Flight of Cendrillon

Chapter 8: 3 Steps at a Time

The first time she felt the whip on her skin, she screamed.

"First reprimand, Luka."

Always making mistakes. Always failing. Within a week her skin, still bearing the scarring from the fire, now bore fresh red marks from where the rope snapped against her.

"Child of ashes, you must prove your right to live. Your Fairy Godmother saved you. Do you not love her?"

Though they spoke her language, their thick accents marked them as hailing from the same place that the invaders came from.

"You must perfect yourself. Feel nothing. Be nothing more than a blade. Cinderella followed orders, as shall you."

To her, becoming a princess only meant one thing – destroying the people that had ruined her and snatching the crowns from their heads.

One day, the whip would touch her flesh and she felt nothing. She did not cry. She did not whimper or shake.

And so the knife was placed into her hand and she was sent to her first kill.

Though her first thrust was lethal, it wasn't deep enough, giving him just enough time to slash her face with the last of his strength, leaving a long cut along her face, over her right eye.

Yet even as the blood dripped down her eye... she felt nothing.

Cendrillon suffered, but never broke. Cendrillon toiled, but stayed forever strong and graceful.

She would become like Cendrillon and one day she would ascend as she had. Then and only then would she feel anything again.

Blood ran down her right hand as Luka drove blindly down the dirt road. She'd had a messy escape from the prison. A bullet had grazed her as she escaped in the chaos, but she'd managed to weave through the city and evade her pursuers. Now only two thoughts raced through her mind. In order, 'This is a mistake!' and 'I can still fix this!'

Over and over.

She sped off the road, hearing bullets firing after her as the stunned soldiers surrounding the trailer quickly realized the military car did not belong to one of their allies.

This was all happening because she dropped her defenses. Because she let something vile and terrible corrupt her. She had the Prince right there, and she didn't try hard enough to kill him! And that wretched, terrible man felt sorry for her?!

In the dark ahead she saw the road begin to fork. Which way would the Prince have gone?

She had him right there and she hadn't even thought to interrogate him. While he was yammering on about his thoughts and feelings... she could have coaxed something out of him!

Her car slowed to a halt as she had to make a decision.

'Which way?'

If she killed him, would anything matter anymore?

If she let him live, she would most assuredly never live freely again.

Never.

She yearned to feel nothing once again.

She saw headlights behind her. It was decision time. What was her best option?

'I must stay in pursuit. I have no other choice.'

Cendrillon ran from the Prince.

Luka would run after him.

Three steps at a time.