Meanwhile, as Tay and Lex exit the building, the rush of cool evening air hits their faces like a spray of salt water. As flames creep and reach their way through the network of doors and windows, the heat on Tay’s and Lex’s back builds as a grim sort of blanket against the chill of the night. Although the folks on the third floor didn’t have the luxury of being able to leave their locked apartments (unless they wanted to become a living buffet), the folks of the second floor did. Thanks to the injection of peace delivered by Lex and the others as they cleared out the hallway, the second floor denizens were able to smell the smoke and are now in the process of exiting the building alongside Tay and Lex.
As they exit, many of them regard Lex with a look of confusion. How come that nice young man who was just helping us is now being dragged kicking and screaming by that girl who was also just helping us? None of them think too much about it, though, or at least not enough to take the time to ask what’s going on. Lex wishes that they would so that maybe one of them could return the favor and help him escape from Tay’s vice grip, but they’re a bit more occupied with the fire and the bugs and the general bedlam of the night. As these fine folks emerge from the apartment building, though, they realize that there are about to be many more lambs in this bed. Lambs, bed. Bedlam. Yeah.
Painting with a wide brush, the people who live in this building are not worldly people. Contrary to how it works in your world, money does not buy the luxury of travel. Money buys the luxury of planting down roots. If you’re able to live your life in one of the fairly nice bastions of civilization, you don’t generally have a lot of reason to want to travel. Yes it would be nice to see the Eiffel Tower or the Hollywood sign, but most people don’t know that those things exist, and if they do they don’t know if they still exist, and if they do then they have no easy way of getting there because the last plane flight was many, many years ago. Plus, leaving the secure walls of a place like Camp Trin means risking your life at the hands of bugs, which isn’t a risk that most people want to make.
This is all to say that, in contrast to the type of folks who hang out at the Bantam Bar, the people who are now building up in a crowd outside the apartment complex don’t know too much about the world outside the walls of Camp Trin. As such, when they see the group of 30 or so figures dressed in the iconic Marauder black cloak hanging out on the main quad, most of them don’t think much of it. It isn’t until the whispers start to circulate through the crowd that people finally realize what’s going on. At this point, these people are exhausted. They’ve escaped bugs, they’ve escaped fire, and they’ve done it all in the deep, hairy, uncharted ass crack of the middle of the night. Now they have to also contend with a culty group of roaming murderous bandits? Yeah, they’re not really in the mood to help. They generally start to filter out, most of them heading through the tunnel into the southern district.
Although most of the people don’t have anything more than a blurry photograph of an understanding of who the Marauders are, Tay has a high resolution 4k IMAX video. When she sees the cluster of Marauders outside of the apartment building, looking like a lump of mold against the backdrop of the immaculately green yard, she recognizes every face. They are her aunts, her uncles, her cousins. For now, they can’t recognize her as anything more than another random townsfolk who happens to be wielding another random townsfolk’s head in the crook of her arm. When her eyes land on one particularly familiar Marauder face, though, she makes herself be known.
“May! May!” She runs towards the group of Marauders, waving one arm wildly in the air while tightening her grip on Lex’s neck. He tries to get out a “May, no!”, but he barely has enough airflow to get anything more than a raspy squeak. Although the camera lens of his worldview is currently very jumpy and difficult to move, he knows that he’s being dragged towards the flock of Marauders. When he stops moving, he’s able to see them all clearly. One of them in particular stands out from the crowd. This is partly because she is the one whom Tay is talking to, but it’s also partly because of the aura of authority emanating from her as well as the dead, wild, icy look in her eyes.
“Tayna. Dear sister.”
Sister. There isn’t a whole lot of blood going to and from Lex’s brain right now, but he’s able to put together the pieces. He’s heard a lot about Tay’s family in the last 24 hours, now he’s face to almost face with her sister.
“What are you guys doing here?” Tay asks followed by a haggard breath. She loosens her grip on Lex’s neck, allowing him to fill himself with sweet, cool air. The relief is short lived, though, as Tay pushes him face down into the dirt. “I mean, it’s great to see you all. Just, I didn’t-- Anyway, I know you probably all didn’t expect me to find anything good here, but you’re never gonna believe what I found. This young man here, he’s the--”
“The Prince of New England,” May says. She kneels down to meet Lex eye to eye as he starts to push himself up from the ground.
“Yes, the Prince of-- Wait, how did you know that?”
“You look like you’ve had quite the night, little prince,” May says to him. Her voice makes Lex’s spine shiver and melt. She licks her lips like a wolf who’s spotted an injured deer. Lex doesn’t like knowing that he’s that deer. “A long way from home, aren’t we?”
Lex stammers but can’t form any words. He is the mouse caught between a clan of cats. He is the tharn rabbit under the headlights of the incoming sixteen wheeler.
Tay squints her eyes a bit at May, trying to read her grin. “I was thinking that we could ransom him back to the King. Could probably get enough food to last us the whole... What is it you all are doing here, again?”
May smiles at Lex. “You’re not going to run off on me, right? No. Good. Good boy.” She slaps his cheeks a few times like an old woman welcoming her grandchild, then stands back up. Lex, who is now on his knees himself, looks at the long expanse of grass in front of him. He’s gotten the wind back in his lungs. He isn’t hurt, he isn’t injured in any way. He could run, he could dart off into the night to try to get away from this little cluster of lunatics who regard him as little more than a walking sack of gold. He wiggles his toes, as if to prepare them for a quick flight, but finds that they’re unresponsive. His legs are two rebellious sticks of jelly, liquefied and paralyzed by fear. May is right. He’s not going anywhere.’
She turns around and looks at the rest of the Marauders. “Well, I think it’s safe to say that I was right about my sister all along. I know there had been doubts about her ability, her character, her loyalty to the family, but I think what we see here before us can put any doubts to rest.” The rest of the Marauders nod and murmur their agreement.
These words strike Tay like Cupid’s arrows. Joy floods through her body, tingling her fingers and toes. Not five minutes ago, she was at rock bottom. Cannon, someone whom she found that she actually had a great deal of respect for and someone whose company she enjoyed more than she wanted to admit, had just lashed her and beaten her with a tirade of words. She knows she isn’t perfect, but she doesn’t think she deserved the brutal scolding he gave her. It crushed her. She was at absolute zero, she had felt as cold as a witch’s teat.
Now, to be out here with the family who always saw her as less than, with the sister who always treated her like she was dirt, and to hear her say such nice things about her? To recognize her accomplishment in capturing the prince? She still doesn’t really understand why they were here or how she already knew who Lex was, but she doesn’t care. Tay has spent a lifetime being in her sister’s shadow, but she gets the feeling that that is all about to change. Her family is finally going to be proud of her, and she’s feeling the absolute highest that she’s ever felt. Coming off the heels of feeling the absolute lowest she’s ever felt, Tay is on the verge of elated tears.
A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.
“At the end of the day,” May continues, “I think we all knew in our hearts who the real Tayna was. And I think it shouldn’t really be a surprise to any of us to see now, with perfect clarity, that Tayna was just minutes away from betraying all of us.” Another wave of nods from the Marauders, more murmurs of agreement.
Those tears of pure elation dry up faster than a pussy at the RNC. Tay’s jaw drops. She looks around at each Marauder, all of whom shake their heads at her. “What? What are you talking about? I brought him to--”
“When I first heard that my own sister was planning to run off with the Prince of New England to claim his ransom all by herself, I was heartbroken.” May paces back and forth, sharing her best Oscar winning frown to the rest of the group. When she turns to Tay, she flashes a snake’s smile. “I didn’t want to believe it. That my own sister, that our own Tayna would betray her own family so coldly.”
Tay’s mind races. She stammers, “What? No! Maya, I didn’t-- I would never--”
“If we didn’t receive the tip from that nice young knight, who knows what could have happened?” She flashes another smarmy smile at Lex, and a wave of bitter understanding washes over him. Taran. He must have survived the bugs who attacked their caravan. Would he really have sold Lex out like this? Sought out the council of Marauders just to get even with the prince? Yes, Lex thinks. Of course he would. Lex left him for dead like a sack of old potatoes. Guilt and shame smack him across the face in a horrible one-two punch. Tay isn’t the reason why the Marauders are here. He is.
May paces back and forth. “Tayna would have stolen away the greatest prize in the history of our family. She would probably be halfway to the Seven Cities by now, gold spilling out of her pockets with every step. She would live like a queen, leaving the rest of her family to starve.”
“I would never,” Tay insists, fighting back tears. “May, I would never. You know that. You’re my family, you’re all I have.”
“Then why would you betray us like this?”
“I’m not! I wasn’t going to--”
The rest of Tay’s thought gets swallowed up by pain when May jabs her fist into her gut. Tay doubles over, snot filling her nose and water filling her eyes. Lex runs over to her, wrapping one arm around her back and putting his other hand on her chest. “Tay! Are you okay?”
Tay looks up at him. His face is soft and kind. His eyes are full of concern, but he manages to offer her a slight smile. The air has been knocked out of her lungs and she struggles to fill them back up. She desperately wants to. There is so much she wants to say to him. She wants to apologize for tricking him when they first met. She wants to apologize for treating him as a prize to be stolen. She wants to apologize for dragging him out to the Marauders. Despite all of the hell that she’s put him through, he wants to make sure she’s okay. She’s surrounded by her own flesh and blood, but Lex is the only one here who cares about her. Tay smiles back at Lex, but it’s a smile propped up not by happiness but by a painful, sickening regret.
May snaps her fingers. “Sofi.”
Sofi jumps up next to May like a golden retriever at her master’s call, her tongue literally hanging out of her mouth in anticipation. “Yes!”
“Take him.”
“You betcha!” She scoops Lex’s arms behind him in a full nelson and hauls him back towards the cluster of Marauders.
“Tay!” he shouts, but he gets no reply. Tay’s head drops, her eyes locked firmly on the patch of dirt beneath her. He squirms and kicks his legs wildly, futilely trying to break out of Sofi’s grasp. “Let me go! Let go!”
May runs her fingers through Lex’s hair. “You two are adorable. I thought I had your whole situation worked out, Tayna, but I didn’t expect this little twist. You weren’t planning on ransoming off the prince at all, were you? You were hoping to become his princess.”
Tay’s head snaps up. “What?”
“Tay is my friend!” Lex shouts.
May cackles. “Maybe you forgot about how she had her arm wrapped around your throat less than a minute ago. Quite the way to court your beloved, Tayna.”
“You assholes made her do this,” Lex says. He’s stopped flailing, and his voice has lowered from an angry shout to a steely, even tone. “She’s not like you. She’s good. I know it.”
Tay shakes her head. “You’re wrong. I’m sorry, Lex. I’m just like them.”
“You’re not,” he says, his voice starting to waver. “I know you’re not.”
“You’re wrong,” she repeats.
Another cackle rips from May’s throat like lightning. “I hate to break up this little love fest, but you’re both wrong. She’s not good. She’s bad. At everything. A bad person, and bad at being a person. She couldn’t even betray us without me catching wind of it. Hells, she wasn’t even a good Marauder.”
Tay winces. “Wasn’t? Past tense?”
“Tayna. Do you want me to spell it out for you? Goodie goodie, nothing would make me happier.” She puts her hands in her pockets and jaunts towards Tay, then delivers a swift kick to her head. “You’re not a Marauder anymore, sweet sister. You barely ever were.”
Tears stream down Tay’s face, mixing with the blood pouring from her freshly broken nose. “Maya, no. Please. I was going to bring him back to you. I promise. You know I’d never betray you, you know that the family is all I--”
May jabs the toe of her boot into Tay’s sternum. Wind flees from Tay’s lungs and she has the sudden sensation of drowning. She coughs and collapses into a fetal position in the dirt. Lex tries to wrench his arms free. “Tay!” he shouts.
“Shut him up, will you?” May says flatly. Sofi tightens her grip and Lex feels his shoulder joints starting to pull away from their sockets. He howls in pain, then goes limp to keep from ripping his arms out. May steps towards Tay and digs her palms into the back of Tay’s head, driving her face into the ground. Grass and dirt rush into Tay’s mouth as she frantically tries to fill her lungs. “Tayna. Big sister. I think I speak for everyone here when I say that, and I couldn’t be happier to say this, that you have no family. Not anymore.”
With a big smile, Sofi jumps up and down. Lex can feel the tendons in his arms straining. “You tell ‘em, May! You can speak for me any time!”
“Shut up, Sofi.”
“Okay!” She stills herself, releasing some of the tension on Lex’s shoulders. With a bit more room to move, Lex gets the strength to shout again.
“Tay! Get up! You can fight her!”
Tay spits out a chunk of dirt. She feels gritty soil wedged between her teeth. She wipes an arm down her face, drenching it with tears, snot, and blood. “I can’t. I can’t, I can’t, I can’t.”
“She can’t,” May says, her face alight with an ear to ear smile. “She never could. How does it feel for your younger sister to outshine you at every turn? In every conceivable way? Stronger, faster, smarter. I can’t imagine how pathetic you must feel. Maybe I could have some empathy if I’d ever lost to you in anything but... Can’t think of anything. Don’t recall every feeling jealous of you, either, so it’s hard for me to understand how it could drive you to steal such a valuable prize away from the family that raised you. Truly heartbreaking. Sad. Pathetic.”
“I wasn’t,” Tay blubbered, her words leaking past her lips like water sloshing from a broken cup. “I didn’t-- I’m not--”
“Save it.” She kicks a cloud of dirt at Tay then launches a hefty snot rocket on her. “Sofi, take your group through that tunnel to the south side of town, see if you can find anything of value. I’ll take my group into this chapel and rummage around there. The prince will come with me. He’s enough of a prize to make this raid worthwhile, but we may as well see what else we can find in this little backwater shit hole.”
“You got it! What a smart move, looking for even more stuff to steal. That’s why you’re such a good leader! Oh, Maya? Question. Should I kill Tay? Or do you want the honors?”
May’s tongue flicks out like a serpent’s. “Why bother? Squishing a worm is a waste of time. She can’t hurt us. She can’t do anything. If I were her, I’d just save everyone else the trouble and kill myself.” She bends over and offers Tay a small kiss on the cheek. “And I think I’d like to leave her alive to stew on that.”
Sofi smiles. “Brilliant! I can’t believe you two came from the same mother. How could the same woman produce someone as powerful and amazing and hot as you, but also someone as weak and sad and lame as Tayna?”
“Who knows? Genetics are strange like that. Well. You’ve all got your orders. Take what you can and burn the rest. Mother will be quite impressed with what we’ve accomplished here.” She snaps her fingers at Sofi. “The prince.”
Sofi kicks a very limp Lex over to another Marauder standing next to May. Lex enjoys his half second of freedom before he feels a tight arm around his neck. He watches Sofi lead one group of two dozen Marauders down towards Camp Trin’s southern district where the bar and the prison complex are. He starts to say something, but the words fall back into his throat as he’s wrenched towards the chapel. May, a group of five Marauders, and the prince himself head into the great stone building.
Tay is alone. She stays there motionless for a few minutes, the cinema of her mind replaying the scene on loop. Then, as if the film reel of that memory burned away through overuse, she starts to replay Cannon’s tirade against her from just a few minutes ago. She thought that she had hit rock bottom back in the second floor of that apartment building. Not even close. Rock bottom, she’s just now discovering, is being abandoned by every single possible family that you’ve ever had and knowing that you deserve it. Rock bottom is thinking that you could change, that people could start to see you differently from the person you used to be, and having that dream snatched away from you by your own misguided hands. She rolls over onto her face and cries, the rising heat from the building behind her a bleak comfort against the cold, cold night.