A/N: Heyy guys I am sorry once again, I've been away for a while in Spain and just away from my laptop, so sorry, once again
I would say the next update will be soon and I'll try to get it out as soon as possible but that might take some time... again... sorry *hides again* :D
But here it is, I hope you guys like it...
Chapter 43: That's the thing about pain. It demands to be felt.
Simon's POV:
It was the night after the 'incident' and all Simon could do was lie in bed. He told himself he wasn't moping but he simply couldn't gather up the energy to move.
There was no doubt about it; he was sad, heart-broken even but Simon vowed to himself that they'd get her back. They'd get her back soon and all the tensions of today, would dissipate with her return. He couldn't help but hope that when she returned, and it was 'when' not 'if', she would stop all the fights that had occurred and were bound to recur again and that she, herself, would forget about everything that happened or, better yet, Cris would forgive them for their thoughts and they could just move on.
Not as if it had never happened, but having stronger friendships because it happened.
Although, Simon couldn't help but hold a small grudge against his friends, one of them his best friend, for thinking of Cris like that. Cris didn't deserve it; she didn't deserve to be thought of in such a harsh way.
Suddenly, a knock on his bedroom door brought him out of his thoughts, to which he gave a quiet "Come in,"
Simon turned to see who it was and his eyes widened and he shot up into a sitting position, his glasses nearly flying off his nose.
Isabelle. Izzy Lightwood was standing at his door, her make-up smudged, so she had little black smudges around her eyes, making her iris' give off a brown glow. Her nose was slightly pink and her cheeks looked flushed but what Simon was most shocked about was the visible tear tracks that glazed her cheeks and the droplets that still flowed down and dripped of her chin.
Instead of her normal short and stylish outfits, she was wearing, what Simon guessed was, one of Alec's old jumpers, as the faded-black fabric hung loosely on her slim, yet tall frame, and Simon could even begin to count the amount of holes in it that exposed tight-fitting black tank top underneath. She was also wearing a pair of ripped skinny jeans with her dark blue converse. Simon had to think that they were the only pair of shoes she had that didn't have some kind of high heal on them.
Simon shook his head to check he wasn't in some weird dream.
When he looked back upon the grief-stricken girl, he opened his arms wide and she immediately ran into his arms, knocking him back and almost off the bed. She grabbed the front of his star wars t-shirt, as he had changed into some comfier clothes that his uniform, and buried her head into the crook of his neck.
Izzy now sobbed into him, leaving his t-shirt wet and it probably had make-up smeared on it, but Simon really couldn't care less. He just held her close to him as he also let a few tears fall from his eyes.
After about ten minutes, Izzy managed to control her crying so that now she was just sniffling lightly. The whole time she never took her head out from his neck and Simon couldn't say he minded, at all. She drew back to look at him in the eyes and she let out a few giggles.
While Simon enjoyed the sound of her laughing, he was confused as to why she was. The look on his face must have shown his confusion as she brought one sleeve covered hand up to her giggles, and managed to get out, "Your glasses are fogged,"
Simon didn't know how he didn't notice but now that she said it he could barely see out of the things. She brought her hands up to his face and slowly slid his glasses off and cleaned them with the bottom of her jumper. He, blurrily, watched her as she did this and the eased the frames back onto his face, without poking one of his eyes out like he had done many time.
Izzy looked him in the eye, a small smile gracing her lips, and in a quiet voice, muttered, "There,"
Simon couldn't help the grin that spread across his face and the covered up shock that coursed through him at the sight of the strong, brave girl before him acting shy and almost vulnerable. He had to admit he liked this new side to her that she let no one see.
Simon couldn't help but be lost in her eyes. I sounded cliché and in truth, it was but you were never able to appreciate her eyes until you saw them up close. From far away her eyes just looked black but when you got close up, you were able to see the slightest difference in the different shades of dark brown that mingled together in the pools of her irises.
Neither of them noticed how close their faces were until the star wars opening theme blasts through the silent bliss they were shrouded in. Izzy's eyes widened fractionally before leaning back, to create more space between the two.
Simon looked over to his bedside table, where his phone lay, to see the screen flashing manically. He was about to immediately press the decline button, because to say he wasn't annoyed that someone had interrupted would be a huge understatement, but his finger stopped dead, right above the button, as he saw the caller ID.
Cris.
Rhys' POV:
After I lay my sister in her rightful bedroom, it didn't take her long to lull herself in a deep sleep. With all she had been through yesterday it was undoubtable that she would be exhausted.
In one day; she started back at school; passed out through chloroform; was injected with a special serum their father invented to cause temporary paralysis; was kidnapped and taken over 200 miles; from London to Snowdonia; met her brother and father (neither she knew she had); then night came and she was whipped (and by the looks of her back, whipped over 50 times) by said father.
You can't nothing important happened.
Rhys knew that he, himself, wouldn't get any sleep that night. The sight of his little sister, shivering with a fever, her back oozing blood, chunks of her back having been ripped off, was nearly more than he could take.
He probably would've thrown up right then and there if he was alone but he wasn't, so he had swallowed the bile that threatened to make its way up his throat and cleaned the shredded mess that, earlier that day, could constitute as a human back.
Even though he had been trained never to feel it, Rhys felt guilty. He should've done something that could have helped her. He shouldn't have stepped back and let Father do as he wished.
Unfortunately, he knew there would have been dire consequences and that any efforts he made wound have only made it worse for Cris and himself. Father was a person who despised any sort of emotion; he trained his soldiers not to feel anything; trained them to kill mercilessly.
His own son was one of those soldiers. In fact some of the others called him a 'super soldier' or 'Captain Wales'. The second being the much sadder nickname. It was because his father had altered his genes through injecting his mother while she was pregnant.
The result was a child who had enhanced speed, strength and agility and a very ill pregnant mother.
Father didn't stop there though. After injecting his wife the first time so that their child would be enhanced and seeing the success, he decided to step it up a level. When their mother was pregnant again, with Cris, he designed a new formula and upped the dosage so that the child became like Rhys.
With a few differences though, Cris was enhanced so that she was more flexible, intelligent, courageous, observant and adaptable as well as strong, fast and agile.
She was created to join Rhys and lead the army their Father had been creating for years.
But there were more complications with the second pregnancy than the first, their mother was even sicker and as a result she died soon after Crisiant was born. Father never mourned Mother's death, never cried or had any sadness or guilt towards his wife's death.
Every time Rhys mourned himself, whether it be crying or any other sort of sadness expressed, Father would beat him saying 'Weakness was a sin'. Rhys learned to hide his emotions, to feel them but not to express them that by itself was an act of rebellion his father would never learn of.
Rhys also learnt to hide fatigue and loss of appetite, so that Father would never know he lost sleep and lost weight due to Mother's death. His mum was everything to him: she had taught him important lessons that would stay with him forever and she actually cared for him, helped him up when he tripped and nursed him to health when he fell ill.
He wasn't just a soldier to her, he was her son.
Whereas, instead of caring for his own son, Father had been recruiting and training soldiers to become part of his own personal army, but no one knew exactly the use of the army. Only Meredydd knew that.
The soldiers were kept in a barracks, not far from the house, but Rhys had always lived in the house, unlike the others which had always confused Rhys, he was just a soldier to his father, so why treat him differently to one.
Back to reality, Rhys quickly dismissed the servant, thanking her as she left. He didn't watch the woman leave, his eyes were trained on Crisiant's sleeping form. Emotions bubbled up inside him but he fought to keep them down as he heard the door gently shut.
He spent a few more seconds just staring at her damaged form before he eventually pulled his eyes away, blinking away the tears that had formed. He composed himself quickly, taking a couple of deep breathes and gathering the courage to walk out of his sister's bedroom and down the endless corridors that led to his father's office.
When he reached the foreboding door Rhys gave a firm knock and when his father bellowed for him to get in the room, he swung the door open and stepped in. Placing his hands behind his back, as if to attention, he asked, "Do you have the phone?"
"Yes, I do. Now get in here and close the door. You're wasting time," Meredydd scolded watching Rhys do as he was told.
"Sit," he then instructed to which Rhys did almost immediately.
"Excuse me, but if you don't mind, why do I need to be here for this?" The younger questioned sounding slightly timid. Meredydd looked a bit annoyed at the question but decided to answer it anyway, "Don't you want to know how her little friends are doing without her?"
Rhys didn't answer and he knew his father well enough to know he didn't really want an answer. It wasn't just that but Rhys knew Meredydd wouldn't like the real answer.
"Good, now who to choose?" Meredydd mumbled as he unlocked her phone, Rhys didn't know how he did that as he was pretty sure the phone was password protected. He watched as his father scrolled through her contacts until he landed on a name.
"Simon" Father paused what he was saying and let out a small 'huh'. "Simon; sounds like a nerd, as well as that idiot whose house she was round before she landed in hospital. Seems like my little daughter is friends with a lot of boys… Slut,"
Rhys flinched at his words although he wasn't shocked. His father was quite harsh when it came to words and he definitely didn't think the best of his daughter, or his son, or anyone for that fact.
Then he heard the dialling tone. It didn't take long for the boy to pick up.
