Nine
Dauntless
The scent of cinnamon drifts into my nostrils the moment my eyes flutter open. Beneath me, I feel the firm mattress I'm lying on and the soft pillow below my head. My head's heavy and my eyes feel itchy.
I must've dozed off.
This feeling only comes over me when I wake up from a nap before I'm rested. This heavy feeling all over my body that just hurts sometimes.
But…when did I fall asleep?
The question vanishes from my head when the scent drifts again into the room. My eyes close on their own and I take a deep breath to savor it. Cinnamon…and flour. Cinnamon pancakes.
Ah, that sounds mighty good right this moment.
Papa would always make them whenever he came home from a late shift. The thought lets a chuckle come across me; he'd always do it because he knew I would forgive him for being away from home for so long.
Wait.
I like cinnamon pancakes.
Nobody knows that. Not even Jade or Kat. Something from my past like that was something I never told anyone. It was my—our secret meal.
As if this triggers something in my brain, I snap up to sit on the bed that I'm lying on and venture a glance around the room. All over is just different shades of red and pink. The comforter of the bed on which I'm on is a bright red with whites and pinks with butterflies on it.
I know this room.
It's my old room.
The one I had way before the O'Conner's took me in.
The one from when I actually had my family.
The one that Papa and I decorated together. The doll that sits upon the bed, the one of Minnie, sits there with the bow that Papa had so messily sown back together when it had ripped. He had wanted to get me another but I insisted on keeping it. It was mine and I kept it regardless of what defects it had. Everything in this room was like that. The furniture, the clothes, the decorations. Everything here holds a tiny memory that I instantly recall when I see them.
All objects in this room have come to be like that doll. They had etched a memory in my mind more vividly than anything.
And the scent that comes in from the door that's slightly open makes my mind reel back to what's happening. Breakfast.
Could it really be…that everything—every single thing—was just a big nightmare?
Clinging to that smidgen of hope, I climb over the bed and run through the familiar house turning a corner and running down the staircase to reach the kitchen. At the hall that leads to it, my nose catches the scent that just keeps getting stronger.
Once I get to the end of the hallway and am standing in front of the doorway that leads to the kitchen, my breath catches and my throat runs dry.
I'm literally at the verge of tears because of who I see standing in front of the stove cooking.
"Papa?"
At hearing me, he turns around and seeing his smile at seeing me is enough to make tears pour down my cheeks. It's been years and I must have forgotten how he looked. But the memories rushed in, almost like a dam had broken after seeing him. The same black wavy hair as mine, dark brown eyes that were almost black and so tall that I can't figure how I turned out so short. But he was there in his usual attire for work: a nice dress shirt, tie, and pants. And that smile that lighted up cities.
I can't believe…I actually forgot how his smile looked like.
"Oh, reinita!" He chuckles and that quickly makes me smile too and wipe away the tears that began falling seconds before. "You're finally up. Feel like having pancakes?"
"You're really here?" That's all I can muster to say but he doesn't seem to find it weird.
"Yeah, perdon. You remember that last case I told you about? Well, the captain had the whole squad stay and work on it. Finally busted the ring though, so he let the main ones working on it off to rest for a while."
"Another bust?" this time my voice is more controlled and I'm a bit more calm but I'm still quite astonished that I'm here with him enjoying a nice conversation like we used to.
"Main ring, too. They were working mostly around schools and campuses so it'll be a lot safer around your school as well." He murmurs a 'thank you' to God before reaching up to the cupboard and taking a couple of plates to place the pancakes he just made.
Placing two on each, he dabs them with butter before taking two bottles out. He stripes both pancakes with syrup and passes me a cup of milk he'd already serve beforehand.
"Ahi está, mi reina. Dig in."
And we do. Even after we finish we stay there and talk for what seems hours. It seems a little odd for him and he doesn't hesitate to tell me so but I can't help myself. If what had happened before was all a nightmare then it had been a long one.
I was only seven when it happened—remembering something horrible like that when he's here with me is only spoiling the moment. So I ignore the melancholy and enjoy his company.
It isn't until we hear someone at the front door that we stop our conversation in its tracks. No one but me and him live here and we aren't expecting anybody that he told me about. A serious look comes over Papa's face and knowing how protective he is, I know what he'll say.
"Stay here, okay?" I can only nod as he goes over to the front door that's around the corner from the kitchen. It is a few seconds before I hear him open the door but I can hear it hit the metal latch that keeps it from opening all the way. The noise that follows happens faster than I can register.
The door's kicked off and opens, forcefully hitting the wall that makes me jump. Without thinking, I get up and run to the front to see what's happening.
At turning the corner, I'm about to call out to him but something drowns my voice. The load gunshot leaves me deaf but what leaves me petrified is what the bullet hit.
Papa falls back like nothing and lies on the floor as a pool of red begins to form beneath his head…from the hole on it. The scream that I can't hold on to comes out and I throw myself down to grab him and try to wake him up.
My mind isn't working.
Why isn't he waking up!?
"Shitty, detective." The voices that I hear make my screaming stop long enough to look up. A couple of strong men stand at our doorstep holding guns—one having been just fired lets out the smoke from the barrel.
"W-Why?" The word comes out like a croak from the tears that are uncontrollably spilling from the agony. My hands feel cold and my legs numb but I can still feel the warm liquid that's staining both of them as Papa's head rests on my lap.
"Boss' orders: send a message. The police have to learn, sweet cheeks, you don't mess with dealers and their turf. And killing the lead detective sounded like a pretty damn clear message."
"Hey, boss said no witnesses."
"Ha," the man retorts with a keen grin on his face. "Sorry, miss. You're out of luck." My mind's too fuzzy to recognize the gun that's pointed straight between my eyes. By the time that I do, it's already too late. The sound travels faster than the pain but it's gone in a flash and everything goes black.
When I open my eyes, my breathing is heavy and I can't believe what just happened.
They shot Papa.
They shot me.
My hands travel all over my body to look for the gunshot I heard and felt and finally land on my forehead but find no hole. Of course they wouldn't, I'm still alive. But then…what happened to Papa?
This urges me to stand up but when I give a step too far out and feel nothing there, that's when I start panicking for a whole other reason. Not having anything to step onto makes me slip and fall but before I can fall completely, I grab ahold of the beam. My arms and other leg wrap around with as much strength as I can muster and although my face hits the steel structure hard, I don't mind at all.
I'll take a hit on the face with steel over spatting against the road like a bug any day.
That's because as I'm staring down while holding on for dear life all I see beneath me and this beam is a fifty foot fall to the cement street. Carefully, I raise my head and find that the beam is held by a building and at turning back there's another one too. And each are about thirty feet away from where I am in the middle.
I'm traipsing between two skyscrapers.
Why do you hate me, God?
But asking him is useless. I need to get to the buildings. I can't fall. My eyes wander by accident down again and I'm almost hyperventilating. Did the floor just get farther away?
No, Reina! Don't panic! You've got to keep calm.
Fuck calm. I'm more than fifty feet in the fucking air and I can't stand up from here. But my brain's right. I've got to get to that other side and not—don't think about it.
Just. Get. Up.
Not daring myself to look down, I clumsily gather myself up onto my shaky feet. I'm like freaking Bambi right now because if I look down, I'll slip and die.
Oh wait, that was his mom.
And she didn't fall, she got shot.
Same difference.
Stupid crude humor keeps me distracted so I keep thinking some other bad jokes while slowly side stepping my way towards the edge of the building. I'm doing well and get half way when I hear cawing nearby. My head turns about to find the source of the noise and find a murder of crows flying menacingly fast towards me. It doesn't even take them seconds to reach where I am. Here I was hoping that they would just fly past me but I'm proved wrong yet again.
The crows are aiming for me and hover over while pecking at me. Everywhere their little beaks touch hurts and no matter how much I sway my arms around, I can't seem to fend them off. Not wanting to fall from their distraction, I simply ignore them and run as carefully but as fast as I can towards the open window in the nearest skyscraper.
A mighty leap is what takes me into the other side of the window. When I enter, the room is dark and the floor that I land on is rough enough to scrape my legs when I jump in. But at least I'm safe from those crows.
The thought quickly escapes me though when the only light that's coming from the window behind me vanishes. My eyes are covered by nothing but darkness and panic starts to settle in.
Remain calm.
If I can do that it'll be easier to think what I can do to escape. There's no light, so what? It's not like the beam and the crows pecking at me. There isn't any pending doom for to me hurry up and escape from so that's something.
My ears, being much more sensitive now that I'm blind to my surroundings, catch a distinct sound that I instantly recognize.
Water. It was dripping from somewhere. At first, it's just drops here and there but it suddenly starts becoming more and more constant. Finally when it gets louder is when I feel the droplets falling on my head. The instant I look up it's as if something ruptures the ceiling and lets the pouring storm wash in.
The cold water hits me hard and soaks me from head to toe. Instinctively, I jump away from the waterfall that just came out of nowhere but I can feel the water that's accumulating starting to soak my feet. And it's quickly raising.
Trying to keep alive is my first instinct so I start looking for any crevice around the room. But there's nothing; all I feel around me is hard rock that cuts my palms when I try to push it away.
I'm inside a cavern.
No other thing explains this place. It's a closed environment, the surfaces are rough and rocky, and the whole place is pitch black. The water level's at my neck in seconds and I'm having a hard time touching the floor. The water starts to seep into my mouth as I desperately try to find somewhere to exit this place from.
But the more the closed cave fills with water, the more my panic starts to win over my calm. In a matter of minutes, I'm out of time to think. I'm swimming to keep myself as close to the surface that's quickly vanishing as I can. I'm raising my lips as much to the surface as possible; so much so that I can feel the rough ceiling of the cave on them.
Before it fills up to the brim, I take one last deep breath and sink in. The cave is dark so I have no other choice but to feel my way around. My mind instantly goes to the waterfall where the water had come from. That's my exit.
But no matter how much my hands touch around at the ceiling, I feel nothing but rock. There's no hole.
There's no exit.
The panic that I had held barely at bay bursts out in a scream that gets me nowhere. It only brings water into my lungs that hurts. I try to breathe to make it go away but there's no air. It just hurts me even more. With no air, my vision quickly blurs and before I know it all I feel is the coldness of the water both around and inside me.
Those last seconds are agonizing as the water enters my lungs but just as fast as it came, it's gone. What I feel underneath me now is a woodened floor not much different than the one from home. It's bleak in color but the oblique lighting in the room makes it ominous. My body feels heavy but I'm not wet. If anything I just feel this oppressiveness that's been lingering on me since I woke up fiercer than ever.
Looking up at the light source, I find that there's only a single lamp hanging from the nonexistent ceiling casting a halo of light upon the room. Before me is an old wooden table that stands some feet over my head.
Mustering the strength I have left in me to stand myself up, I languidly walk over to the table to see what lies on it. A variety of weapons, from blunt to guns, lay in a neat line across the table. Each is one that I've seen at least once in my life.
A couple of different sized knives and some handguns, pistols, and automatics to name a few. They all lay in a neat position next to a magazine of bullets for the guns and a cleaning cloth for the knives. My hand reaches out to one in particular, a seemingly normal Samurai Edge that has a dent mark on the side of the barrel.
"Mmm!"
The sudden muffled scream makes me turn around and hold my heart from jumping out of my chest. What I see behind me is something that wasn't there before when I first awoke here. There is an old wooden chair matching the table and someone bound to it with rope.
Because of how slim they are, I can at least make out that it's a girl. Her clothes are all tattered and torn at some places. The skin that shows is bruised, cut, or bleeding slightly. Nothing serious but nothing that someone would be comfortable with either. Her hands and feet are bound behind the chair and onto its legs by rope that has scraped through her skin and stained red from how tight it's been bound. What shocks me most is that atop her head is a brown burlap sack.
Her mouth must be gagged because all I hear are muffled noises from her. She squirms but quickly desists when her wrists and ankles start bleeding again. My mind wants to go and help but my feet won't move. It's then that my mind rationalizes what's keeping me stuck in place.
Helping her won't help you.
That sick thought passes through me and it almost makes me wretch. This mentality is the kind that I lived with for three years and at such a young age, too. My instincts for those three miserable years were to survive. Nothing and no one else mattered so long as I had shelter, food, and a sense of belonging.
And because of those past deeds—those feelings that I was forced to embrace—I'm labeled.
"Then rid yourself of them, Reina."
The voice is too real to mistake it. When I try to turn around to see him, he stops me and wraps his arms over me. All through my back I can feel the warmth that travels from him to me and his arms that wraps themselves so lovingly around me.
"You want us to be able to be together, don't you?"
"Of course…I do." My answer is automatic albeit hesitant. He's always used that excuse.
"Then do it." His hand goes over mine and makes me grab ahold of the Samurai Edge. He turns us both around to face the girl that sits on the chair oblivious to what we're doing. "Destroy the thing that stands in our way and we'll finally be able to be together. You'll do this for us, right? You…love me enough to do this?" His huge hands cover mine over the gun and hold it straight, aiming at the girl on the chair.
The instant he pulls the hammer back and I hear a click, panic begins to rise and my eyes widen.
My hands begin to tremble and I can't form any words. His hands over mine calm the shaking but not much of the panic. What he wants to do is impossible for me.
"I—."
"Won't you end her to ensure us?" He scoffs and I feel his reassuring hold on me lessening on my hands. "Does our love really mean so little to you?"
"No!" The intensity of my shout makes me regain some sense of composure; it's certainly enough to turn me around and finally face him. "Of course, it's not. Your love means the world to me, Jaden!" And just as I've imagined, he's standing there several inches taller and with a grimace upon his face. His tousled golden hair is just as I remember but the disappointment in his honey eyes kills me on the inside.
Our love—such shortcoming—was always something that we hid from others. Something that no one could ever find out about. It was like a snow ball that started forming when they adopted me when I was ten. It was something that started out as a small ball of respect which then careened down a steep hill that only added more emotions to it as it went.
Respect. Appreciation. Adoration. Fondness. Affection.
By the time I was fifteen, it had grown into a full blown infatuation. And because I was—still am—such an outspoken girl, I told him without regarding the consequences of my actions. But my worry had been all for naught; he felt the same. We grew into a full relationship the summer of my sixteen birthday.
It was during the beginning that we agreed to leave all of it a secret. We decided to hide it from the family: from our parents, from our brothers, and from our friends. Eventually it became second nature to hide my feelings for him out in public. All that was ever exchanged were glances, touches here or there, and secret innuendoes to keep control.
But for me that were never enough.
A year after it started was when we grew intimately closer. It was on my seventeen birthday that he gave me gift I would remember forever. That night was when our parents had gone out and Kat had slept over with a friend.
That night was one that we two stayed alone at the house. It was the night that he took everything from me. He took my first of everything: my kiss, my body, and my heart.
I was and still am under the spell that captivated me the day we met. Even though my mind tells me it's impossible for him to be here, my heart cries overjoyed that I have him here with me.
At hearing my retort, the smile returns to his face that simply lights him up. Inadvertently this brings one to my lips too, until I hear what he says.
"Then kill her."
My eyes widen in horror as his hand reaches around to hold my hand up again towards the girl. She squirms having heard the whole conversation and struggles like hell but her constraints are too much for her to break free from.
"She's all that stands between us, Reina. The one person that keeps me from giving everything to you. The one that denies you your happiness. Rid yourself of her and everything you ever wanted will be yours."
But I can't.
Even if it's Jaden who's quite literally begging me to do this, I can't pull the trigger that we're both holding.
I'm not a killer.
I never was when there was a necessity to be and I most certainly will not be when there's no need for it.
"I'm sorry, Jade… I can't do this."
The reaction is almost instantaneous. He clicks his tongue and grips my hand on the gun even tighter. He won't let me let go of the gun. "I was right from the beginning. We all were." Being much stronger than I am and considering how shocked I still am, he takes the advantage and forces me to point the gun right underneath my chin and aim it up towards my head.
My whole body freeze without me knowing and I can only breathe heavily as his fingers tighten against the trigger.
"No matter how much of a monster you are, you're still weak."
All I hear, is the blasting sound of the gun as it goes off…then nothing.
Finally, home at last.
This one mission that the Earl had sent him to had been quite a hassle. Nothing that a good kill didn't unwind for good. Digressions aside, he had done what he was told and it had been in record time. He could rest some tonight and go back to the guys' tomorrow morning.
No more than a week had gone by so they should still be in the same town he left them at. With the Ark in his hands, he wouldn't have a problem traveling there. For now some rest was needed to recharge from such lackluster events.
That well-needed trip to dreamland, though, would have to wait because of what he hears at barely opening the door to his room. The first thing that he hears when he enters the living room is his niece's giggling.
It's creepy and somewhat overwhelming—not to mention slightly unwelcomed…yet it's still strangely comforting.
It doesn't take away the fact that he's questioning why she would be in his quarters but it's not like he can complain. If he even bothers to call it to her attention, she'll just brush it off with some absurdity.
Sighing at what prospects he's to come about to, he enters the room to find said girl lying on the carpeted floor on her stomach. Her legs are swinging back and forth and her elbows holding her up from the floor.
"Ah, welcome home, Tyki!" It seems she knew it was him without even looking because she simply sits up and sits on her legs while shaking whatever she had in her hands.
"Hey, Road." His answer is quite dull but it's something she's used to after he comes back from his tasks. "Your room full of toys again?"
"Nope!" she calls and shakes what seems to be a box in her hands once more. "I just thought it'd be fun to play here is all."
Play?
Knowing her, it's gotta be grim.
"You can play anywhere in this place, can't you?" It is a big enough place, anyway. "I need some rest."
"You don't want to know what I'm playing with?" The tone of her voice catches his attention enough to stop undressing from the fancy suit and look over at the girl that sits on the floor.
Her eyes are big and plead for him to ask her—if not out of curiosity then to humor her needs. Regardless of how ridiculous they could sometimes be.
They're family after all.
So, he gives up and gives a sigh and a wry smile before asking. "What're you playing with this time?"
And like he was expecting out of her, she burst into an uncontrollable fit of cynical giggles and enjoyment. Not like he wasn't guilty of such tendencies himself some days. "Oh, Tyki, you won't believe it!" She grabs the box in her hands again and shakes it some more. "Some human wandered into the Ark!"
"What?"
A human?
"Yep!" Road giddily leaps from her sit and start jumping up and down in place out of excitement. "And although the Earl didn't let me keep it, he let me play around with her!"
"So what's in the box—"
"Exactly!" Road replies with a grin from ear and ear before she brings the box closer to her eyes and watches what's happening inside of it. "I've been toying with her mind, breaking her memories apart and picking out her fears. She's got quite a few good ones to boot, too!" She lets out a cackle and shakes the box again. But at seeing nothing apparently happening, she pouts childishly. "But her heart won't break. It's been hours now but she won't budge."
Tyki sighs at her absurdity and simply sits down on his chair in front of the fireplace to relax. Or at least get as much rest while having Road in his room toying with whatever human got caught in her hands as possible.
"How did a human even get into the Ark?" he asks while languidly picking at the nearest bookcase without really caring what he picks to read.
"Don't know. But since she'll die eventually, I'm not interested~"
The Earl surely wouldn't care if she doesn't.
But he couldn't avoid the curiosity that lingers on him every time something out of the norm happened. Well as out of the norm as their family could get that is.
And since Road would stay so long as that toy she had stayed alive, it's in his best interest to let it finish early so he can get some sleep. "Who do you have there, anyway?"
"Curious?" she giggles and comes over to the chair where he's sitting on before holding the box up to his face. "Look! She's pretty too. Can't wait to rip that face off her~"
His gaze was tired to look but he did so anyway. At catching the sight of the toy that Road was playing with his eyes widened.
What…?
Without meaning to, he takes the box from her hands. Not expecting the sudden movement, Road tumbles over her head and hits her face on the floor. Tyki hears her whining and crying but he can't believe what he's seeing.
Reina?
But…that's impossible?
"When did you catch this?"
"A few hours ago, why?" Road inquires while sitting on the armrest of the chair and watching the box from Tyki's hands.
And the Earl condoned this.
If he had then there was nothing he could do to stop Road's torture. He was already beyond being surprised and shocked that Reina had stumbled upon the Ark. There was no way for her—a human—to travel into this space.
Not without inside help at least.
And on that matter once they find out she's one of his human friends they will put the fault on him. And that was a can that he didn't want to open any time soon. Saving himself the trouble of such problems is more than enough to raise him from his chair with one goal in mind.
There goes my lazy afternoon.
"Where're you going, Tyki?" There isn't any shock or confusion in Road's voice as she watches Tyki rise from his chair and give her the box back.
"To talk to the Earl." That's all the answer he gives her before he storms out of the room with his destination not far.
"Mmm~"
Road was having fun playing around with this human and Tyki.
While searching through her memories for fears to haunt her with, she found her earliest memories which contained her favorite uncle. As she had guessed, they were friends from his human side. And seeing him react to finding out she was toying with the girl was just priceless.
But she hadn't been kidding about how she was getting annoyed at how resilient the little girl is. Out of the life she had lived, Road had found four insurmountable fears that could easily break any normal human by themselves. But she had bombarded her with all of them consecutively and she hadn't budged.
Her little play had started the fore night before and the girl had suffered through cycles of her fears over that span of time. And although Road could tell she was getting overwhelmed there was still something that kept her going. Something that held her straight when she's about to break.
"You're an interesting, little human~" Road coos at the box that she holds at eye level. "But you're a nuisance that I'm starting to hate more by the second." Out of nowhere the veins around her eyes strain while she keeps contact with the box. "I'll have to hurry and break you before Tyki can get you out."
How many times has it been already?
I stopped taking count after the scenes started blurring into one another. It's was like a terrible nightmare that I can't wake up from.
Those four scenarios keep coming and I can't run away from them.
Dad's death. The falling. The drowning. Jaden's request.
Every time I refuse the last, I'm killed to wake up in my room again and the cycle continues. It's like I'm lucid dreaming but it doesn't matter whether I know if I'm dreaming or not. Regardless of my conscious mind, the scenes continue.
No matter how much I tell myself they're not real, they still happen.
I can't take much more of this.
I've never been up to killing but right now I was willing to make one last exception for myself. That seems like the best escape route from this horrid nightmare. I can't do that without something to help me with though.
The only place with weapons is that last room. With Jaden. If I can get there, I'll be able to end this. Anything is better than seeing these scenes forever.
But to get there, I need to go through this house.
I have to see Papa die…again.
But—I sit there on my bed, curled up in my misery—I don't want to see him die again.
I don't want to see it happen.
See it…happen?
A sudden realization hits me at those simple words.
Dad died years ago when I was seven…but I never saw him die.
Papa died out in the field during that last drug bust. His partner, Uncle Jesse, took me to the squad room where everybody was mourning him. I had no idea what had occurred. Uncle Donnie, his captain, was the one that took care of me for a few days until ACS took me away.
That was what really happened.
What I saw—what I keep seeing—isn't a memory. It's manufactured. It's…fake.
It's not real.
And if that isn't real then none of the others are real either. My fears of heights and of drowning…they're from my initiation. But I was never put in that kind of explicit danger in my life, ever. And Jaden's request…
None of this is real.
To proof this there's only one thing that I can think of. With determination boiling through my blood, I saunter out of my room and ignore the scents that have become dull to my senses. I don't even bother to reach the kitchen anymore and instead head straight for the door.
The sudden knocks have stopped startling me and I open the door to let the ruffians in. They snarl and grimace at me while pointing their guns.
"Reina!"
It's his voice but it doesn't affect me now that I've realized what's going on. "Sorry, old man, but you're already dead," I tell him without even a glance back. One of the ruffians before me points his gun toward him and shoots. The loud pop doesn't scare me any longer as I sink into a calmness that I can't believe I've found.
From behind me, I hear the loud thud from his body falling. It's funny to think that once the shock washes off it's easy to ignore things you've seen a million times.
It's three years since the day I was taken away and got lost in the cracks of the system. Those three years where I had to change to survive. I'm sinking back into tendencies that I had renounced the day I met Jaden and got adopted by the O'Conner's. After I was saved, there was no need for them anymore.
Here…I need to hold on to them for a bit longer.
The guns point back at my head but I feel no fear. A grin comes to my lips and my fingers simply push the tip away from my face. "It's rude to point that thing around, gentlemen. Now, if you'll excuse me."
And with that I walk out of the house without any harm to my body or mind. At exiting, the first thing I feel is the air brushing past me. I'm back at the beam fifty feet above the ground.
There isn't any more hesitation after having seen this so many times but there is still some fear. Phobias won't vanish out of thin air but I can fight them with this determination.
And even if I die, this isn't real.
Taking that for what it is worth, I run full speed towards the nearest building taking advantage that the crows had yet to show their ugly beaks. But at reaching the window that was usually open and only finding it closed shut, I back track.
That's new.
The distant cawing tells me that they're on their way and coming fast. There's nothing more to do but to run over to the other side and check but as I feared it's covered up too.
Now what? When I come walking over the beam, the crows are already there on me trying to peck me to death. My hands sway back and forth over my head trying to buzz them away but their incessant with their attack. And I'm out of options here.
There's no other way out.
Yes, there is.
And just as my mind thinks that my eyes wander down towards the floor.
None of it is real.
That sole reminder gives me the courage to take a deep breath and jump down from the beam. Instinctively, my eyes close on the way down as the wind swiftly passes through me. It feels like I've fallen more than fifty feet before my body splashes into a body of water and goes in deep.
The water's murky, dark, and I can't touch the bottom; this makes me swim up to the top in a hurry. Once at the surface I take a much needed breathe before I glance around. The rushing of water and the rough surfaces—this is the cave.
But its way past half full already.
Not wasting any time here, huh.
Not wanting to waste any myself, I kick around the walls to find any lose boulders as the water continues to rise. The seconds pass and I can't find any but the water has already reached the surface.
If there's nothing on the surface then maybe there's below.
My lips open to take one last deep breath before the surface disappears and I'm underneath murky waters. It's stings to open my eyes but I do so anyway and see nothing but darkness. That's at first until my eyes catch the glimmer of something.
Light.
I swim over to it and find the tiny hole from where the light's coming from and try to dig my way through. But it's hard when I'm running out of air.
You won't.
That's right.
"I won't." My voice comes out crisp and clean even when I'm swallowing the water around me. I let myself sink down to the bottom where I can see the hole of light better. I've forced it too much but it won't budge so maybe if I simply touch it.
My fingers brush over the rock and I watch as cracks start forming where my fingers linger. Smiling, I give a slight tap to the wall that makes it shatter at contact. The water rushes out and forcefully brings me out with it.
The floor that I land on is wooden and recognizable as the one that I've seen. This is the gun room. When I get up my body isn't soaked anymore but instead there's a heat radiating from it.
Up ahead is the table with the artillery and a few feet beyond that is the girl bound to the chair with Jaden behind her grabbing the back of the chair with an anticipating grin.
"Finally back, I see," he says with the grin that won't go away and seems a bit familiar but not for him. It's a smirk that I find very discomforting. Regardless of how I'm feeling right now, I walk over to stand before the hooded girl while Jaden takes a few steps back and to the side to watch me.
But instead of answering anymore of his comments, I reach out my hand and grab the sack that's over the girl's head and rip it off from her. It's a bit startling what I see but it's something I expected.
The girl that's bound in the chair and gagged…is me when I was ten.
A girl with eyes sunken and pale skin, black hair matted and green eyes dull from a world she has seen. A girl that was forced to grow up well before her time and that for three years was trained to steal, lie, hurt others, and follow orders to survive.
Until the one day that she refused to follow a very simple one.
I'm not a killer.
I take off the gag on her and the moment I do, she gives that dark, wicked grin that I recognize too well on that young seemingly innocent face.
But she is.
She's the part of me—however small or big—that birthed from those years of solitude and survival. The part that left behind any emotion of love and compassion and only sought out for herself.
A spider. And a part of me that I know still lives in me. I've seen how cruel and unjust the world can be and I learned to adapt accordingly. Even after I was taken away from such world, I had already become too jaded to correct. The first years were hard for me to adapt back and even then I still have troubles fitting in with society.
They turned a little, innocent girl into a beast—a monster of their creation.
One that even after knowing what I have been through, they saw fit to label in accordance to the actions I had to take to survive that childhood. Not from the years after where I tried to get better.
"Clinically speaking, she's borderline sociopathic."
"Can she be cured?"
"It will take time and much therapy along with help from your family, but it can be dealt with. However, I will strongly advise for you to keep her away from your other children. She has lived isolated from other people's care for several years now and exposed to too much violence at a young age. Her sense of connection with others has been damaged because of it so she might not see the lives of others as any importance."
"And if she receives the help she needs, she can regain it, right?"
"Only time will tell."
But even after ten years of therapy and bonding, they never thought I was cured. Regardless of how much better I got. True, I would never be the same girl from before but Jaden and Kat's love changed me and gave me back emotions I thought I had lost. And though I saw them smiling and loving me, I knew there was always something wrong.
They always feared me.
"Exactly." As if having read my mind, Jaden comes over and stands by my side. He reaches for my hand and entwines his fingers with mine. "Despite how much they seemed to love you, they have always been scared of what you could do. The things that the police told them you were involved in and the harm you have caused to other people. They always feared that they too would be targeted by the little monster they were trying to save."
His fingers let go of my own and in their place I feel steel. The gun that he's put in my hands feels cold and foreign but I grab it between my fingers nonetheless.
"That's the reason you've never truly been a part of the family. You're too foreign, too different from us to ever be part of us. That's why they never met your eyes—none of them did. They were too scared to see who they knew lingered behind that smile."
"That's…not true." My voice choked on itself and my chest got a little tighter.
"Is it not? I mean none of us ever looked you in the eye with anything more than caution. With a smile but always guarded."
But no matter how much I'm trying to deny it, he's right. No one had ever dared look me in the eye for long after those years.
Not Dad.
Not Mom.
Not Sebastian or Gerard.
Not even Jaden when we were alone. He'd always avert his gaze too.
"Everybody feared you and one ever cared."
That's not true.
There's one person who despite knowing never wavered at my sight.
"Big sis Reina!"
Kat was always the little angel that could only see the good in me. The one who accepted me despite who I was and what I had done in the past.
"Rei-nee."
And she wasn't the only one. Eeze, Momo, Clark, and even Tyki don't fear me. They might not know everything but they've seen how I am if even a little and yet they don't look away. In fact, they seem to embrace it and understand. We've lived similar lives and that just makes us closer to each other.
They don't fear me.
They respect me. They trust me.
I am dear to them as they all are to me. And it's them along with the scars that my past has given me that carry me onward to the future.
Scars are reminders…just like Sebastian said.
The oldest of us and by far wisest he might have feared me but he also held much respect in my eyes. The one that understood why I did the things I did and despite fearing me for knowing the things he did at my age there was also solace for me in his eyes.
"Seb, do Mom and Dad hate me?"
"Why would you say that?"
"I feel like…they treat me differently."
"They're trying their best, Reina, to adjust to this just like you are. As all of us are."
"Are you scared of me?"
"I won't lie to you. You've seen stuff that only I recently saw during my first tour. Worse yet you acted upon your instinct to survive. And you did as did I. But things like these change you whether you do them by choice or chance. And every time they take away a piece of you while changing you at the same time. War is war, whether it's internal or external makes no difference. I'm fighting in mine just like you're still struggling in yours."
"Do those pieces we lose comeback?"
"Only as scars that serve as reminders, Reina. Reminders for us to never look back, to learn from experience, and to keep walking forth."
And those scars along with the love from those who mattered truly to me were enough. I didn't need anybody to tell me that I'm okay because I might never fully recover from that. But those who I matter to will never fail to see me in the eye and truly see me as I am.
And as I know I am as well.
"You're right. I've always known and I've felt the same fear of myself. Of this part of me—this indifference to life—" My hand reaches out to pat the head of the little girl. At doing this, she loses the grin and seems utterly confused from the unexpected affection. And that reaction didn't surprise me.
She's me, after all.
"Taking over. That if it ever did, I would l lose any sense of compassion and kill you all and slit my throat for good measure after." My hand lowers up to her cheek and caress it lovingly. "But it would be meaningless to be scared of something that's a part of me now. Life may have taken me where I never would have intended to go, but I think it got me to where I need to be. It was given to me and whether it's a curse or gift, I don't care. I'll accept it as part of myself and my life—pain and all—and keep moving forward."
There's a slight hesitance from Jaden's part that makes me turn towards him. "You know they won't ever accept you and yet you choose to continue on?" His voice was changing and starts to sound more high-pitched. "Even when they consider you evil and a monster, you would still go against it all for them? Forsake the justice that's to be given for those who've suffered—a justice you deserve—to save them?"
"Justice and evil aren't the words I would use to describe my reasons. Those are words that I hate very much."
This seems to surprise him but it only makes me smile.
This is one of the few things that I actually remember Papa always telling me.
"Papa, you catch bad guys, right?"
"As defined by the law, yes."
"So that means you're the good guys, right?"
"To say we're 'good' and they're 'bad' is putting it too black and white, reinita. The world isn't that simple and the people who live in it much less."
"Then how do you know that you're doing the right thing then?"
"Most of the times, I don't. I follow the rules of the world but those rules are made to define who's good and bad. But people aren't like that. People aren't just black and white, because no matter where you look, you'll always find the vast majority of gray."
"Regardless of the reason, when it's people who're involved the situation is seldom black and white. Most of the time there's never a fine line that defines who is good and bad or who's just and evil. Where humans are involved, there is only our will. And to give my all for those who love me as I am and are willing to do the same is my reason; that's my will and I will never let hatred consume it to kill another."
Giving that as my answer to his question, I raise the gun and shoot up towards the lamp hanging on the ceiling. The light bursts but instead of leaving us in darkness it shines a light brighter than any that begins to vanish everything from its sight. The table and the chair along with the ten-year-old me are gone before my eyes.
Jaden's the last that stays.
"Oh and by the way—" I call out with a smile as the gun vanishes from my hand. "You did a good job at impersonating Jade. I almost believed you!" A chuckle escapes me but my eyes speak volumes of how I feel betrayed at knowing he was never really there despite his words ringing too true in my ears of thoughts he won't speak but I know he has. "But you bunched Kathleen in with all of them. She won't ever look at me with fear; she's too much like I used to be. Too kind and trusting. And her kindness and trust is something I will never doubt. She's the first who saw me for who I am. Nothing more than a lost little girl who wanted someone by her side."
The room itself starts to shatter then and Jaden smirks one last time before he starts to vanish too. But only his skin. What's left behind is Road with an all-knowing smirk on her face. There's an underlying frustration that I can't help but notice but it's all hidden almost too well underneath that smirk.
"You're an entertaining toy despite your flaws. Keeping you around might turn to be more fun that I first thought." The floor beneath then starts shattering too and soon I feel nothing beneath me. Before the darkness swallows me again, I hear her last words.
"See you on the other side, Reina~"
A/N:
Finally, a long enough chapter. Although this didn't move the plot much forth, it did explain some things about Reina's past. It's basically broken into three phases.
Birth-7: her life with her biological dad.
7-10: 'miserable years' as she describes them. These will be explained later but I'll just say that they're the reason why she's so well trained in combat and whatnot. Also her butterfly knife cx
10-20: her life with the O'Conners! :D
I wanted to make this mini timeline as simple as I could so this should do. Not only for you guys but for me too cx But anyway, I've got about three more weeks before I have to go back to school. Third year in college and I also have the MCATs to worry about -w- sounds like a fun year to look forth to.
Translations:
-reinita: little queen
-perdón: sorry
-ahi esta, mi reina: there it is, my queen
But I won't be pessimistic about it now xD So first, let me thank the people that need some thanking.
First thanks goes to the favorites and followers that have joined this army of fluffs and charmers:
-ForeverinWonderland
-hannah-dimond
-jwadd2
-AkaneIchihara
-hiyomi
-tempestmind
-Fey Croix
-Winged Winter Night
And now for the reviewers that I'm unable to reach but that I still love to no end! XD
-Hana: Glad you liked it and I think we're all relieved nothing happened to little Eeze cx But that she can use the Ark or knew the Earl's name points to nothing -w- The Ark was opened by that 'man' and that she knew the Earl's name was because that's what the family kept calling them. And hey, cursing is allowed. I don't mind it. And you're right, she'll need a lot of luck to get through this alive ;)
-Schmetterling: It seems the last chapter got a lot of people scared cx I wonder what this one did in the beginning then. And thanks! I'll include the translations before the TY section from now onward and if I forget any, just tell me. As for the confusion, clarodoes indeed mean clear, but it can also be used to mean sure. Hope that helps. And yes…torture and cliffhangers are something I love to do cx And hope this chapter stopped your sulking! :D
-pomxx: Haha, thanks a lot. I'm glad that you like this so much cx
-Niska: Yes, Reina and the Noah finally have met, if briefly. As for your questions about Reina, well, she learned how to in that three year interval. Under what circumstances and for what reasons in mind will be something for a later chapter cx 'wrangle', if I'm not mistaken, means to fight or something. So I might have used it incorrectly in the last chapter cx but it was meant to tell that she was being dragged around by them. And as for the 'something' I kept repeating after she sees the Noahs for the first time…well, think of it as déjà vu and let's leave it at that cx Hope this chapter gave you some information about Reina's life c: It's what this chapter was all about :D
-hiyomi: Sorry, I forgot to answer back that second time but I'm doing it now cx To answer your question: yes, it's planned for her to remember more but that's much later. And I'm trying to keep her strong in her own way. A lot of things come to mind when people think of strength. Reina's both strong physically and mentally. But as the story progresses, I want to suppress the physical aspect of that which is where the basic idea of that oneshot comes in. But by suppressing the physical, it will showcase more of her mental strength which is something I want to dwell in more. It's because I'm dealing with the Noah who're preternatural beings and clashing them against Reina who's 'normal' that I want to make her stand out in a different way c:
Well, that's all I have to say c: Hopefully ya'll have enjoyed. I'll keep working on my outline and upload as much as I can before I start school cx So hoped you enjoyed and stay tuned for the next update! :D
