There's blood starting to bead and fall from my lower lip down my chin.
The worst thing, really, is that I can taste it. I've always hated my own blood, or, at least, the smell and taste of it. I've never really been fazed when I've had to see, say Weiss after that car accident which left her with a scar down her face or all those times Winter has come home from a training mission looking like she got the shit beaten out of her. I wish I had known that wasn't just a training mission thing before I got banished here. Yeah, fucking banished. Banished by my own father, no less, while my mom is sick, pregnant, begged him not to, and, according to James and what she's said to me herself, absolutely devastated to have essentially lost yet another one of her kids. Even Blake reached out to tell me that he and his wife are trying to keep my mom safe from my father. I hate it. I hate all of this. I hate that I did something so stupid that it got me in this situation to begin with, and I hate that I can't see Anna because she's at Beacon and I'm here at Atlas.
And, damn, I really hate being a human punching bag but, then again, using magic would put me in more danger so I guess accepting my weak semblance is all I can do. At this point, I'm not even going to fight it anymore. I don't want to fight anymore. I can't even figure out when I had started fighting basically everything even if I were to try. I was probably really young. It doesn't matter. I have two years of this to get through and win my father's favour back. I just hope I'll be able to do it. I want to know my baby sister when she's born. I want to be with my mother, and I want to be there for Weiss and Whitley because Winter isn't going to be able to be after she finally gets deep into the military. Besides, I don't even know what I want anymore. I'm not going to law school, I'm finishing my degree here but have been pushed back by the transfer process and the requirements of Atlas Academy. I don't want anything to do with the SDC, and I don't want people to look at me.
Maybe I just want to disappear.
"Get off the floor, Schnee," The tall girl - Amelie Arc - I was fighting sneers, looking pretty damn smug about the whole thing. "You know the fight is over, right?"
I heard the beeping that signifies the end of the fights, but, honestly, the floor is more comfortable than standing up. I'm not even sure I have the will to stand up right now, honestly. I'm exhausted, and I just want to sleep. Could I nap here? It -
"Here," I let out a small screech upon feeling two arms hook under me, and then regret it seconds later when I realise it's just Rosella Katt trying to help me out. "Looks like Arc fucked you up."
"She seems to be able to fuck everyone up," I mutter. "Why isn't she in the regular program? You'd think someone like that would probably be a good huntress. Aren't most of the people in her family hunters anyway?"
"Some people want to do both," Rosella shrugs, waving upon seeing James and Glynda walk in. "I'm just helping her back to the dorm, General Ironwood! She -"
"Set her down," Glynda says shortly. "The general and I have a few things to discuss with her."
Rosella nods quickly but her tail drops and she tenses. She waves at me and slips out of the room. The second she's gone, Glynda locks the door and turns off the surveillance system for the room. James looks at me, his eyebrows raised, and then shakes his head. He probably was hoping for better, to be honest, but I'm just not going to be able to be that much better. Not quickly, anyways. Glynda also takes note of how I look (probably frightful), and gives me a sympathetic look. She comes over to me and gives me a loose embrace. She really is a lot like a mom to me, and even her rose perfume is comforting to me. Reminds me of mommy's favourite rosé, actually. After my baby sister is born, I really should get some of that wine for mommy. Maybe it and the baby will help take her mind off of my father. I don't even know what happened….but I really wish it hadn't been true, what he had said to her on Weiss' birthday. Why did he have to go and prove that?
"Cate," Glynda says, taking a look over my injuries but pausing to brush her thumb under my eyes. "Did that hurt? If your bruising is that deep, it really should -"
"I didn't feel it," I mutter. "Just thinking about what happened with….with…"
Glynda sighs. "With Willow and Jacques?"
I nod weakly, finally feeling tears start to fall down my face. "Winter told me a lot. I wish she hadn't."
"Sounds more like you wish it weren't true," James notes, stepping towards where I'm sitting next to Glynda. "I can't say that I blame you. What happened...it sounds stressful and I'm sure that's even more true for Willow herself."
I swallow hard. "I don't even know why he would do anything he has. Why would he...if he really doesn't love us or her, then why…"
"The press conference about the merger said a lot," Glynda says gently, starting to try and bandage me up. "He, very much unlike your grandfather, cares a great deal about purchasing social status. Jacques is quite erudite and willing to be demonstrative of that."
"If he weren't as cunning and far-thinking as he is, I honestly doubt he would be as able to work around the number of impositions the government has suggested and even tried to place on the company over the years," James pauses for a few seconds in thought. "I'll say this: from his economic advice and analyses that other businesses have paid him great sums of money for, to the lean and liability reduced way he has managed to run the SDC, he knows that he has created an effective monopoly on the energy industry. I imagine that's been helped, in no small part, by Blake Adel and Rebecca Carrington. He has always surrounded himself with people he is well aware are as tactical as he is and it certainly has paid off."
"Yeah," I flinch upon feeling one of the bandages tighten around a bleeding spot on my upper arm. "But why...what's the point? He tries so hard to have us fade into the woodwork and have people like the Taggarts be cautionary tales but then he goes and takes advantage of the fact my mom's pregnant? It doesn't make sense! Nothing in my family has ever made any damn sense!"
"Cate, it's alright," Glynda ties off the bandage and then loosely embraces me again. "If you want something of an answer, and I can't imagine you of all people wouldn't, I reckon, because of how wary Jacques is of being in the public eye but knowing it is inevitable, he has come to the realisation that your family has what seems to amount to almost unlimited wealth and he wants to associate the family with the finest and most respected groups."
"It can't be that simple," I whisper, my hands badly shaking. She starts rubbing my back….it's like I'm a child again. Am I even worthy of being an adult if I can barely function with the way things are? "That can't be possible."
Glynda hesitates. "It certainly would explain why he makes such...generous donations to the Atlesian Advanced Sciences Institute and why he seems so eager to remain in a marriage and family he knows is broken. He knows that affairs, divorce, and the like wouldn't bode well for maintaining social status and, honestly, I doubt he believes in such things."
"He probably doesn't," I agree, closing my eyes. My head is starting to spin. "And maybe he did...maybe he did love mommy at some point."
Glynda pauses and I hear James' footsteps closer, though I don't open my eyes. I can't. I don't want to.
"By no means am I saying he's in the right, and certainly not in what he's done to Willow in just the last year alone," She eventually says. "But I am saying that he at least is committed to family, if for the primary purpose of creating a disciplined, respected family that is meant to exemplify the best in Atlas, not our worst. The problem, of course, is that -"
"None of that shit exists," I say quietly. "That's why mommy's trying to erase herself from the narrative, isn't it? It's why Winter already has, right?"
"Maybe," James says. When I open my eyes, he's looking around but takes a step back in shock. "Cate, your powers -"
I stop. Under my hand, I've started to ice over the top of the chair without even noticing.
"I know it doesn't look like there is no easy way forward for you or for, really, anyone in your family," James says once I've reversed the ice and quieted the magic. I still can't believe that it's real. "But, what you have to understand, is that you have to be willing to give up some semblance of control. You have no control over who lives, who dies, or who tells your story….and -"
"Better to learn it now than later," I say, picking at my nails. "If only we could."
