K*H*W* (go to my profile :)
Chapter Thirty Eight Rosemary's Point of View
"Rosemary?" Layla asked.
She's dead.
"Rosemary?" Owen.
Azalea's dead.
"Can you hear me?" Mother.
She was so strong. She couldn't have just died.
"Rosemary!" Luna.
I left her in Corona, because I thought she'd be safe.
"Rose!" They were shaking her now.
I should have forced her to go.
"Caroline, she's not moving!" Mr. Smits as well.
I should have made her go.
"Rosemary?" Caroline was nearby, maybe standing over her.
She would have been safe with us.
"Rosemary, we'll go as soon as possible." Her hand went to Rosemary's cheek. She waited.
Ava dying destroyed her. She needed someone to take care of.
Caroline's hand stung her cheek. She waited again.
Her mother left her. Ava died. Azalea had no one to go to.
Another sting. Caroline waited.
And I left her too. How could she have died?
"Rosemary, we'll pay our respects."
Azalea needed a family.
"We'll visit all who knew her, and ask how it happened."
Azalea needed a home. Her mother's house wasn't her home.
"We won't forget her."
Azalea needed someone to take care of.
"Rosemary."
She needed to be taken care of.
"Please, Rose."
She needed someone to hold her heart and keep it safe.
"Rose, I'll get Mr. Carter and have him put you on bed-rest for five months."
She needed someone's heart to hold. She needed to find something precious.
"Mother won't let you out of her sight."
She had no anchor. She had no one to rely on when I left her.
"Rose."
She needed a friend.
Rosemary opened her eyes, but was unable to see.
She needed me.
Azalea's Point of View
She sat down quietly.
Jacob looked up at her, and she suppressed the urge to flinch.
Show no fear. Avalyn said ominously. Is that how it goes?
I don't know about showing no fear. I'm about to run out of the door.
Can you move? Avalyn asked, sounding hopeful.
I don't know.
Kiss your fork.
Azalea's eyes looked down at the fork.
Nothing's happening. Avalyn sighed.
Where are we?
Well, we passed by a waterfall on the way here. Avalyn said. She looked around the room. This house looks familiar.
It does. Did you see the shackles on the wall?
Avalyn nodded somberly. I think those are for us.
Jacob handed her a plate. "What will it be?"
She blinked in confusion, tipping her head to the side.
"Shackles, pan, or speech?"
What the hell does that mean? Azalea groaned.
"I'm supposed to choose?"
"Well, your opinion is merely a suggestion."
I'm scared of him, and I don't even remember who he is.
He's Dwayne's twin brother. He's gone off the deep end. Azalea mumbled.
Was he always so mean?
No.
"They're all painful?" Azalea asked quietly.
"Shackles: I beat you until I can't move my arms. Pan: I burn your hands, but you'd have to infuriate me first. Speech: I get to see if Azalea's still there."
Speech sounds moderately safe. Avalyn thought warily.
"But first, I need to get you drunk." Jacob put three bottles of rum on the table.
Damn it! Azalea yelled.
What the hell is your problem? Avalyn shouted at her.
Last time I got drunk, all hell broke loose. Azalea sighed.
Then don't drink!
You let him burn your hands!
You let him beat you to death!
Ava-
Azalea, he's going to kill us! I'd rather be drunk when it happens.
I'm not drinking!
Yes, you are! Avalyn said firmly.
"What will it be?"
"Speech."
"Things on your mind?" Jacob asked.
Tell him I said I hope he burns in hell.
No point. He'll burn no matter what.
Jacob popped the cork, and poured her cup full.
"Is she still there?"
"Feisty as ever, too."
How are we doing this? I say we kill him. Azalea said.
Great minds think alike. Avalyn sipped the rum.
Rapunzel's Point of View
"She's not here." Nathan's green eyes stared around the kitchen.
"I was hoping she'd come." I said honestly, and sat down on one of the chairs. I rubbed my eyes. I was still so tired.
"Do you think she's okay?" Nathan asked worriedly.
I didn't know how to answer. How did we know she wasn't being tortured right now?
"We need to do something." Nathan's handsome face grazed the front door. "She could be getting hurt, and we're sitting here waiting."
His thoughts had been following mine.
"I agree with you. I just don't know where to look."
"The tower."
"Guy's already there, I think."
"His house." Nathan's suggestion stopped me cold.
"Damn!" I got to my feet. "Is anybody even looking there?"
Nathan was calm for half a second.
"Bloody hell!" Then we were both out of the door.
Azalea's Point of View
"Get me off of this wall!" Azalea screamed at him, her bruised ribs aching.
"Azalea?"
"Who the hell else?" She snapped, choking when another blow landed on her torso. "If you . . .Want me to give. . . A speech, why. . . Are you hurting me?"
"Just because you chose speech doesn't mean the others couldn't happen at the same time." He smiled, and Azalea struggled to breathe. "Any words coming to you yet?"
"Go to hell and stay there."
"I was thinking something more nostalgic." His hand went across her face.
"I hate you."
"He hates me too." Jacob grinned. "How about now?"
She shook her head at him.
Within hours, he finally stopped.
Azalea hung in the shackles, feeling sick and disoriented.
"Azal?" Jacob asked quietly.
The past few hours, she had been thinking about several things.
Avalyn was sitting down, looking at Azalea fearfully. The blond hadn't come back in her hair but Azalea's eyes were light green and gray once more.
And they were burning with hate.
Azalea could hardly breathe, and she didn't care. Jacob thought that by hurting her, Rapunzel would come running? What Jacob didn't understand was that whatever he did to Azalea only hurt her, not anyone else. Nathan's heart was burning in agony when Azalea was thrown against walls. Dwayne wasn't gasping for air when Jacob knocked the daylights out of her.
But Azalea saw another thing, another realization that made her already heaving chest heave harder. If Jacob ever got to Rapunzel again, and harmed her, the sun flowers were no more. Rapunzel's children were sun flowers too, because of inheritance. Azalea obtained some of Rapunzel's powers long enough to absorb them. Flynn and Anora were extensions of Rapunzel. It made sense.
Abruptly, Azalea felt a different emotion, an almost completely new emotion, new only because she had experienced anger and despair and fear for so long-
What was the new emotion? She could almost taste it on her tongue. Not playfulness, or teasing, but something with an edge.
Mischief. She wanted to gloat.
She laughed then, feeling the stiffness in her body when she arched her back to him though he was leaning in to hear her words.
"You know where you went wrong?" She felt her eyes narrow. "You should have put us together. Everything is incomplete without her." It was true. Eugene was incomplete without his wife. Rapunzel's parents were broken without their daughter. The sun flowers were forever gone with Rapunzel, and Azalea would have been dead without Rapunzel.
Jacob looked perplexed.
"You think that if you kill me, Rapunzel will die?"
"If you die, Rapunzel gets hurt." Jacob tried to get his bearings.
"Yes, but just hurt." Azalea felt her lungs expand with more air. "You forget that I am not her."
"You don't understand, do you? Rapunzel and I, we're just two sides of the same coin. Rapunzel is better than me in every way."
"She is just like you!" Jacob protested.
"No, I am just like her." Azalea gazed at him. "My voice is higher than hers, my eyes are grayer than hers, she's taller than me- You just don't understand.
"Rapunzel is different than me. She is more powerful than me. She is better than me." Her voice shook. "Rapunzel is everything I am not, and everything I will never be. She is the only link to the sun flowers there is and you cannot get her. Besides the fact that she is a princess, she is a mother, a wife, and a very respected woman." Azalea heard her voice rise and felt the fire burning in her eyes.
"I look like her but I am not her! She wasn't taken against her will, gave birth to a baby that died, and nor had she been nearly killed by a former lover. She is better than me in every way." Azalea felt her parents' presences in the room. Her parents were with her then, though they were so far away, one dead and one in Corona. Yet somehow, they never felt so close.
"She is everything I am not, and everything I will never be because you have been planning to kill me." Azalea had to have this: one last hurrah.
"So I dare you!" Azalea screamed at him. "I dare you to do it!" It was as if all the anger she had ever experienced in her entire life was spilling out. Somewhere deep down, she felt a peace settle inside.
"I dare you to kill me!"