Scarred

Chapter 54

Eva's POV
It takes all my effort not to run back to mum as our group finally parts and we return to the palace. Cas' hand tightly holds onto my own, not letting go until we make it to the bushes we managed to escape through. Once we push through and get inside, my stomach drops at the thought of what might happen now. Lizzy better have done her job well, I haven't had a chance to see the newspaper yet.

"Oh, so you've returned I see," the queen's voice is the one that speaks, not dad's. The instant I hear it, I dart behind the others, my wand held tightly in my hand. "What? Are you not going to let me see my own granddaughter? She can't hide forever, you might as well show her to me before I get any more angry."
"How about you just fuck off and leave her alone?" Hunter spits. "You may be pissed, but we returned like we promised we would."
"You know what, maybe I will leave her alone, Sarah."

As Hunter stumbles back, Cassie rushes over to her and with barely any hesitation, punches the queen in the face. She stumbles back, eyes widening as she does and after a moment, they seem to soften slightly. "I- I assume she deserved that," Dad forces out, cupping his cheek as Cassie's whole face blushes.
"Yeah, she did... sorry..." she mumbles, heading to Hunter's side. He whispers something to her, something I don't quite hear as I stare wide eyed at dad, my whole body feeling completely numb. What is he going to say? What is he going to do?

"Eva..." He says, but I'm rushing away before he can say anymore, Cas trailing after me. When I reach our room, I immediately head to the bookshelf, grabbing all the spell books I can find before dumping them on the desk and beginning to skim through one of them. "I just need to break this damn curse already and then we can go home. I'm sick of all this, I just want it to end already."
"So you're just going to ignore your dad. He's gonna come here eventually," Cas replies, sitting down on his bed. "Then probably would've been the best time to talk to him seeing the queen had just gone."
"Well yeah, I know that, but... I don't know, I just panicked," I sigh. "I'm pretty good at doing that."
"I suppose you are," he laughs gently. "Hey, pass me one of those books, we'll get more done if we both search."

I hand him one of the books and soon we're both skimming through, trying to find out whatever we can about nightmares. If we can just summon one of the queen and defeat it, then the curse would break and dad would be free. That would be nice, he could finally make the changes that could make life so much easier for so many people. I wouldn't have to be afraid of what my own blood could do to me.

Suddenly, the door opens and Cas immediately turns into his dragon form as he looks over with wide eyes.

"So you're all home, I see." When he walks inside, I glance over to see a stern look on his face, cold - almost like the queen's - though she doesn't appear to be in control right now.
"Well, home isn't really the right term, but yes, we're back," I reply, skimming over the page of my book. "Is everything alright?"
"What do you think? You ran off, scaring the shit out of me, caused chaos in Syrin and ended up revealing the truth about your identity. Do you know how much trouble you've caused me?"
"Surely you can just deny what I said, you're king, people are inclined to believe you over some half blood kid," I shrug. Closing the book, I look over to Cas, who is curled up on his bed in his dragon form, eyes half shut and likely pretending to be asleep. I don't blame him, I already knew my first encounter with dad would be messy.

"Rumours were already going around about you, of course people are going to believe what you said. And even if you exclude that, you put people you care about in danger, you put your mother in danger-"
"I did not, I wouldn't dare do something like that. She was with us the whole time, there was no chance the queen would've been able to lay a hand on her," I snap, pushing myself to my feet. "And even so... I don't think it should really be my job to protect her - don't get me wrong, I don't want her getting hurt, but why should all these burdens be on me?! What did I do to deserve any of this?!" As I stand in front of me, he looks down at me with a slight frown on his face.

"Well either way, your actions were foolish." Scoffing, I turn away as I cross my arms. "I'm guessing you don't act this way around your mother."
"You're right. But that's because I don't need to," I spit, returning to the desk. "If what I did was foolish, then why did I have the support of mum, Maven, James and Sammy? If anyone should've told me it was a bad idea, it should have been them. You only think it's a bad idea because it's screwing up this system your mother is so set on keeping."
"I think it's a bad idea because you revealed your identity to the whole country! Your life has never been in more danger than it is now."

"Oh, so now it's about my safety?!"

"When has it not been about your safety, Eva?"

"I dunno, maybe declaring me a wanted criminal, maybe keeping me in close proximity to the queen or keeping me in a place that's given me nightmare upon nightmare, making it almost impossible to sleep here. I'm beginning to think you only care about my safety when it's convenient for you," I argue, pulling my knees to my chest as I glare over at him. His face remains completely unmoving, but his hands tremble as fists at his side and I immediately turn away again at the site of them.

"Well with how you're acting at the moment, can you really blame me for finding it a little difficult to care about you?"

Something about his words makes my stomach drop. As I stare down at the book in front of me, my eyes go wide and blurry, tears about to break through.

"You think you're all safe and comfortable here just because your father cares about you, right? Well he doesn't."

"Leave."

"He has no reason to care about you."

"Leave, right now!" I force out, still turned away from him.
"Eva-"
"No. Just go, leave me alone, fuck off and don't come back. I don't think I want to talk to you anymore; you said what you wanted to say, now leave."

He doesn't respond, but when the door closes behind him, a rage begins to bubble up inside me. "Fuck..." I mumble, wiping the tears from my eyes. This red hot anger begins to take over, an almost unbearable heat surrounding me. After a moment, I throw open the balcony door and sit on the balcony staring out at the sky.
"What are you doing?" Cas asks quietly.
"Cooling down... just give me a moment."
"What now? Are we still gonna help him out with the curse?" He sits down beside me, gently taking my hand as I keep my eyes on the clouds.
"We'll help him. But I don't want to talk to him or see him or anything until we do."

"Alright then... we'll continue searching when you're ready."

Nova Note:
Conclusions we can make from this chapter:
1) The queen is a transphobic piece of shit who deadnamed Hunter (so yea Anime_and_gaming_fan I did make her a transphobe in the end (which makes sense bc I'd already established in my mind that she was homophobic))
2) Cassie will fuck up a transphobe if she has to
3) Caleb really did fuck up didn't he
4) I don't think we'll be seeing Caleb for the next few chapters in Eva's POV :0