Masked Intentions

Chapter 4

Christina

Vaughn leads me along a labyrinth of dark halls, torches, and heavy carpets which silence our footsteps. I look down and notice Vaughn’s heavy boots. The leathers look think and the sole looks like it’s about to disrupt his walking anytime. I wonder, all of a sudden, why Endrallians wear such heavy clothing. I’ve seen the Asthrallians once. They wore fancy clothing made of soft-looking cloths.

“What’s on your mind?” Vaughn asks. I nearly stop midway. I am a captured victim with the captor so I didn’t think any form of conversation is possible or would even arise.

And I try to force myself that I hate it.

“I hate how you’re talking to me,” I respond. I look at him intently to see how he will react to it but he continues walking as if I did not speak at all. He doesn’t respond for a few minutes and I don’t know if I should be happy or disappointed about that.

Shut up, Christina. You hate them. Each and every single one of them.

“You’re thinking about why we wear such heavy clothing and how you should hate me because you hate each and every single one of us.”

This time, I literally stop in my tracks and I stare at him with my mouth ready to catch the flies (if there are flies in this dimension). The freaky thing is, he stops at the same time I did. For the first time since leaving the seemingly-a-torture-chamber room, Vaughn turns to face me. His face is naturally intimidating, but, for the love of all things good, is highly attractive in all the right places. A lump suddenly forms in my throat along with heart running for its life inside my chest.

“Christina, I think you should never lie to me because, even if you do, I can know the truth,” He tells me. “The reason why Prince Leviathan wants me to deal with you is to save you from torture but that doesn’t mean I have all the necessary patience for it. We can always do it the hard way and have Dimitri do his job.”

I want to toughen up. I want to stop being glue on my spot and have a better verbal defense but I end up not doing both.

He turns away and continues walking ahead without another word. I don’t know if he expects me to continue following him, but I do. My feet, perhaps stricken of fear, didn’t hesitate to outtake one another and it didn’t take long for us to stop in front of a door.

Welcome to his quarters.

I didn’t expect the room to look like the way it does. When Vaughn mentioned about bringing me to his quarters, I imagined about a bedroom and being a helpless human girl that I am, I suspected his intentions will be… well… you know.

Vaughn’s quarters turn out to be a place where he can be in for years. On the far left side of the room, there is a huge bookshelf that reaches from the floor to the ceiling. Beside the shelf is a desk and on the opposite side is a bed that can fit only a single person. On the other side of the bed is a couch. Behind it is a black curtain that extends from the ceiling to the floor as well. The entire room holds only 2 colors – maroon and black.

Come to think of it, those are the colors of the eyes of Endrallians. I never got to see their eyes so closely before which made me wonder about the other race. The Asthrallians. What colors did their eyes hold?

“Blue and gold,” Vaughn utters almost to himself. I’d to think he’s trying to remember what to wear for tomorrow or perhaps some sort of personal code. I want to think his words are not related to what I was thinking just a few moments ago. His back is still facing me, so I guess he’s trying to recall something, right? Right?

“I’m sorry?” I respond. He walks to where the shelf is and traces the spine of the books with his finger.

“The eyes of Asthrallians. They’re blue and gold,” He responds as a matter of fact, with a slight hint if disinterest and even a slighter hint of bitterness. For not the first tonight, I freeze on the spot.

“Will you stop doing that?” I demand. I sound like a child putting a tantrum but at this time, I don’t care anymore. I hate how he’s reading my mind, my thoughts, and every private aspect of me.

Vaughn turns to me, still with that disinterested look on his face. In fact, he looks completely bored and slightly annoyed. “Doing what? Reading your mind?” He says the last statement with the kind of tone air quotations would make.

He lets out a long, disrespectful sigh. “I am not reading your mind. If I am, I would’ve gone mad. I’m sure your petty human mind is thinking of so many things, asking so many questions, and worrying about so many issues right now, I wouldn’t be able to think my own thoughts.”

My cheeks burn at his words. Tears attempt to form in my eyes now that he mentions about all of those things but I make sure none of these silly human fears show in front of the enemy. Vaughn looks at me without pity or concern or any form of sign that he’s sorry for his words. I know he won’t be, but I hoped nonetheless. Needless to say, I didn’t get what I want. A mere human can’t make an Endrallian apologize for his words.

He looks at me longer before proceeding to look back at the shelf. He takes out a small book and hands it over to me. The book is relatively small in its form and it’s quite thin but it suddenly feels like it weighs so much the moment I read the cover.

France.

“Your hideout is somewhere there, right?” Vaughn asks. He looks at me intently while I intently look at the book. I try to ponder on what response I should give. Don’t lie, he says.

“Yes, you shouldn’t lie.” Vaughn is clearly mad and annoyed now yet I stand here in utmost confusion. If he can’t read my mind, how does he know all these things?

“I can’t read your mind but I can read and sense your emotions. You don’t know how much information your emotions contain. Even if you lie to me verbally, your emotions will always betray the truth.”

I try to remain calm even if that information scares the remain guts I have left. I try to conceal my emotions which is a lot harder than I thought. Keeping a façade is easy. Letting that façade fool even yourself is not.

“Yes, Christina. It is not easy. You can’t fool me,” He smirks after the threat. “But I’d like to see you try.” He takes a deep breath and calms down. “Now, would you like to tell me the information or do we force it out of you?”

All this time, I never took my eyes off him. If he will be firm, then so should I. “What will you do to them?” I ask. “If you get the information you need, what will become of them?”

Vaughn simply smirks at me. I bet he’s thinking how stupid, ignorant, and spoiled I am.

“It’s simple, really,” he tells me. “We turn you into Endrallians.”

“And what makes you think we’d like that?”

He shrugs. “It’s not exactly a matter of your race liking it or not. Frankly, it’s none of our concern, but we need more of the human population on our side.”

Vaughn turns away and takes his coat off, leaving him only in his white dress shirt inside. He holds the heavy-looking fabric on his arm before disappearing beyond the door I didn’t notice when we first came in. As soon as the door closes, I fall on my knees. For the first time since being captured, I break down and cry. I sob so silently, my chest aches from the intensity of the emotions inside me and the lack of channel it can escape from. For the first time since the apocalypse started, I truly feel hopeless.

And I remain hopeless for a while.