Ringdove and robinet

Is it for wages

Singing to be sold?

Have you decided it's safer in cages

Singing when you're told?

~Green Finch and Linnet Bird, Sweeney Todd

Chapter 21: Green Finch and Linnet Bird

Elsa sat in the passenger seat of the car and tried to steady her breathing. Jack looked over at her from the driver's side, worriedly. From the back, Anna let out a sigh.

Elsa resisted the urge to turn her head and look at her younger sister. She had been torn about inviting Anna. On the one hand, she strongly suspected that she would need the support of her younger sister. On the other hand, she was still deeply hurt by Anna's betrayal, even if Anna hadn't intended it as that. Even if Hans hadn't spread it out across the news so that people from all over the world were calling her parents or Elinor or posting on her social media accounts, it wasn't Anna's story to share, and she should've realized that. Elsa knew that Anna realized that now, but it was too little, too late.

Still, Elsa wanted to confront Weselton, and there was no way that her parents would let that happen. But she still needed support—Anna was the obvious answer. What was surprising, however, was that Elsa found herself wanting Jack to be there as well. He had been surprised when she'd first approached him a few days ago but had quickly agreed.

Now, she sat in the leather seat, knee bouncing erratically and hands wringing. She bit her lip, chewing at the tag of skin that she'd loosened sometime during the drive. She pulled and it tore—there was a lance of pain, then warmth. She brought her hand up to her mouth and touched her lip, finding blood.

"Are you alright?" Jack asked lowly, glancing at her. Elsa turned to look at him and nodded unconvincingly. She turned her gaze back to the windshield and squinted at the car ahead of them—Marshall, whom she had sworn to secrecy and had called the prison earlier to schedule this visit.

"I'll be fine," Elsa said quietly. "As soon as this is over."

"You don't have to do this," Jack said, staring straight ahead at the road, his hands at ten and two on the wheel. "This isn't what I meant by doing something."

Elsa's lips twisted in a wry smirk. "I know. But I'm doing this for me."

"You're pretty incredible, you know?" Jack said. Her cheeks heated at the compliment—incredible—but before she could reply, she saw the sign for the prison and the words dried up in her throat.

Elsa straightened up, her spine stiffly straight, as the car slowed, pulling into the parking lot. She watched as Marshall stopped in front of them to talk to a guard, then pulled through. Jack drove forwards and stopped as well. The guard eyed them.

"You're with Marshall Edmonds?" the guard asked.

"Yes, sir," Jack replied.

"ID?"

Jack picked his ID up from the cupholder, where he had placed it earlier, and handed it over to the guard, who examined it for a moment before handing it back and allowing them through.

Elsa let out a breath of relief as Jack parked beside Marshall. She unbuckled her seatbelt and got out of the car, taking in a deep breath of fresh air. She hadn't realized how stuffy she had gotten inside of the car.

Marshall was standing with his arms crossed across his broad chest beside his door. He eyed her worriedly.

"Are you sure you want to do this, kid?" he asked. Elsa nodded, not sure that she could trust her voice. What if she opened her mouth to say yes and it came out as no instead? So she kept it shut and trusted that Marshall knew she could handle herself. Marshall sighed. "Alright, let's go."

Marshall walked towards the facility, and Elsa followed. Jack and Anna fell into step beside her, but no one spoke as they made their way to the imposing building. Elsa's teeth found their way to the tender skin of her torn lip and worried at it some more.

Eventually, they reached the doors and walked in. Guards stood at the entrance, metal detectors a few feet behind them. Elsa watched as Marshall marched forwards and went through the process with ease. She took a deep breath and followed suit.

First, she drew her ID out of her pocket and showed the guards, who took it and scanned it through a machine. Then, she took off her canvas shoes and placed them on the conveyor belt before stepping through the metal detector. Marshall had warned them all beforehand that there were rules to visiting a prison—you couldn't wear a bra with underwire, or certain shades of blue, or denim, or the color orange. To be safe, Elsa went with a simple white bralette, a long-sleeved teal shirt, and white pants. Nevertheless, she held her breath as she went through the metal detector, nervous that they would find something wrong with her.

Nothing.

Elsa picked up her shoes and slipped them back on as Anna walked through without any problem, followed soon after by Jack. As if sensing her unease, Marshall walked up to the trio and smiled, something he rarely did.

"That wasn't so bad, was it?" he asked.

"I just miss my hoodie," Jack grumbled, hands shoved in the pockets of his brown pants. It was strange to see him without his signature item. Instead, his white t-shirt clung to the muscles of his shoulders and upper arms, and Elsa looked away.

A guard in a tan uniform and a cap came up to them and, at Marshall's nod, began to lead them down the hallway. Elsa felt her body begin to tense up as they walked—her jaw, her shoulders, her stomach. As if sensing this, Jack's hand brushed her own. She glanced down at the space between them, then looked back up. Slowly, she let her hand slip into his. He squeezed it once, then let go.

In front of them, the guard stopped and opened a door, stepping aside so that they could file into the small room. In the middle of the room stood a rectangular table with a chair on either end. Hesitantly, Elsa stepped through the door and made her way to the table.

"We just put out the one chair," the guard was saying. "The rest of you will have to stand."

"That's fine," Marshall told him.

"We'll bring him in whenever you're ready," the guard said. Elsa's breath caught in her throat. Him. Weselton. In her mind's eye, she could barely picture him, his features blurred except for a large, pointed nose and a mop of dark hair.

"Sit down, Elsa," Marshall said. Elsa sat in the chair, the metal cold and unforgiving underneath her legs. She looked across the table and noticed a metal bar that stuck up from the table in front of the opposite chair. Marshall continued giving directions, his voice the only sound in the room. "Jack, Anna, you two can stand against the wall. Keep quiet, and try not to draw attention to yourselves."

Elsa looked over her shoulder to find the two friends doing as they were told, leaning back against the wall. Jack had his arms loosely crossed over his chest, while Anna stood stick straight, hands fidgeting with one of her braids.

Marshall locked eyes with Elsa as he moved forwards to stand over her shoulder. "Are you ready?"

"Y-yes," Elsa said. Then, more firmly: "Bring him in."

The guard said something into a radio at his shoulder, and then Elsa's attention was drawn to the door on the other side of the room, the one she hadn't even noticed. It seemed like it took both an eternity and a second before the handle turned and the door opened and a man stepped through.

The man was short, shorter than most, and balding. He had wisps of white hair over each of his ears. Despite the chains around his wrists, the man walked into the room with an air of haughtiness, his pointed nose sticking straight up. If it weren't for that, Elsa wasn't sure that she would have recognized her old skating coach.

The guard led Weselton to the table and ran the handcuffs through the hook on the table. Weselton sat down in the chair and surveyed the room regally. When he locked eyes with Elsa, he smirked. Elsa's throat closed up.

"Elsa Winters," he said, drawing her name out with relish. It was like nails on a chalkboard. "My, how you've grown." His eyes skated behind her, to where Anna and Jack stood. "And is that little Anna?"

"Don't talk about Anna," Elsa said roughly, the words dragged out of her throat. Weselton's gaze jumped back to hers, surprise evident on his features. Marshall took a step closer, so that he was standing beside her chair.

"What's with the big, scary man, Elsa?" Weselton asked in his nasally voice. She didn't like that he kept saying her name, like he had some sort of right to it, some sort of right to her.

"I'm not here for you to ask questions," Elsa said. "I'm here so you can answer mine."

Weselton raised his eyebrows. "Oh?"

"Have you been sending me letters?" she asked. Beside her, Marshall stiffened. They hadn't discussed what Elsa was going to say to Weselton, but she doubted that he expected that.

"Letters? No, I don't believe I have," Weselton said. "Why?"

"That's none of your concern," Marshall said.

"Someone's threatening me," Elsa said. She could feel the glare that Marshall was giving her, but she didn't care. She watched as Weselton processed what she'd said, could practically see it roll through his mind.

"And why would anyone threaten you, my dear? You're perfect," Weselton said. He smirked at her then, and Elsa felt a chill through her bones. "Always so good and so perfect, so willing to do whatever it takes. Do you remember what we used to say, Elsa? 'Conceal, don't feel—'"

"Shut up!" The words snapped out of her before she could stop them. Her hands clutched the arm rests, fingers white as they clung to the metal. "Y-you don't get to do that."

"Do wh—"

"Talk," Elsa cut him off. "Smirk. Taunt. Any of it. You don't get to act like you have something over me because you don't. You haven't had anything over me since they threw you in prison fifteen years ago."

Weselton gave her a pitying look. "Don't I?"

"Not anymore." Elsa took a breath. "I thought, for a moment, that maybe you were doing this, too. That you were still somehow haunting me through your cell bars, but now I realize that that's not true. You don't have any power anymore. You're just a pathetic old man who did a terrible thing a long time ago, but you don't get to do that terrible thing anymore. Everything that you were, everything that you had, is gone. And you're never getting it back. You're never getting me back."

Weselton laughed. "You came all this way, and you expect me to believe that? That you didn't come here, searching for answers? Why I did it? What I gained?"

"I don't need to know why you did it," Elsa said, shaking her head. "Why should I give you any more space in my head? Why should I give you a chance to speak your mind? You don't deserve it, and I deserve more.

"I have news for you, Weaselton—I'm not a scared little girl anymore. Despite everything that you did, I grew up. I get to continue to grow and learn and love and live. And you get to spend the rest of your days rotting in a cell. And that's all that is important to this story."

Weselton stared at Elsa, shocked, with his mouth wide open. Elsa turned to the guard.

"This conversation is over. Please escort him back to his cell," she said. That shocked him back to life.

"It's Weselton, you little bitch!" he snarled as the guards unhooked him from the table. Marshall took a menacing step forward, and Weselton shrank back immediately and let the guards lead him out of the room. Elsa didn't know if he looked back at her; she'd already turned around.