Separate

Chapter 12 - The Broken Mirror

"You went to Juniper!?" he yelled, slamming his fist down on the dining table. I started to shake uncontrollably. How did he know? Who had told him? I wanted to run away, but I knew the door had already locked itself when I walked in.

"What are you talking about?" I stutter, my tone full of guilt. There was no way I could escape him.

"Don't lie to me girl. I know exactly where you went. When I came home early to find you missing Thompson told me a little something about a boy that you would talk to back when you were younger. I checked the tapes." He continued, his voice shaking with anger. He stepped across the room to his monitor and played a recording of me entering Juniper with Matthew. I was caught.

"Please!" I begged, tears already rolling down my face, "It's my fault! It was my idea, please don't hurt him!"

"You know how this works Ashley! You forced my hand! Rules are rules!" he shouted, pressing a button on the monitor to display an overhead shot of a small room. The door to the room was barred, and I immediately pieced it together that it was Westside. To my horror I watched as Matthew was thrown into the room and shocked until he stopped resisting. The door was closed on him and he sat motionless in the corner. I fell to my knees traumatized by what I was watching.

"I hope you can learn from this and no one else has to get hurt!" he continued, "To your room, now!"

I refused to listen to him anymore. He was no longer the loving father I had known. Any influence my mother had on him had vanished. He was an alien to me, and I refused to obey him any longer. He became increasingly angrier as I knelt there crying until he picked me up and put him in my bedroom himself.

I kicked and punched at him in a frenzy to let me down. A few times I had hit him square in the face, but the blow didn't seem to affect him at all. He continued to carry me into my room and locked the door behind me. I screamed and yelled at the top of my lungs to make him stop what he was doing, but I no longer heard him outside.

I was in a complete rage, and I immediately turned to my books and tore them to pieces bit by bit. I stamped on them and tore pages out with my teeth. I threw the covers against the door and continued my pointless attempts to break free. My father had obviously replaced the bedroom lock with a deadbolt after learning of my escaping habits. After running out of books to throw, I turned and looked at myself in the mirror.

I was a disaster. My hair was a wrangled mess and the dress I was wearing had torn in several places. I tore the remaining fabric off my torso and threw it to the ground, leaving me only in my undergarments. I needed a way to make him understand. Matthew wanted me to make him understand that he was different, that they were different. I had to make him feel it. Without another minute wasted I picked up the chair beneath my vanity and threw it against the mirror, shattering it into several pieces.

Bits of glass were thrown across the room, some of them hitting my skin and forming small cuts across my stomach, legs, and feet. I knelt down and frantically searched through the pile until I found a piece that would be big enough. Just as I grabbed it and stood back up, my father came bursting into the room. I turned to him with the shard held against my throat.

There was blood everywhere. Most of which was from cuts to the underside of my feet as I continued to step on bits of glass. The pain didn't seem to faze me as I continued to pursue my attempts to get back at my father.

"What are you doing?!" he screamed, attempting to step closer to me. I pulled the shard closer to my neck, gripping it hard enough to cause my hand to bleed. He looked terrified, which is exactly what I wanted him to feel.

"Let him go." I mumbled, my hand dripping with blood.

"I can't-" he started, but I interrupted him before he could speak.

"Don't you dare tell me what you can or can't do! Release him!" I screamed. He held his hand out to me to coax me into submission, but I backed myself up further against the vanity, cutting my feet more on the glass. "You don't know what he means to me. You'll never understand."

We stood there staring at each other for nearly five minutes. I think he saw the genuineness of my demands, and he finally broke.

"OK. OK. I'll have him released, but you must-" he started to talk again, but I interrupted again with another request.

"Julia too." I murmured, refusing to lower the shard. He took it into thought and then continued.

"OK. I'll have them both released, but you have to promise me that you will never visit this boy again."

What he requested of me broke my heart. I wanted to say no, but I also knew that was as far as my father would go. If I really did kill myself then, Matthew would have been executed anyways. This was the best option, and I had to take it. I lowered the shard from my neck and in an instant a medical team entered the room and attended to my wounds.

After they had finished, my father wheeled me over to his monitor and presented the recordings to me again. He knew I would put up a fuss if he didn't show me proof that they had been released, because he knew I had my mother's same genes. First, he showed me Matthew as he was pulled from the floor and released from his cell. The video was cut off from there and he switched to Julia. She was nearly unrecognizable. Her hair was cut short and she wore a tattered robe that displayed a serial number on the chest. I watched as the guards entered her cell and removed her cuffs. I watched her face closely and saw nothing. She was gone. Whatever fire was left inside Julia seemed to be blown out and an empty shell was presented before me. I watched as they escorted her out of Westside and back into Prime.

I once again obeyed my father's wishes and never returned to that auditorium again to meet with Matthew. For the following year and a half, I spent my life dedicated to Thompson. I forced myself to love and support him on his journey in becoming the next president of Cedar Station.

Julia resumed her normal life in Prime and was even given a selection a few months after her release. She was selected to be with a boy named Michael a few years younger than us. While I was happy for her to finally receive an offer, she was still empty inside. She spent much of her time staring blankly at us during Sitting Circles only to say an occasional hello when we greeted her. Even her bond failed to cheer her up.

I never again heard what had happened to Matthew. I didn't know if he was dead or alive. I had to believe that my father was telling the truth when he told me he was doing well in Juniper, but I just couldn't be sure.