Page 4 of Rapunzel Unchained
My mouth opened and closed. The right words unable to exit my lips. “But I can’t. I can’t control her. I can’t control my powers. How do I know, how do you know, that if I let her take over, she won’t just kill you all?”
Getting rid of the council was one thing, but I couldn’t take the chance that, if I let that rage loose, she won’t kill everyone. The good mages and the bad.
The very thought of her killing Luke or Zane, even Gage, the way she’d taken out Tuck made my throat clench. To see their pretty faces ripped apart by her magic, my magic. It was unbearable.
Rebecca leveled me a look. “That’s why you are here, are you not?”
I couldn’t help the choking sound that came out of my mouth. “Huh? What? I am?”
“I took you from your cell before they could take you and do what they do: dissection, interrogation, torture, the whole nine yards. So you could come here away from any distractions,” she gave me a pointed look, “and figure out how to control that ticking time bomb inside of you.”
My lips tipped down in a frown. “And how exactly do I do that?”
Shrugging an elegant shoulder, Rebecca strolled to the bedroom door. “How should I know? Maybe stop fighting it. Have a chat with your other self. See if you can come to some kind of agreement. Something you both can come to terms with. But I know you can’t go out there and do what needs to be done the way you are now.”
She opened the door. “I’ll leave you to it. You’re free to wander the house as you like, the kitchen is downstairs. Just don’t blow anything up, alright?”
I didn’t respond to her, my mind still reeling with the prospect that I could control this thing inside of me. The door clicked closed and then there was just me. Or rather both of mes.
I could feel her there inside of me. Waiting, watching, for her moment to get her revenge.
Closing my eyes, I blew out a long breath before looking toward the window. “So I guess it’s time we have a talk.”
Chapter 3
Rebecca said I needed to talk to myself. To figure out how to come to terms with my dark side so that I could control my powers. Which was all well and good if I knew how to even go about it.
My fingers twisted in the folds of my dress. How did one have a chat with their inner self?
“Hello?” I murmured and then cleared my throat and tried again this time firmer. “Hello? If you’re there, I’m guessing you’ve been watching everything that’s been going on and well...” I trailed off, feeling a bit ridiculous. “Can you just talk to me?”
I waited for a moment, listening for any kind of answer. When it was clear I wasn’t going to get one, I blew out a long breath and sank down on the bed. How the hell was I supposed to communicate with my other self if she refused to respond?
Closing my eyes, I let my mind drift, falling back onto the bed.
The evil queen. Or rather the queen. I supposed it was all about perspective. To others, the mages, to Snow, she was evil. To herself? What was she doing and why? I could understand. I did understand.
Sometimes good people end up doing bad things to save others, whether they liked it or not.
What if villains were really heroes, but they were just willing to do the things the heroes weren’t brave enough to do? They let their morals dictate how far they could go, and the queen said no. To beat a villain, she became something else, something worse.
It was hard to think of myself as that kind of person. It was like I was the queen before she had all the rage and trauma,fighting a battle inside of her. The question was... did I want to be like her, or did I want to stay the way I was?
If I embraced the queen, would that change me? Would I be angry and full of hate for the mages? For the men that had saved me and had grown dear to my heart? Or would I still be me, just with a bit more of a villainous side? How would the others handle that side of me?
Thinking about how they would respond to the possible new version of me, caused something to swirl inside of me. Magic. My face scrunched as it shifted in me.
Normally, when the magic woke it was because of something that made the queen mad. This time, I wasn’t thinking anything bad, if anything it was more sadness because whatever Rebecca and the rest of the world thought, I missed them.
Then go see them.
My body jerked at the thought that wasn’t my own. Go see them? Rebecca said I shouldn’t leave. But... I’d seen them once before without being there, right? At least, my mind was there. Though the queen was the one who had done that. I wouldn’t begin to know how to do it.
Thinking about them made the queen speak up, so maybe that was all I needed to do? Focus on the mages, and see if I could get the magic to take me there.
They were on the television a moment ago. Would they be home by now? Probably all gathered together in Adam’s office, talking about what had happened and what they were going to do.
I wanted to be there. To tell them everything was going to be okay, even if I didn’t believe it completely myself. Filled with so much confusion and worry that I just wanted them to be the ones to tell me it was going to be okay. To make me believe. I wanted to see them. I wanted —
