“Me,” I whispered.
“You and those worthless emotions. I planted a story that your disloyalty had been found out and you were to be eliminated in front of all the Elite. They came running. Now I have their offspring. I have the Reaper. And I have you. The Illum again have the power.”
“You can’t hurt the offspring. They didn’t do anything. Keep me instead.” I was the reason for their capture. I had ruined everything the Majors were working for. I had messed everything up.
“Foolish child, I already have you. We wouldn’t harm the offspring. We will indoctrinate them. Make the Majors adhere to our peaceful life. You control the youth, you control them all. We would only hurt them if the Majors don’t fall in line, and they will. They always do.”
The tea sloshed in my stomach. I felt sick.
“You will help us rebuild the pyramid.”
“Why me?” I felt dizzy from the information.
“Drink more tea, and I will tell you.” Tabitha smiled as I drained my cup. The room felt unstable.
“No matter what, you were defective, Emeline. Even if your eyes matched. You have free will. You failed every single test at the Academy. You wouldn’t conform. You wouldn’t obey. Which interested me greatly because, well, I do love a challenge. A wonderful tool you are.”
I gripped the table as the room spun violently. I looked at the tea Tabitha had handed me. She hadn’t touched it. She tracked my gaze, smirking.
“You feel it now, don’t you?” Tabitha stood, walking over to me. I felt like I couldn’t breathe. She pulled my head back gently by my hair until she swam above me—all her faces.
“I shall relish breaking it, Emeline. Breaking you and the Reaper.” She released my hair. I swayed violently, any semblance of balance gone as my chair slipped out from under me. I went flying to the ground. No one caught me. No one saved me as my face collided with the tile floor.
“I look forward to our next little chat. Take her.”
Hands grabbed me, pulling me away. I couldn’t fight it. I couldn’t win. My mind became a jail as I was dragged away.
There was scraping and thuds, a cluster of sounds with no home. I felt the ground hit my face again. Then I felt the familiar pull of a Pod taking off, or maybe it wasn’t. I couldn’t see properly. A part of me hoped the Pod never stopped.
“Fuck. Emeline, Emeline, can you hear me? Fuck.”
The voice sounded very far away, somewhere above me.
“Hang in there.”
I didn’t want to. I tried to let the blackness win for a moment. But gentle hands jostled me.
“What did they give her?”
Another voice sounded, or was it the same one?
“Emeline, we have you. It’ll be okay.”
It wouldn’t be okay. I wouldn’t be okay.
“I have you.”
I found no comfort in that. I didn’t know if there was anything left of me to have. I was ruined to the core. The darkness wrapped me in its clutches. I didn’t fight it. I let it take me away.
I had fucked it all up.
EPILOGUE
THE CUFFS ON MY WRISTS CHAFED AGAINST MY SKIN. THEYwere too tight. My head fell back against the rough stone wall. How had my life come to this? When had I lost control?
Mismatched eyes flashed before mine, afflicted with disconcerting curiosity. I was a captive from the first time I saw them. Her left eye was the clearest blue—an insistent thirst for knowledge, for understanding. Set against her right eye, the depthless brown—her dreams of fairness. A representation of her duality. The destruction that dichotomy created in her mind, unseen and unknown to everyone around her. I saw it immediately—knew it.
Her. It had been Emeline who had brought me here. She had been a step in a plan, just a step. Until she wasn’t.
