WAR STORM (Red Queen 4// Alternate Version)

Chapter 45

Mare

"You look beautiful," Ella says, scissors coming away from my hair.

"I don't feel the part," I respond, dragging my fists through hair that cuts off at my shoulders. She must've taken off six inches, and now not a trace of the grey plague is hinted at in my brown locks. Though I suspect it will come back faster than usual. "Is it finished?"

She nods, setting down the scissors on the bathroom counter. "I only wish you had let me dye it."

Shaking my head, I brush the dead strands from my shoulders, clad in a leather-like scarlet fabric.

To appear is to be.

Tight black pants flare out at my calves, and black stilettos that only somebody with the schooling of Evangeline could control poke at my heels. But that isn't the half of it. A lovely and imposing leather jacket-the shade of blood-is fitted around my shoulders, its sleeves cuffed at my wrists. It's just a jacket, but that sensation at the place where my hand meets my arm sends bursts of panic through me, among other reasons. Buttons made of fake gold-a Magnetron might very well attempt to impale me-bring the jacket together across my chest, and a slitted train that covers my sides reaches the flare of my pants, streaming from the back. The front of the jacket cuts off abruptly, exposing the waist of my pants.

Medals of honor that I couldn't say whether or not I won are pinned to my lapels and cuffs, adding a gilded element of the ensemble.

Ella slicked back my hair with a gleaming gel, adding a sheen to the brown. Mascara, dark velvet-red lipstick, and one-thousand other products are smeared over my face; I relented in asking Ella what she was doing five minutes in. Either way, even I will admit I look every part of a risen freedom fighter.

The little lightning girl.

And to think, that a simple red T-shirt I've worn for training these last months is beneath it all.

"You look beautiful," Ella repeats as if I don't believe it.

"I know," I nod. "But I don't think my appearance is what will be the issue today."

"Have you memorized what you wrote?"

"Yes." No. A pen by my hand didn't touch the paper once. It's Maven's speech, Maven's glory, yet he knows I won't credit him for it. I wouldn't dare. For a boy as twisted as that one, seeing the pure disgust, the pure horror...it will be enough for Maven. Especially if he finds the chance to tell Cal I asked him to write it.

Another betrayal.

I spent the greater part of the morning reading over Maven's writing paragraph for paragraph, line for line. At even first glance, he tailored it for me, to make it seem like something I would say. Despite its length, it's relatively simple for the content, but it would be a far cry from the truth if I said it wasn't riveting. Addictive, even. I've never asked him, never think I'll get the chance to ask him where he learned to write the way in which he does, with this raw sort of elegance and passion.

As much as I wish it weren't, something in there, if only a fraction, comes from his blackened heart.

"I need to return to the tunnels," she says, running a comb through my hair one last time. "I'll say hello to Tyton for you."

"Thank you, Ella," I say with all the sincerity in the world.

We walk through the threshold to my room together, but no further than that. She heads right and I head left, not turning back to see Ella and her red bandana head towards the tunnels.

The heels to my shoes click nervously against marble, and my ankle nearly twists in them once, but soon enough, I straighten my spine and hold my head high, grinning like a wild idiot, an arrogant bitch, at anybody who raises an eyebrow to me. Unfeeling and uncaring is what I need to be today. Perhaps longer than that.