Ok, so I realize that this is a tad bit late. I am very sorry, really. I've had horrible jet lag from my trip (waking up at 4 in the afternoon :P ) But I'd like to thank everyone that has reviewed so far! You guys make my day :D …wow…pun not intended really -_-

DAY Chapter 11:

No. It wasn't real, none of this was true. June couldn't be like this because of me. Over and over my head replays every kiss, and every desperate touch. I couldn't be the reason she-

Those dark empty eyes invade my thoughts and I shut my eyes to banish them. Tess is gone and June may be gone soon too and it was my fault, all of it was my stupid fault.

I need to be near her. I need to hold her, convince myself that she's still here. But I can't make things worse. If I was in that room any more I would just bring her death closer.

Then again me being away may spell the same result only with a different reason. Reason though, seems to have left the building. What exactly was the reason for this?

Why take us? Why take both of us? They say that we're some type of bait for the Republic, yet the Republic was already at war. What could have been the reason behind this entire charade? Winston said that the war was dragging on too long, that it needed to be wrapped up soon. Why all the rush though? Did this mean that the colonies were afraid of losing? Were they running out of resources? That may be possible but still, this did not explain the reason for both of us. Why not only me, or just June? It couldn't be something like 'the Republic would come faster for both of us than they would for just one'. That would have been a waste of time. They used drugs on June and me…and Tess. Those were valuable resources, something that I'd think the colonies would be conscious of. They are at war, why waste? So why the need, what was it that we both possessed separately?

June was close to Anden…unfortunately. This alone would have been plenty to spur the war into a frenzy. Perhaps that was the reason June had been brought, not to mention the strings Thomas pulled in hopes of saving her. I held obvious hold over the public. My capture must have also spurred the war to a closer end. But there was something else. There was a need for the both of us. We were secret ingredients that when put together made an entirely different flavor.

I reached to the wall, ready to pound my head into it and stopped short. I'd just had brain surgery, banging my head against a hard object was not the best idea.

I bolted upright. The tumor, it had been top secret information back at the Republic. Could the colonies have gotten into the Republic's records? No, but they must have gotten the information about it somehow. They had captured me. Was it possible that they had simply guessed? Could they have already known what it was that I held in my head other than thoughts? I stood and paced my ten by ten cell. Back and forth back and forth, I was a pendulum on a clock ever moving, my steps keeping time in an unknown measurement.

Lets say that they took me purely for the reason of finding a cure. They would have had had their doubts of course, but Tess' death helped to prove their theory. She had died after contact with me…though that was hardly anything to go on. So they opened me up, looked inside my head and found exactly what they had expected. I was a solution.

Now that did little to explain the lack of knowledge that the Republic held. They had been the first to recognize the reason behind my headaches and yet they still hadn't figured it out.

Why was it that even with all the cards on the table the colonies were able to peer over the Republic's shoulder and cheat anyway? What did the colonies know about this that the Republic didn't? I guess it doesn't really matter, because they guessed correctly and their risk was about to pay off in a big way. A cure to the plague was a very good bartering chip, or at least, that's what I'd do with it. If the Republic was really that big of a threat I mean.

This rambling didn't change anything though. June was still dying and I might as well be back at the Republic for all the help I was doing. Being so far away might actually help her.

I slumped to the floor and held my head in my hands. This was all my fault. Everything, Tess was dead…the girl I had always taken care of as if she were blood, a sister, and I had killed her. I might as well have let her starve instead of taking her under my wing. It would have been a kinder way for her to go. Instead she suffered by the hands of the boy she claimed to love.

I didn't realize I was wringing my hands until I saw the blood under my fingernails. It didn't matter, none of it mattered. The pain in my hand was nothing compared to the pounding in my head, the killer I had never known about, the one that lived in me.

Now I was going to be the murderer of yet another life, the very life that I had done so much to protect. June, if she died from this I would too. There was no arguing about it.

JUNE:

The boy had left. He left me alone in this room, and the snakes had come back. They were around my throat and slithering down, into my mouth. I couldn't breathe and I tried and I tried to scream but no sound could come out. Red was everywhere, everywhere, everywhere.

My mouth was stone and I couldn't keep it open anymore. Lungs asked for air but I couldn't give it, I had no money to buy such a thing. Yet they begged and they begged. I was a horrible mother if I couldn't even feed my children.

Bees erupted from the door and I flew back with the fear. Horror chained me to the ground, weights that gave me iron skin. The bees buzzed in my ears and I tried to shut my eyes from the sound but they kept on buzzing, buzzing, buzzing. I couldn't hear anything else, my thoughts were too quiet.

But my thoughts were there all the same, flies on walls, they only saw. Yet they found their way into one of the snakes and told the snake what to whisper to me.

Light, find the light and you will be free. Tell the light what we tell you. The light will understand.

The snake whispered in my ear its strange words, words of information, too long for me to spell at the moment. Yet I imbedded them to my mind all the same. They were important, they were a key to a door that I had yet to find.

DAY:

Thomas came to talk to me today. I've never seen a person so disheveled. That may be too weak of a word but it's all I have. A stronger word would have meant that he lacked any control at all. If anything, Thomas was a person to keep at least an echo of arrangement.

He had claimed once again that he had never meant for this to happen…again. I'm sure he'd never meant for June to be like this, I hadn't meant for June to be like this, and still here she was. I was at much fault as Thomas was. I told him so. I explained what had happened, how I'd been slowly infecting June simply by being near her. He punched me in the gut until I emptied it. I deserved that, I deserved a lot worse.

Now Thomas is gone and I'm staring at a wall, hoping that an answer has been etched into its flawless white paint. Why, why, why, that's all I could think about. Why the both of us? What was it that we had together that we lacked when apart?

JUNE:

Words fell from the snakes fangs like its deadly venom. They stained my clothes and stopped my breath. Yes, it all made sense. Why else would they want me here? Why bring a girl when the boy would have been enough? Already I could hear the bees coming, humming their anthem of the woman. Long live the queen.

DAY:

Maybe if I escaped? That might be my only option. Just the thought of leaving June here made my stomach clench. But me sitting here doing nothing wasn't going to help anyone. I could get out, it wouldn't be that hard. I'd find Anden, tell him where she is. At this point she would die in just a few days. The plague was working too fast. They weren't going to cure her, or at least not in time. They still had to avoid war crimes with the Republic. They would lie; claim that the cure hadn't been created until after she had died.

The thought sent a wave of grief through me. Tess, she was gone, gone, gone. How could I let this happen? How could I allow her to leave me? She'd been right there, right in front of me that night. How had I not noticed the signs? She had been begging for help and I hadn't heard. What kind of person am I? To let someone as pure as her be killed by my own hands?

Breathe in, breathe out, this was all the time I allowed to pity myself, to mourn her death. That was all that passed through my lips beside the sobs, those shaky things that left me empty. There were other's that needed me right now. There were others that still lived, people that I still might be able to save.

I would escape, even if that meant leaving June behind. It was a horrible idea but it was the best that I had at the moment.

For the first time in my time here I grinned, there was a knock at the door. I'd be able to put this plan into action sooner than expected.

It was Thomas, of course. It was always Thomas wasn't it? I was cursed.

"You're going to want to see this." His face was pulled in a tight kind of way, as though he was trying to keep back an incredibly strong emotion. Otherwise he was perfectly at ease. He didn't shift his weight or clench his fists. That uniform of his had long ago been traded out for the ones issued here, and it was clean and well creased. Everything was in place except for that strange tautness around his eyes, a strain.

I think it's because of this that I didn't argue. I didn't even give a smart remark. It was in that moment that I put the hesitant escape plan on hold.

Thomas led me to a room, not like there were many other places I could go. This one looked a lot like the briefing room from before. There was the same boring table and the screen behind it. The image being projected was not one from Anden, but of this room. If I squinted I could see the small glint of a camera lens in a shadowy corner.

None of this seemed important after I saw just who was sitting at the table. It was Winston, and next to her, next to her was June in chains.

To give June credit she didn't seemed fazed by it at all. If anything she seemed very focused, concentrating desperately. Her eyes were closed tight; her fists were bawled so that the knuckles shone white in the dim light. Winston didn't seemed bother by this at all. Her eyes were trained on me and me alone, how touching.

"Take a seat Day. We have a message for the Republic."

Woot! :D Aren't you guys happy? I posted a chapter. Really, I understand the crazy confusion going on. Just imagine how confused Day is. Anyway, next chapter lots of this stuff will be cleared up so don't worry.