WAR STORM (Red Queen 4// Alternate Version)

Chapter 56

Mare

Iris and Evangeline leave me.

I don't wonder how they found me. How they Silenced me long enough to knock me unconscious, only to put new manacles forged of Silencer's blood around my wrists.

No, none of that matters. The answers are easy enough to guess, nothing of relevance any longer. When I woke from a darkness not that unalike from Farley's oblivion, I could hardly convince myself that it mattered that I was chained to the wall of a place that I've never been to before. This...state of unfeeling....that is what matters.

I woke up and I did not care.

I cared before I woke up.

Didn't I?

No. It's just that here, in this house of my enemies, it doesn't particularly matter what face I show with them. I could be a coward pleading for benevolence, an unfeeling bitch, or a girl who doesn't have a bit of her soul left to give. I've been running for so long, but with no path ahead of me and a betrayed princess and king, there is nowhere for me to keep running to. Maven was always right, even if he replaced one word with another; I know that now. We are the same.

I kept going, kept running after our conversation in Cal's bedroom. Ran all the way to the barracks and forced myself to walk back to my room. I did not make it.

When Iris showed me that kindness, the forgiveness of a human who has every right to destroy me and everything that I am...when she pushed the fallen hair from my eyes...I cannot decide if it broke something or helped. Such a capacity for goodness shouldn't exist. Not in this palace.

Shower water echoes in the background as I twist and turn my wrists, brushing my fingertips against the stone. It's not that I fear him or his wrath. Despite all that I've done to him, the secrets I've held against him, I still can't believe that he has it in him to hurt me. These manacles are a precaution to lock me here, make me listen to him and answer his damn questions. But if he did wish to hurt me...I wouldn't begrudge him of that privilege.

The room that I've woken in has to be some sort of safe house, centered around the theme of fire and House Calore, with all its sconces and banners. A place so secretive that even Maven must not be aware of it. I imagine it's underneath the tunnels or else part of them, though it could be somewhere else entirely. A grand fireplace at one end, a gaggle of hallways, couches, chairs, a table and a desk.

The fire is everywhere.

Pushing that thought away, I strain my shoulders as I push them back to attempt and understand these things once more. When I was Maven's prisoner, I don't recall ever trying to escape Evangeline's craft, but only because there were three Silencer guards with plastic gloves waiting for me to try and escape.

But now I try, for Davidson and Tyton. Tyton, the man I betrayed in a completely different way. Though he doesn't know, and I could smile and pretend everything's okay after tonight, be with him for the rest of our lives if he wished, I can't. I tried at first, but I can't. I have to tell him when it's all over.

Evangeline, being the weapons-detector in the room, must've taken the gun and blades at my hips. Yet she left the small metal hairpins tucked into the back of my scalp, meant to be moved later when I fastened my hair into a tail for battle. The Magnetron couldn't have not noticed them with her keen ability, and she's too intelligent to disregard such a small, small thing. She of all people should know what can be made into a weapon.

I shove myself against the wall so that I've lying on my side, straining one arm towards the back of my head. I tuck myself into the wall, taking advantage of the little slack I have with the chain looped through a small but strong ring bolted into the wall.