𝐁𝐔𝐑𝐍
.ೃ࿐ᵂᵉ ⁿᵉᵛᵉʳ ᵐᵃᵈᵉ ⁱᵗ, ᵈⁱᵈ ʷᵉ?
Dear, for amenity or for glory?— Palace of Ulric Labyrinths, Elvira Crest.
|Eastern Cazar—March 18, 7426|
|Pandora's Palace|
"IT’S INSIDE.” Freeman nodded towards the corridors, looking from his left and right, lights flickering with mistreatment as a door slammed shut a few doors down. "I can't take the risk of it coming up here and scanning me. I have a warrant." He twisted his stare back inside. "We need to leave." Intari eyed the halls outside over his shoulder, scouring for something to pop out. Anything to attack them.
"Uncuff me." The demand was carnivorous, almost grinding enough to make her lose balance as she whipped back towards the woman restrained behind her. Her face was expressionless, disinterested as it stalked. Voice flat and too close for Intari's liking. For a second the thought of what would happen if Celine hadn't been strapped down ripples the rebel's mind and she can't help her shiver of fear. "I can kill it for you... destroy every piece of it and get us all out of this disgusting place. Just...Un.Cuff.Me."
"You," Freeman snapped, fingers harsh as he pointed them towards Celine. "Shut the fuck up." His words make her nose scrunch, a deadly reflection hazing her stare as she watched him.
Then Celine's eyes found Intari's. "Please," she whispered low. Though it wasn't a whisper of fallibility or vulnerability, only a remnant of ominous. It's brief, lacking in frailty but still carried a tinge of desperate compromise. A deal. With a murderer no less. An Alec assassin.
"No, no, absolutely not," Freeman raised his voice, marching from the gaping door and further into the room as he met Celine's gaze with ice. "No, not fucking happening." Latching onto Intari, he pulled the two of them away from the bed, far enough that the panic they felt being close to Celine became moderately sedentary. "She lying. What's stopping her from murdering us the second we uncuff her? She can kill us and ruin everything. No. No. She will kill us and ruin everything.”
Celine's laughter seemed to choke her, a branding just as abusive as her leer as she broke into gasps of chuckles. "Don't you think," she snickered, only momentarily stopping until both their attention was on her. "Don't you think if I wanted to you both dead," she derided, grin freezing all of Ambrosia's winters. "That I would've done it already?" The rattle of her cuffs were goring as she took a tug at them, not a single care for the pain of flesh against metal. "I mean, what's really stopping me, hm?" Intari could feel Freeman's grip on her arm tighten. "These? I-I mean...seriously? Seriously? Oh, I feel like I should be offended."
Freeman edged closer, snarl blemishing his face as he spoke. His glasses were an irked muscle away from sliding off his face and if his mind hadn't been so used to fixing the weight of his sight, Intari knew they would've slipped right off in his vexation. "I think we should leave her just as she is." His hold on Intari did not once falter as he dared the assassin before him with a stare of opposition. "After all, she is the one who killed Solomon Cazar."
There was a tempered scoff from the shackled woman.
"It's only fair that garbage like her gets trialled before Sevgi."
"Freeman."
"I've taken a prince from Than," Celine spat almost boastfully, not paying a single mind to the uncomfortable woman pulling at her friend. "Advisors from Rollovo, security from Alec, insurgency from Lleveen, millions from vaults in Ambrosia, a Chancery from Garzabel and a First Minister from Cazar." There it was again. That smile. So cruel. So cogent. "What makes you think that your scummy tribunals have any say in when and how I leave this existence?"
Freeman would've lunged at her if wasn't for the panicked woman who held the livid man by the hems of his shirt. "You have no right-none- to speak of my planet in such a way." His face curled with disgust. "Who do you think you are? My people are the reason billions can live their lives outside of restraints. If it wasn't for Sevgi, we'd all be just like you. Unchangeable, untamed, unwanted. My king has saved and even after his death will his blood continue to save a trillion more."
"Your small man complex is disgustingly unbridled, Freeman." Celine mused patronizingly, hanging her gaze on something behind him with a smile. "You should really work on it."
"Case #251911," a mechanical voice exclaimed intensely, halting Freeman's retort as he spun around to take in the gigantic bot, making sure to shield Intari behind his back as he did. Its voice was vapid through the swirling speakers poking outside its head, unconscious, yet entirely attending. "Freeman Rowan Dante, born Monday 12th August 7380. Judged guilty in Garazbel for the grievous assault of Mr Robert Meduse under section 8 of the Calignes treaty at 17:36, 28th February 7423. Signed by High magistrate Bart Stephrick." There was a silence where only the clicks and beeps of the machine before them could be heard. "Still wanted. To be caught and apprehended either dead or alive."
There was a whiz of its lens as it worked to scan the woman hidden behind the scrawny man and after a few seconds of zooming in and out, its attention turned towards the woman strapped to the bed with a minute buzz of its tin head. Intari couldn't see the gears of the machine work, but the red flashes of light were enough to tell her that it wasn't as oblivious to Celine's existence as she had expected it to be. "You are in possession of a Class V contraband," it exclaimed, "You're in possession of a Class V contraband under Cazar statutes."
Chills trailed up Intari's skin. So Celine, even after them cuffing her, had the capacity to harm them. Who was she kidding? Class V contraband.
"Yeah?" Celine polled mockingly. "Can't really help myself. It's not like I'm chained to a bed like a mutt or something?"
"You're in possession of a Class V contraband," the bot repeated in its roaring voice, not heeding Celine's snarky remark. The floor groaned beneath it as it neared, almost forgetting Freeman and Intari in the process of its conviction. "I am to confiscate said contraband and detain you under the Amity Act passed on 12-04-7420 by First Minister Solomon Cazar."
Oh, the irony.
There was another whine of the wood as the machine moved closer to the bed, bending to scan Celine's face. Intari knew Celine no longer cared if her captors saw the faint wiggles of cuffed wrists behind her, the only thing that seemed to matter to the woman was the gigantic lard of metal flashing rainbow rays into her shrunken pupils. But it scared Intari regardless, knowing that Celine during their taut conversations had the will to free herself, to stay true to her reputation.
To kill Freeman.
It wasn't a cognizant reaction as her fingers lifted from Freeman's back, straying from her only source of protection. The cotton of his shirt under her prints was replaced with the warmth of flesh as she traced the cruising bruise on her neck which only seemed to flare under her touch.
To hurt her. Again.
At least she didn't lie, a treacherous thought toiled within Intari, nothing was truly stopping her.
And then it happened, silver handcuffs jingling loose at her forearms as Celine latched onto the antennas of the machine's head with her now free hands, pulling herself up with its sped reaction as it grew back to its full height, stumbling back to try and throw the off the object obscuring its view, to rid itself of the savagery of Celine.
Intari swallowed her flinch as Freeman's hand found her abdomen in his shielding stance, the scene before them reflecting and blurring in the lens of his glasses from her inclination to his left.
"We need to leave. Stay with me," Freeman whispered, low as if raising his voice a decimal more could risk the attention gaining back on them. And Intari didn't know whose attention the man was most afraid to discover them again. The mindless robot who blundered about like it was reciting a terribly choreographed dance or the woman on top of it, uncaring for the blood that was leaking out of her wrists as she yanked at the chains of the cuffs she had snuck under the bot's head with a faraway pull on her lips. "Stay close to me."
An electronic screech reverberated through the room as the machine struggled at the crack below its head, metal shrieking as its large fingers failed to get to the chains Celine had smuggled under the folds of metal, digging with the rise of her body as sparks hissed under. Celine grunted, yelled like a tortured dungeon prisoner as she pulled back so much that her upper body remained reclined in the air, eyes shifting from the spits of blue in her stand, slipping about the room in her murderous daze.
CRACK!
There was a deafening moan from the flooring underneath the machine as the wood began to collapse within itself, breaking and taking up a sad facade of splinters as it opened up. A thud pulled Intari's attention from the metallic anomaly clamping bleakly at the eroding floor, plunging with the rotten wood until the only thing that signalled its presence was a superficial bang a couple of floors down. Intari's eyes found the curly-haired woman who now withered weakly on the ground close to the gouging hole which formed, body arched uncomfortably as her eyes surged to white.
"Shit!" Was this feeling panic? Fear? Her arm being tugged back at an awkward arch halted Intari from rushing to Celine's seizing body. A part of her thanked Freeman's cautious reflexes, the other half of her hissed angrily at the pain of her bones, upset that he was stopping her. That deep down he would always doubt her. If she was March, he wouldn't distrust her choices this much. She was still green. A child.
It's because you're still an outsider, a voice in her mind chirped irrationally. They would never have left March in Cazar to suffer all you had suffered, Intari. They would never have left March to scar like this.Her heart stung although she knew all those cruel words were all hers. But that's because you're not March DelRory; you're disposable.
Nothing.
Intari retched her hand out of Freeman's grasp, feeling her anger slightly waver with guilt as she watched his hand linger unmovingly in the air where he initially held her. A brief emotion flickered on his face, an expression that wasn't considerable enough on the muscles to make an outright statement before he dropped his hand, accepting her unwillingness. There was nothing he could do to change her mind.
Stubborn girl.
Intari let out a small huff of short confusion, brows slowly raising in peccant conquest. She made her way towards Celine, making sure to step light as the rot below her cried out. Celine's withering had simmered, lips shaping missing words as she stilled. Intari shot a look over her shoulder, gaze finding Freeman who towered over the ledge of the hole cautiously.
"Freeman," she called, forcing him to face her with a disturbed look. "We need to get her out of here."
"Why can't we—" She didn't let him finish.
"I need her, Freeman." She took a break, waiting for him to verbalise his retaliation. "Theron needs her, my family; she has something very important to me, so just ...please?"
He could only watch, eyes jumping between the two women.
"Please?"
And then he finally did it; Freeman nodded.
----------------------------------------
Séraph..Séraph, Séraph, Séraph.
"Séraph."
Séraph couldn't breathe.
Her arms cramped against the glass of the hibernation pod. Her face was so close that her every breath clouded her view, disparaging her as she pushed and pushed with all her strength. Pushing...but to where? To get away from what? She couldn't hear through the gushing of her veins, thudding against the walls of her ears, pulse threatening a gag as it bounced about her arid throat.
She didn't know how long she'd been here, asleep and unmoving, but clearly a very long duration as needles stabbed up and all along her body, racing heart pumping perturbation as her cells fought against the effects of her prolonged coma. She felt so cold and if she couldn't see the grey cotton tightened around her wrists, she would've assumed she was naked. Exposed and left bare to the bitterness of empty's climate as she shivered.
"Scarlet?" Her voice pierced from lack of use. She didn't know why she called him. He wouldn't be here. She paused at the rationale of her call, hesitant as a different name flavoured her tongue. "Intari?"
There's no immediate answer.
"Séraph," a man's sly whisper called.
"Hello?" The space was off-putting, terrifying quiet as white gobbled down every hairsbreadth of the space. The non-existent ceiling. The metal that kept her in place. It's ominous. And here she was, in the centre of it all, left like a turkey on display.
"Séraph, Séraph," came that voice again. Laughing. Ridiculing her.
Shoosh.
A sudden divulgence of fresh air made her pant like a fish out of water and before she had even realised it, she launched out of the pod, palms smacking against the floor. A foot snagged against the frame of the machine causing her to lose balance and stumble flat against the ground. She didn't care about the pain though. She was out. She could fucking kiss the floor.She almost did just that as she rolled onto her back, letting her elevated foot slip from the machine's door with a thud.
The author's narrative has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.
Shoosh.
The pod closed with a chime before locking.
Beep.
Outside of the pod she could finally take in the full spectrum of the space, all the grey rooting into black, the brief flickering of missing lights, and lastly, that. The large pod sitting metres from her own. Left empty and gaping as it watched her curiously. It would have been indistinguishable from her own if it hadn't been for the glass littering its circumference, reaching out for her as its shards scattered across the floor.
"Séraph."
At least she hadn't died of asphyxiation. A morbid revelation, yes, but one that is consoling in the moment she stood tall. She wanted out of this room. Away from those contraptions. She could hear something from behind her, a tender word, the verbal panic of wind. What the...she doesn't even get to start away before she's coming down again, hitting the floor hard. Someone was sitting on top of her, someone without a single care for her distress as they pinned down her thrashing hands and pushed their entire weight into her.
Séraph felt weak. Stuck.
There's a brief pause as everything blurred concurrently.
"You came back," the voice whispered in glee, brushing away the straying hairs that obscured her vision. What the fuck? "And here I was, dreading the thought of having scared you to the extent that you'd never want to see me again."
"Get off me." The man ignored her, digging his knee further into her side as he straddled her back. He's going to break her ribs. She couldn't breathe, her side panging with the pain of his knee. "You're hurting me, get the fuck off!"
"So what? You can lunge at me again? Run away from nowhere to nowhere?" he spoke through an aired laugh. He shuffled above her a bit, allowing for the pressure of his weight to slightly ease off her. "You see, I don't think I enjoy that little game of ours anymore." Séraph didn't respond and to get her attention, he pressed further into her side, getting another pained yelp out of the woman below him. "I want to try something...new."
"I'm going to," Séraph spat, rising on her palms to shoot a scathing look over her shoulder and at the man who trapped her into the ground. "Fucking kill you."
He latched onto a fistful of her hair, snatching her head back so that she was now facing the sky. "I don't think I appreciate your tone," he dragged out. He took another tug, craning her neck further back so that now all she could see was him, only him and his terribly delighted face. "Much."
"Fuck...you." Her eyes burned with unriddling rage, hair stinging at his fingers. She attempted to twist her crammed body away from him, trying to loosen his grip on her. It didn't. She resisted the urge to spit at him as candid vexation laced her face. She felt too weak. And she didn't know how he would react. She didn't need that right now. Not when her body is numbing with post-coma fatigue and her flesh stinging with the weight of the menacing man above her.
"Séraph."
His hand found her forearm, gripping it with a force that was much less harsh than his earlier grip on her hair, but still tautly unforgiving. He heaved her up, lifting the top half of her body, turning her before plopping her back down on her back so that now she was facing him.
"You're really upsetting me here," he said, eyes creased with his pleased smile.
"Who are you?"
He didn't answer her, only turning away to watch the ground beside her, mauling over whatever lie he planned to spew. Fucker. She could see him thinking, his eyes were too loud. Fuck him. His hands still held séraph in place. Trying to shift up, he warned her to stop with a simple squeeze. Fuck this. That's the only reaction she seemed to get out of him, the growing clench of his hands on her flesh, nails digging into her, marking her...Fuck it.
Pftt
That gets his attention.
His eyes were now on her, silence revolving around the space and into their every breath. She doesn't realise what she's done until he's leaning in closer, buffering his reaction in faint satisfaction. Her spit trailed down his face, a single eye shutting as it shifted further down his face. Séraph grimaced, watching as gravity pulled back. At the angle he loomed over her, the spit on his face dropped back onto her with a tragic plop and now she wished he had just killed her in their early moments. The man still doesn't say anything to her, too fixated on the aftermath of her rage, wetting her nose bridge and hiking down the curve of her cheek. A sort of mumble broke from his lips, a murmured laugh that doesn't boil long enough to come out anything but a disgruntled exhale of amusement.
Her mortification was amusing him.
A broken sound escaped Séraph's lips, a cross between a premature curse and a yelp as he raised one of her arms by the wrist, lifting it until her limp fingers dragged up along his forehead, strands of damp hair tickling the skin of her knuckles before he began to drag it back down, wiping away the residue of her spit with the palm of her hand, grasp on her tightening as he did. He couldn't do this. Her eyes closed at the wet feeling that ate at the warmth of her hand. He...
"Not so nice, is it?" he spoke softly, a breathy hum running above her as he took a pause in between his words. "Is it?"
His hands were burning, so hellish that she flinched at the change of temperature on her jaw as he dragged her head back to face him. But once her gaze did find him, he didn't let go. He merely watched with a gaze that was so penetrating, a gaze so macabre that she felt nothing but fear in the stillness of his watch. He was closer than before and he seemed to be closing in even more, so near that his words were practically drawn out into her skin. "I have a proposal for you." His nose grazed her neck, travelling up and along the flesh of her neck until he paused near the top of her lips, nose kissing her own."Something that you can't reject no matter how humiliating the process of achievement may be." She could taste him, his cologne, his words, his breath.
"Power."
Power.
She pulled at his unmoving wrists, lips shifting faster than any of her conscious thoughts. "You’re a liar."
Air snagged at the base of her throat, muffling her haze with the smothering feeling of his mouth against hers, warmth etching into her tastebuds as he pressed his lips into hers. So hard that you'd think he was desperate for every last bit of oxygen that hid in the fissures of her oesophagus, of her lungs. As if his life depended on the struggle of their touching lips.
He was too frantic and forceful, hands declining low and shaping against her neck as he pressed in a prurient daze, it was temperate and soft, but still unexpected enough to surprise her. Her panic flooded into his mouth and he didn't waste a second stealing it with a content hum.
His other hand lowered itself, trailing along her clothes and the shift of the material spiked the hairs on her body. It was almost a rudimentary instinct when she latched onto him, attempting to rise, trying to stop him from dipping any lower as her senses screamed danger. That seemed to displease the man enough that he took an assertive tug on her rising knees, pressing them under him as the rest of her body laid completely flat under him.
"I'm afraid that title, dear." Her breath hitched as he moved further between her legs, separating her thighs so that he now pressed into her, face against hers so that they were practically one as panic swarmed within the walls of her stomach. A dazed feeling. Something was wrong. “Is already reserved by a close associate of mine."
"Nevertheless, I was hoping all this affection would make you melt." His statement rattled through his chest, severing and destroying any of her previous vexation. Intoxicating. He stalked her with his eyes, curtains of hair concealing."But thinking about it now, this whole thing is just laughable; attempting to make someone as burning with rage as you senselessly obedient...foolish." She could feel the moisture of his hot breath, creeping its way up and along her flesh. "Do you feel that? Power. Raw and exceptionally detrimental...power." Absolutely delirious.
What did he do to her?
She tried to shift up again, turning away so that she didn't have to look at him. She felt weird, afar and as if she was spectating outside of her own body. "Of course, I'm of some great assistance here."Something was wrong with her, the very same wrong that is degrading the man who overlooked her. "But what we can do together, it really makes you think, doesn't it?" A single word rang in her head and she couldn't help but choke with wonder. Power. The man didn't look at her; he was stagnant in his position above her, lost in thought and absently caressing the covered flesh of her thigh with a calloused thumb frosted in the gold of a ring. A hum shot through her, a woozy that was not enough to put her to sleep but intense enough to make her want to hug the quintessence of senseless. My power...She shifted up again, trying to take advantage of the man's daze but she was stopped by a yank of his hands, towing her back to him. I need power.
"I want," her words rose and collapsed."I want power."
"Oh, I bet you do, Séraph," the man muttered amused, smiling down at her with an indulgent glimmer in his green eyes. "But that's not how it works. You have to do something for me first."
"What?"
"I was stuck," he let out, slightly sitting up to stare down at her. "In some place, all alone. For how long? I'm not quite sure." He lowered himself down again, bringing his face closer to hers. "But now I've found myself stuck in an entirely new place, lost to explore so many things that are more entertaining and engrossing than anything I've come across in my years of captivity." His brightly oxymoronic smile tore against the surrounding dark. "You."
Then Séraph felt him freeze above her as the muffled sound punctured the air. A voice. And then she felt it, the cord of inebriety snapping like the web of a vicious widow. It hurt like claws impaling the Achille heels of her celestial body and ripping her back down to hell.
"But of course, I'll have to treat you first." His cheeks tightened into a smile, bare and shyly red, unmoved by any frailties. Rising. His eyes were far and holding as he sat above her on the inestimable ground, straddling her as his loose robes nodded against whatever unseeable current his transient empty had allowed to trespass, caressing Séraph's thighs underneath him as if the fabric were an extension of his risqué mind. Burning. The man's lips moved for a while, assembling noiseless sentiments only heard to himself as the blur of their breaths registered in her ears. Tearing pain. And then it grew; the viewing gasp of the world, watching a blaze so malnourished, all it could do was feed on her—so torrid and curt, as if it had finally turned its sights back on a forgotten serving, defining the told anecdotes of the frightening as she finally heard his soft whisper over and under her tortured scream bestowed, "Burn."
"Celine?"
Celine was crying, Intari noted, twitching. She only now noticed as she and Freeman dragged her along, limp head flush wet as they sprung her arms around their shoulders. She was crying, the fact was hard to ignore as her head hung in Intari's direction, wet face uniting with the skin of Intari's own cheek. A few of the staying guests poked their heads out of their rooms as they moved, some glancing about and in search of the loud bangs produced by the bot a few floors down, a few engrossed in the story of the duo latching onto the passed-out woman in their hold, the rest—Intari couldn't see the rest, but she still knew they were there, nonetheless, peering through the eyeholes of their cracked motel room doors, waiting, watching; entertained, paranoid, hateful at the terrible holiday disruption.
"I want," came the slurred whisper, travelling through and out the frantic puffs that were shared between Intari and Franklin. "I-I...I want it all. I deserve it all."
"Celine?" Managed Intari, still feeling the alien flavour of the anomalous woman's name. Her head rose an inch at the sound of her name, leaking nose poking through the curtains of curls that draped her face. Through the black, Intari could just make through a single brown iris staring back at her, strained and partly focused on her. She didn't know whether to be relieved that they weren't dragging along a corpse or frightened that her shoulders were keeping hooked the arm of a murderer. An arm made for killing.
"Registering!" An overlapping voice came from the wall to Intari's left with a loud boom, frightening the woman enough to have her tripping over her rushing feet, into Celine and Freeman who collided into the wall at the sudden force. There was a shattering boom as the wall in the machine’s path collapsed, beating forth predator to its deviant meal. "Inputting new report; aiding in the assault of a Cazar surveillance officer, public endangerment, tress passing, destruction of public property, the manslaughter of Marty Burdy II, causation: negligence through one criminal disobedience." The beat up machine announced, proceeding to silence as its head flickered with thoughtful flashes that put the city's light pollution to shame. "Calculating... calculating Case #48502246, minimum punishment: a quarter of a century in SCO reformation."
Hot. Spiting. Intari let out a hurt yelp as she stumbled to the ground, grasping her shoulder as she took in the yell of Freeman to her right, holding his opposing shoulder as an eruption of orange slithered violent through the reflection of his specs, clinging up the walls, sprinting between the wooden floors and crashing into the machine before them. Burning. That's what Celine was doing, standing up and unmoving as she oozed flames that only grew with every inch of the motel she touched. Destroying. She was destroying everything, hand extended and clouding under the seething crimson which danced between the webs of her fingers as the hunk of metal before them was thrown back, collapsed wall failing to catch the robot as it fell back through its makeshift entrance, silver body charring coal.
"What," she could just make through Freeman's cry, prancing above the shouts and screams of the guests who's curiosity had them poking through the cracks of their labelled doors, now panicking and stumbling across the corridor, away from the destruction. Away from them. Away from death. "What the absolute fuck!?”
Caught, trapped, a silence of air as her binary of wrong watched. Eyes snagged on Freeman as she burned without the sour of her infernos, crammed with contempt and unruly suggestion as her hand rose once again, only this time pointed at the one person Intari's stomach lurched at the thought of her harming. Flames. Screaming…her fire…her fire was screaming, reverberating and dominating the diabolic.
No, no, no...
"No!" Intari’s scream was weak against Celine's delirious razing, heart pacing as the woman's hand drew blazing and pointed in her friend's direction.
This is all her fault…she should’ve listened to Freeman. He’s going to die, be burned until he’s ash and it’s all her fault…
“Shit! Shit! Shit!” Freeman’s desperate wail floated, his eyes hooked to Celine’s own, like two black holes rowing to their own collision, they hung.“Intari!”
Celine was raging. Red and glaring hot.
BANG!
“The utilisation of grace against civilians is a crime deemed capital,” the bot’s dialogue shuffled and glitched as it spoke strident, rays of light fluorescent through to the wall Celine’s body had demolished on her impact. “Updating…inputting: Calignes’s response has been alerted of your crime.” Rubble chafed in the distance, a clipped mumble interlining with a woman’s groan as Celine shuffled from her landing point, unseen from Intari’s collapsed position. “You’re to surrender or punishment will be severe.”
“Surrender,” Celine coughed the word out in a chuckle, cheeks cutting as she strode into view, voice unlike anything they had heard before—overlapped, heavy, foreign. “It has been quite some time since anyone had dared to mutter that idiotic proposal in front of me…surrender. I hate to say it but it really does something in here,” she whispered tender, two fingers finding her chest as her lips pulled high, humoured. “To this decaying, frayed thing I hate very so much.” Then it registered for Intari; this was something new, was somebody new.
The Dyson of Time…But who?
“Intari,” hissed Freeman, delicately holding his burned shoulder as he nodded his head toward the open corridor that trekked away from their trouble. Intari did not speak as she watched him, eyes glazed in missed ideas, bringing Freeman’s brows to stumble. “Please,” he begged, voice small and desperate, consumed by the hiss of fire and depleting wood as they wavered. “Please.”
“With pleasure,” came the dispossessed voice, metal shrieking as the machine suffered another barrage of spiked degree, enveloping its entire body as it clamoured around in a ring of Celine’s work, failing to put out its end as its silver dribbled helplessly to the floor. “Burn.”
One second the heat traveled across the floors, black reaching as blemishing pain trekked Intari’s skin. The next, she was stumbling behind Freeman, their closed hands weeping sweat as their shadows grew before them and beside them on the abused walls as they ran, Freeman dragging her so far and fast, the atmosphere caught and clung in her throat. Burning. So scorching that her tears dried up the second they hugged her skin.
And then a second more, the carnivorous shine shrunk, collapsing flat as Intari’s head fell behind her to take in the sight that nearly claimed her last moments. The patrol bot was no longer in sight, its existence replaced by a splurging pool of metal, swimming meaningless against singed, disfigured floors and some distance away from the withering body of Celine who was seizing on the very floor she had cursed ebony, wailing in incoherent begs as she shrivelled— to herself, to a fleeing Intari and Freeman or perhaps whatever being which had claimed her inside and out.
Grace…Celine had grace. Powerful, death-dealing grace that Intari, despite Freeman’s ever-coming disagreement, knew Theron would need. That her family deserved.
That they would all need.
Intari needed Celine.