Chapter 18 #3
Taylor dejectedly places the rifle on the ground and immediately another soldier scoops it up.
“Don’t. I’ll come.” A soldier knocks her to the ground and roughly jerks her up onto her knees.
She doesn’t look at me as she’s manhandled by her former colleague, relieved of any remaining weapons and restrained at the wrists with zip ties. “Let her go. Please.”
Theia appears to weigh the options presented to her, arms akimbo like a living balancing scale.
She narrows her eyes at me and her thin lips spread into a smile.
“I suppose she has gone through a lot of trouble to keep you alive. And what threat do you pose now, stripped of your protector? A princess with no kingdom. Though, it is a shame we must part on these terms. I believe you could’ve been a wonderful addition to the Order under different circumstances, Luciana. ”
“You don’t need to lie to me anymore. This is evidence enough you don’t give a shit about me. Or Taylor, for that matter,” I say. “And, for the last time, it’s Lucy.”
Theia tilts her head to the side. “I would have permitted you to remain in the Order, but when I realized my highest-ranking soldier committed treason for your benefit, I wasn’t feeling as kind.”
“It’s not treason to try and save lives,” Taylor says.
“No, but it is treason to disobey a direct order from your superior.” Theia puts the full force of her anger behind her glare. “It is treason to try and organize an escape for a region leader and his daughter.”
“Sure, but Wolfshield gets a pass because she had the forethought to snatch your spawn,” I retort. “So, it’s not treason when you do it.”
Theia chuckles. “I am the new leader of this country, Miss Piccolo. Everything I do sets a precedent for what we will be. Showing mercy to one of the more benevolent leaders is a tactical move, not an emotional one. Personally, I would like nothing more than to shove Wolfshield’s corpse in the same unmarked grave your father will rot in.
” I clench my fists and another soldier uses this opportunity to zip-tie my wrists together.
Theia advances on us. “It is the same pragmatism I thought I raised Taylor with. Clearly, I failed.”
Taylor is so ashamed of herself it breaks my heart to look at her. “I’m sorry to disappoint you.”
And she is. Theia and Hunter have been the objects of her adulation and unyielding loyalty for as long as she’s been alive. How she must hate me. How she must wish she could disengage me, like strangers on the street.
“But Lucy deserves to live,” Taylor insists, shaking the guilt out. “She fought for us, she saved my life. She bled for a rebellion she had no choice in joining.”
“Oh, you made sure of that, didn’t you?” Hunter asks.
She crouches in front of Taylor, stabbing the butt of the rifle into the ground.
Hunter leans close and drops her voice to a whisper.
“If you insist on her release, Theia will never trust you again. Our plans for the Order, the ones you and I have been dreaming up since we were kids? It’ll all be for nothing.
Think about it, Taylor. Think about your future. ”
Taylor’s eyes never move from the ground, rain dripping off her forehead. Slowly, she raises her focus. “There is no future for me without Lucy. I love her.”
My heart is full, and shattered.
They gaze into each other’s eyes, a history unfolding between them. The weight of the past, the urgency of the present, the worry of the future, packaged in a glance. A communication only two people who share an intimate knowledge of one another can perpetrate in silence.
Hunter looks about how I feel, flung out into space.
Theia creeps forward as Hunter reels back.
“It wasn’t enough that I gave you the most important position in my rebellion.
It wasn’t enough I raised you as my own.
It wasn’t enough.” As scathing as her voice is, the timbre of hurt is apparent.
“I wasn’t enough. We weren’t enough. The Order wasn’t enough for you. You selfish, rapacious child.”
Theia grabs Taylor by the lapel and cracks her so hard across the face with the back of her hand, I’m surprised her teeth don’t fly out of her mouth. Blood oozes from Taylor’s nose. Theia strikes Taylor again in the other direction, and it knocks her flat onto the asphalt.
“Get up,” Theia demands. Taylor does, shakily getting back on her knees. Theia crouches in front of Taylor, wiping hair from her face.
“I’m sorry,” Taylor says, casting a quick glance my way.
Theia nabs Taylor by the chin and centers her focus. “Are you? You don’t look very sorry.”
“I am not sorry about saving Lucy.” Taylor’s face is resolute despite the bruise puffing up and the blood trickling into her mouth. “I am sorry for what I had to do to save her.”
Many emotions pass through Theia’s eyes, the whites of them gleaming. I can’t tell if she’s infuriated or sad, flustered or determined. Maybe a bit of all of them. It’s terrifying.
“And for what? For love?” Theia cackles.
“What do you know about love? You think love is swooping in and saving damsels? Rain-soaked kisses on an airport tarmac?” Theia tilts her head like a bird of prey, leaning in close enough to Taylor to almost taste the blood on her face.
“Love is loyalty. Love is family. Love is taking in the child of traitors and raising her as your own, despite every impulse begging you to snuff her out in the crib.”
Taylor blinks hard a few times, as if she’s misheard. I’m sure her brain is jumbled from the hard knocks she took. “Are you—are you talking about me?”
Theia narrows her eyes into slits. “Yes. If I’d known the pain you’d cause me, I’d have killed you in your mother’s womb.”
“But I’m an orphan. My parents abandoned me.”
“Oh, you are an orphan, but they didn’t abandon you.” Theia tucks some of Taylor’s hair behind her ear. “Your parents ran the Order with me. They were my most trusted confidants and talented soldiers. My closest friends. They betrayed me, and the Order, and I executed them.”
Without acknowledging the extreme pain in Taylor’s eyes, Theia stands in triumph.
Twenty years this woman has been holding on to this information.
Twenty years she’s been rearing a child she hates.
I can’t even begin to imagine how Taylor feels.
If it’s anything like she looks, it’s absolutely ruined.
The burning halls of Rome crumble in her eyes, Theia standing to the side, playing her violin.
Hunter shoulders her rifle again, looking sympathetic. “Your folks blew up the Region Meeting, kid.”
Horror splashes across Taylor’s face, as stark as blood. “My parents were the traitors. And you killed them.”
“Yes, treason is punished by execution. While imprisoned at headquarters, I learned your mother was pregnant.” Theia wets her lips, staring beyond us at a memory. “I let your mother live long enough to bring you to term, but I executed your father immediately.”
“You’re a psycho,” I seethe. “How could you do that to a baby?”
“They nearly brought down the Order.” Theia balks. “The Region Meeting was planted with Order members to gain intelligence. Blowing it up cost us dozens of operatives and years of work. They were lucky I only shot them.”
“So, why not shoot me?” Taylor asks, but it sounds more like a beg. “I’m a traitor, too.”
“I did not waste twenty years training you just to throw it out the window because of your misguided hormones, child. I was so proud of you.” Theia whips toward Taylor, whose face is a portrait of such suffering I could kill anyone standing to try and ease it.
“I imagine once I remove you from the taloned grips of this bourgeois succubus, it will not be hard to correct your behavior. Now, let’s go. ”
Finished breaking Taylor’s heart, she stalks off toward the helicopter with furious clicks of her heels against the asphalt.
“I’m sorry,” Taylor says in a cracked voice, looking up at me. Fresh tears spring from her eyes. “God, Lucy, I’m so, so sorry.”
I’m losing a part of myself no one is meant to live without, like my heart, brain, or lungs. We are two stars of the same constellation, entwined for eternity, twinkling back and forth until the primordial flames burn out. We should never be apart.
I inhale a deep breath to steady my nerves. “I’m not sorry. I love you, too.”
Taylor’s face briefly registers surprise, but those big, tormented eyes spell relief as tears stream down her face. “Thank you.”
“Now,” Theia orders.
A soldier pelts me in the spine with the butt of their gun, knocking the wind out of me as I hit the ground.
When I get back up to my knees, Taylor is half escorted, half dragged to the helicopter.
Hunter stands over me with her rifle aimed at my head and watches as Theia boards after Taylor.
Once secured into her seat, Taylor’s head hangs between her knees, sobs shaking her frame.
Theia looks between the two of us, and then nods to Hunter. “Kill her.”
Taylor lets out a heart-wrenching screech and struggles against her restraints. She breaks free and stumbles out of the helicopter, then falls to the ground with both hands tied behind her. Theia steps out with an unearthly calm, then stomps Taylor on the back to keep her flat.
“Please, don’t,” Taylor begs, rising slowly to her knees. “Don’t. I’ll do whatever you want. I—I’ll be good, I promise. Don’t kill her. I’ll do anything.”
“I see your loyalties live with this Piccolo scum,” she snarls. “And so, they shall die with her as well.”
“Hunter, please,” Taylor beseeches her as Theia takes Taylor by the back of the shirt and smashes her into the ground. It doesn’t stop her. She looks up. “Kill me instead. Please, please, kill me instead. Don’t make me live without her.”
Theia withdraws a syringe from within her jacket and plunges it into Taylor’s neck. Taylor slumps almost immediately, but she tries to fight whatever chemical is yanking her into unconsciousness.
That’s my girl, always a fighter.
Hunter looks between us with rimmed-red eyes, then up to Theia. “But you said—”
“Hunter.” Theia’s voice conveys both surprise and finality. “Kill. Her.”
Hunter smacks the rifle into my skull and sends me sprawling backward. My vision and hearing are muffled and muted, as if I’m submerged underwater. Drowned. Blood trickles into my eyes. It’s warm. Darkness vignettes my vision.
A voice sounds over the ringing in my ears. “She’ll never forgive me.”
Click.
Bang.