The Wild Ones Rebellion // Black Veil Brides Fanfiction

27 - Breaking Point

"So I stare at the sun, and I can't take back, I can't take back the world.  And I stare at the sun, and it burns my heart.  As I cry I am left with the lie of all of these forgotten ones.  And we can't take back just what we did, and we can't take back the things we said." ~ Dead Man Walking (Overture II)

.•*•.•*•.•*•.

It was a miracle I didn't pass out.  I'd used so much energy with... whatever it was I did, and I felt like I'd been hit my a train, but I was still awake.  Awake enough to hear the conversation between Johnson and the Speaker in the doorway of my cell.

"What the hell was that?" Johnson demanded. 

"She's too defiant," Speaker said urgently.  "She still thinks she can win and as long as she clings to that hope, she will continue to fight off the Matriarch.  She's even more powerful than we imagined."

"No one has ever been able to overpower her before, and this girl is far younger than half of the most experienced witches in that chamber!"  Johnson was shouting now, and although I couldn't outwardly express it, it pleased me to see that I seemed to have scared him in some way.

"She's the Chosen One for a reason, Johnson.  The prophecy didn't choose some halfwit witch to fight for the Rebels.  But I will admit the Matriarch didn't think she was that powerful yet."

"So what do you suggest I do?  The Matriarch is the one with the power to suppress her, and that obviously didn't work!"

"Break her," Speaker said simply.  I felt my blood run cold.  "Break her spirit, make her realize she has nothing left to fight for.  And I'm the mean time, get information from her.  This war is going to last longer than we thought."

And with that, Speaker turned and marched away, his dark cloak billowing behind him.  Johnson turned and slammed my door shut, submersing me in darkness once again.

So I was stronger than they thought.  That was somewhat comforting to know, but also put me in a bad position.  Who knows what lengths they'd go to in order to "break" me.  I'd bought myself time though, time for me to find a way out or for the Legion to break me out.  I didn't want them coming in to get me, but I couldn't exactly argue the point from my position.

My jaw still ached from the huge blow that the guard delivered to my face in order to subdue me.  I'd never actually been punched like that before, and it hurt quite bad, but I had a feeling I'd be receiving a lot worse in the coming days. 

I wondered what the other prisoners kept here were being submitted to.  Were they being tortured for information, starved, or simply kept locked up until their public execution?  I knew they didn't deserve to be down here, and technically speaking, neither did I.  Well... morally, at least.  I was fighting for what was right, even if it was breaking the law.

I'd begun to lose track of how long this government regimen had been in place and for how long we'd been fighting, but it felt like decades from when I was just a normal high schooler in my small town.  Then Andy and the guys showed up, and it literally flipped my life upside down.  I got expelled, but perhaps that was the best thing to ever happen to me.  I grew closer with the guys and they became my brothers.  And now, they were all I had left.

And this Matriarch... I didn't know much about her, but I knew she was behind everything.  Johnson was the face of the government, but he was only serving her, the Serpent Queen.  He submitted quickly to her and her Speaker, and with how sickly he appeared, I wondered if she was pushing him hard.  He seemed scared of her, and I realized that he was likely very disposable to her, and he knew it.  The brainwashed citizens worshipped her in church every week, and he was no longer needed to sustain her power.  He was quite possibly at the end of his rope.