pillows while listening to the heavy rain tapping at my window. I had been contemplating ideas on how to put together a rebellion that could take back what was ours without causing any harm to the innocent for hours and by the time I had scribbled the fragments of my thoughts down into a moleskin jotter I stole on my way out from Sub Rosa, the moon was high in the sky and streaming through my window, reflecting off all the trinkets and jewels tossed across my room. I tapped a black pen against my teeth as I stared at the sketches and notes in front of me. The sound of the rain growing in strength outside, sent a slight shiver down my spine at how cold I imagined it would be if I were to step into the rain.

My eyes grew heavier by the minute and I had almost dropped into unconsciousness when a loud thumping noise spiked my attention. Shuffling into a pair of navy sweats and a white tee I groaned in annoyance as the banging proceeded to grow louder and more aggressive. My instincts kicked in as the curiosity of who would be behind my door this late at night edged me to grab a knife. I held it closed to my face and slowly raised my hand to the door knob. Twisting it I swung the metal towards me to reveal a wet looking figure clad in all black and a hood covering the silhouettes head. I stepped back as the figure moved to push away the hood, the shadow stood above me and I gasped as a mass of raven hair graced my sight. My body froze, the knife in my hand discarded as my green eyes were met with brown.
" Kit? "

Chapter four is done!! Finally. So if you didn't know I wanted to have Matthew Daddario play Kit Blackthorn and in particular the way he acts and dresses as Alec in Shadowhunters so that's that. I also have a We heart it and my usernames deepestinternet10264 and I have a collection named SUBROSA so go check that out if you want to see what I imagine some things to look like or just my inspo for my chapters. THANK YOU
-El