Chapter 14: Consequence Coverup (3)

1.

I just sat in the dining room waiting for morning, waiting for the guards to come in and take me away.

I could've just run away, but that seems like it would only make the situation worse.

And surely enough, once it hit around 6 am, knocking at the door.

It's nice they waited until a reasonable time to arrest me.

“OPEN THE DOOR”

Urgh I better open it before they break it down.

I walk over to the door and unlock it, instantly men run in and surround me.

“Get down now.”

This atmosphere was suffocating, they were probably told I was a monster so everyone is on edge, I'm just one bad move away from them impaling me with their swords.

“Alright, calm down, I'm not evil, just a weak defenceless kid, no evil powers.”

I get on my stomach, hands behind my back.

A man walks up to me and ties my hands together with a rope. It’s incredibly tight.

Due to this commotion, Immy wakes up and runs to the entrance.

“What is going on here?”

The guards who all have a lot of respect for Immy carefully explain the situation, and what I did with the crystal, something she was not aware of.

“Treat him well please, please.”

I can’t see her face, but she sounds mad, not at me but at the world.

A guard replies.

“We can’t promise that Miss Abel, but I’ll try my best.”

These guards don’t seem to hate me, in fact I’m willing to bet most of them saw what I did as a heroic act. But an order is an order.

I’m taken into a carriage with no windows, I hadn’t seen many before on the roads due to the city being incredibly walkable, so it makes sense why carriages were out of style, I only saw a few of them carrying produce yesterday.

Inside the carriage there is a man in red knight’s armour, Kal. Sitting in front of me.

Instantly my blood runs cold, is he here to kill me?

His face is covered in bruises, why does he even have his helmet off? Is he not embarrassed? Id personally be embarrassed.

“Uhm... sorry for beating you up and stuff... ya know? Nothing personal, just survival, and you totally killed me so it's like... even, right?”

This is so awkward.

“Yes, yes, I forgive you” He spits out, not at all sounding convincing

”I’m going to escort you to the royal circle, you will be imprisoned there until further notice.”

The carriage starts moving, its a bit bumpy but as we cross the gate into the royal circle pathway it becomes a smooth ride.

Kal doesn't say another word, he doesn't even look at me.

I did choke him out yesterday, its not like I was going to kill him though, although I doubt we can ever be friends after that.

This carriage had no windows, probably because it was used to carry prisoners without letting people see us.

I guess it makes a lot of sense, I would be well known after what I did yesterday. I wonder what my public perception is?

The carriage stops.

“Alright.”

Kal just grabs me by the arm and takes me out the carriage.

We are rested on a path below a bridge, it looks gross. The underneath of the bridge seems to house a tunnel that I am being guided into.

As Kal pushes me through the tunnel he spits out some words.

“You know, I'm on your side right? I think you are a hero for what you did.”

Incredibly forced.

Also what he was saying didn’t make any sense, he was the one who tried to arrest me in the first place.

“Thanks...”

The sides of the tunnel were full of different barred rooms.

We reach the end where there is a prison room and he pushes me in, locking it swiftly.

This cage was significantly bigger than the one Immy put me in, it even had a toilet and bed.

“Bye.”

He begins to walk away, his armour clinking every step.

“Hey can I ask you a question?”

The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.

I need more information, I'm totally in the dark right now.

“Urgh... What? Quickly.”

“What does the public think of me? After news broke.”

“Hm? Well news is still reaching the city, but generally the outer circle...’people’... consider you a hero, and inner circle along with royal circle want to tear every limb from your body publicly repeatedly, over and over again, for decades, isn't that just awful?”

“Ah! Okay cool!”

Alrighty that's pretty much expected, they need someone to blame so I'm the sacrifice, but for some reason I just can't find a reason to care, If lily is actually on my side, she should hopefully convince them not to torture me for years? I'd hope so.

2.

I wake up in my bed, my comfortable, silky, wonderful bed.

Did Teach do it? Are we safe now?

I see my curtains part open, showing rays of sunshine, everything is so bright and happy.

Yes!!! We survived!!! I’ll have to thank him.

What a joyous day to be alive!

I get up and run outside of my room, skipping through the hallway.

I can hear crying from the entrance, mom?

My mom is crying by the front door, who hurt her? I’ll kill them, maybe... if it was teach making her cry maybe I'll just hurt him.

“Mom, are you okay?”

She looks back at me, and laughs a bit, she seemed to regain a bit of happiness after seeing me in front of her.

I run down and hug her.

“Mom I missed you!”

“I missed you too…”

“Teach saved us, he was so smart, he was like a calculating mastermind, you should’ve seen him mom.”

“Yeah… I bet he was.”

Is teach still asleep? He would be here right?

“So! Where is teach mom? Is he still sleeping?”

I want to reward him, I owe him my life, he is unusually useful for a non-blessed person.

“Oh. Dear. He was taken, he destroyed a crystal, he is in prison Diana.”

Oh. Right. He would be wouldn’t he?

I didn’t even get to see him one last time.

He should’ve woken me up before being taken, stupid Teach, never thinking about how I feel.

“Well that’s stupid, he did it to save me. Is he in big trouble?”

“He will probably get the death sentence, but since he can’t die, he will end up just being tortured.”

I… I don’t want that. I don’t want that to happen to Teach.

“Mom I don’t want that.”

“I know, neither do I.”

“Can you stop it?”

“I’m not apart of the royal circle, I have no power in matters such as those.”

Right. If only I had actually worked hard. Then we would be in the royal circle.

If I worked hard Teach wouldn’t be in prison.

If I worked hard Teach wouldn’t have had to break that crystal.

If I worked hard Teach wouldn’t have to set himself on fire.

If I worked hard Emily wouldn’t hate me.

“Mom… is Emily okay?”

“She is fine… just sleeping.”

Oh. Great! Okay now I just need to become stronger so I can break Teach out of prison and have Emily like me.

I just need training.

“Where is Holly?”

“She was hurt, sorry but your sword training is probably on hold for a while.”

I need to work harder.

But without Holly training me what can I do? I’m so useless.

“Mom. I want to make Teach happy and also make Emily happy.”

My mom just looks at me, like I said something she thought I’d never say in a million years.

“Do you want me to help you?”

“Yes please. I want to be… good… and make them not hate me”

“You shouldn’t care about whether people hate you or not Diana... it just causes more pain.”

She always tells me this, that I shouldn't care, that people shouldn't matter.

But I do, I do care, they matter.

“I do care though mom, please help. If Teach gets out of prison I want to throw him a big celebration.”

“That sounds like a wonderful idea!” Immy claps her hands, trying to enthusiastic.

“I’ll help you prepare, let’s spend all our time on this celebration why don’t we?”

It’s scaring me, she is smiling on the outside but crying inside, why is this scaring me?

I think mom just wants a distraction, I can tell her heart isn’t in it.

Why do I feel so bad? Will making Emily and Teach happy make me happy?

I hope so.

3.

The prison was cool for the first 10 minutes. But now only one word comes to mind.

BORING.

I can’t even keep track of time, I only had to wait a day, right? Then lily would represent me.

I hope she wasn’t just tricking me, trying to toy with me and give me hope so I wouldn’t struggle when I reached the prison.

My memories of the whole Emberpoint disaster keep coming back as well, I can’t seem to avoid them.

I guess I’ll just have to keep myself busy, it seems to only affect me when I have alone time.

Taps of shoes, I could hear them down the tunnel.

They sounded methodical and perfect.

Only someone as perfect as Lily would be able to walk in perfect tempo.

Lily was now standing in front of my cage. She looks down at me since I’m sitting back first on the floor. Looking up at the ceiling bored out of my mind.

“Hey Z.”

“Hey Lily.”

She squats down, she isn’t wearing her robe, she is just wearing a purple dress instead, it was incredibly intricate and didn’t fit at all with the dingy tunnel we were in.

“Z…can we talk?”

I get up and sit with my legs crossed.

“Yeah?”

She smiles.

“I wasn’t supposed to be here, but I wanted to talk to you, I feel a connection between you and I.”

Is she confessing? Isn’t this too soon? We only just met a day ago.

“Z…”

She gets close to the bars, she is speaking in a seductive tone.

“Z… I really… really want to see you happy, I desperately need you to be happy. So you have to do everything I say during thehearing.”

Something isn’t right here, my heart is fluttering, why is she talking to me like this?

I feel my body getting warmer, it’s like I’m being hypnotized.

“Okay…” is all I could say.

Her voice gets deeper and raspier.

“I would do anything for you Z… you are my hero… I want you to be mine Z… is that too selfish? Is that okay?”

She wants me to be hers? Urgh get out of my head, what is the goal here?

“Yeah…”

That just slipped out of my mouth, it’s like I can’t even control what I say around her anymore.

“So… when you are mine… you’ll do everything I say?”

“Yes…”

What is happening?

“Z… I think about you all the time… I’m crazy for you… can we please be more than friends… and see where that takes us?”

All I can do is just listen, I’m not used to this kind of conversation.

“Don’t you want that Z? To spend time with me? Alone time?”

We seem to stare into each other's eyes until I eventually snap out of whatever daze I was in.

My heart goes back to normal.

“I'm sure I can spend time with you if I'm free. Can we just be friends though? I have priorities you know, with other people, and I'm not ready for a relationship, uh... sorry! You’re uh, nice and cute though, but no relationships, nope, cant do it!”

I bow.

I sound like an idiot, I know she was hitting on me, you’d have to be a moron not to realise that. But I really don’t want a relationship, it’s too time consuming, I need to focus on mending the bridge between me and Amelia.

And I don’t know what her intentions are.

She looks at me with confusion in her eyes.

“Huh?”

She seems very confused.

“What?” I ask.

“Stand up.” She says in a seductive tone as well.

“Why?”

“Huh??”

Her face is red with embarrassment, did she finally realise she confessed like 20 times in the span of 2 minutes? I’d be embarrassed too.

Why did she confess? There’s no way you get feelings for someone after two conversations. Was this a test?

“Are you okay Lily?”

She looks at me and whimpers.

“You… you…”

Is she having a stroke?

“Lily?”

“Oh. It’s nothing. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

She gets up off the ground and trips over herself a bit.

“You are strange.”

Her tone goes back to normal, she hastily scurries away.

What a weird interaction, I’m trying to figure out what the point of this was.

It could’ve been a test or something, a test to see if I liked her?

Urgh I’m so confused.

4.

Lily walks out of the tunnel, yet again Kal is waiting outside.

“So, is he under your control now?”

Lily shakes her head and looks embarrassed.

“He might be harder to manipulate than I thought, I assumed he would attach himself to the first woman who openly said she liked him, but he didn’t.”

“Okay? So is the plan ruined?”

“I’m sure I can eventually get him to like me, but it’ll have to wait until after the case is finished.”

“So you’ll have to actually... do what your dad said?”

“Yes…”

Along with lily’s ability to tell if someone is lying or not, she has a second, more well-hidden ability.

She can completely mentally and emotionally control someone who loves her.

Nobody except Kal and her family knows this.

“I’ve already made a deal with the judge, this whole hearing is just for show. Although now I’m worried if Z will mess it up somehow, that’s why I wanted him under my control today so things wouldn't get messed up. That man is a bumbling idiot”

Kal finds it kind of funny how she was so sure she could make Z fall in love with her in a day.

She leaves Kal and goes to her study hall.

Her manor was huge, everything seemed bigger than it needed to be, thoughts raced through her mind.

Why doesn’t he like me? I seduced him right? He should be in love with me?

He is just a filthy outsider, someone from the wild. Wouldn’t he be clawing to get a piece of my body?

She begins to find books in her own private library. Almost all of the people in the royal circle have a huge manor they live in with everything they’d ever need.

My power works subjectively depending on the person. Does Z think love is something more than physical attraction?

Most men in this world have had a rough upbringing, people rarely have loving parents or good relationships, especially people outside of the royal circle, so the concept of love to them is nothing more than sexual attraction.

Rats. They’re all rats, they just want my body. Outer circle freaks, let alone people from the wild, savages, all of them.

Why is Z not interested in me?

To Z however, being raised in a suburban household with loving parents in a peaceful world. His concept of love is marriage and eternal affection.

She is reading different dictionaries and finding what love means in them.

The concept of love.

All the definitions were confusing, so she instead opened up a famous romance book, written by none other than Imogen Abel.

Aha this will help me, I’ll follow this book and Z will fall in love with me. Then I can control him.

All day she reads this book, getting immersed into its universe. Its setting is in the modern world, before the snow or the cave.

She studied the book like she would study for a math test to get perfect grades.

The story was about two classmates who met under extreme circumstances during a storm with falling ice, hail its called. He was a normal student but decided to share the umbrella with the girl, trying to walk her home.

He was incredibly selfless.

By complete coincidence, they lived in the same apartment.

This started a long relationship, and by the end of the book they were happily married with children.

She felt a weird longing when she read the book, like this was something she wished could happen. But it wasn’t real, this wasn’t the real world. People like that don’t exist.

People don’t just help people in storms, people are selfish.

She decides to follow the book, she will use all the lines from it and get Z to love her so she can continue her plan.

With an indestructible boy under her control, she will be unstoppable.

She chuckles a bit, she likes to be seen as a bit of a villain.

She is just following orders, orders by her father so they can kill their enemies.

If Z’s perception of love is marriage, then she will just have to marry him.

End of Chapter 14.