Chapter 8 #3
“That pleases me, little one.” Shepherd was so damn confident as he shifted from the bed.
He gave her a long look while she slipped back under the covers for more rest, then left silently, turning off the light.
The next time she woke, food was waiting on the table.
She showered and dressed in one of the feminine dresses Shepherd seemed to think she should wear, and looked at eggs benedict.
He had a chef somewhere in the compound just to make her food.
She wanted to roll her eyes at the strangeness of the long ignored gesture, but had noticed it almost from the start.
Canned veggies and mass-produced meat products had transformed into satisfying cuisine only a week or so after she had first arrived.
The confirmation should not have mattered, but it bothered her that he had mentioned it, and now it had to be addressed.
What bothered her more was that the chef was probably safer down there than above ground. Claire even suspected he or she had been taken from the Premier’s mansion. Shepherd was a thorough man. He would only take someone renowned… a celebrity. And he had done it to please her.
Claire ate every bite of that food, though it was too rich and her stomach was bound to rebel. The vitamin followed, and all the milk was drunk. Of course she threw it all up about thirty minutes later, but that could not be helped.
Customary pacing came next, her only form of exercise.
Matters needed to be sorted now that her thinking had grown sharper.
Shepherd knew of the Omegas, of Corday, and of Maryanne—the Alpha female having been the only one on her list that he was not previously aware of.
The real question was how had Shepherd found her, which part of the branch had been first observed?
Considering when he had come, it seemed that the answer was Corday.
Which meant Shepherd would undermine every move of the resistance.
The supreme art of war is to subdue the enemy without fighting. - Sun Tzu
Shepherd had infiltrated the Enforcers… but it would have had to have been very recently. Otherwise she would have been collected that very first night.
Claire’s bare feet stopped their limping shuffle, and she stood there, worrying her lip. The grate of the deadbolt drew her attention. The door swung in and Jules, bearing a tray, entered.
The blue-eyed Beta did not seem interested in acknowledging her presence, so she spoke instead. “Hello, Jules.”
The trays were swapped and he grunted, “You did well outside the Undercroft.”
Surprised he was engaging, even if he was not looking at her, she grumbled, “Not well enough if I’m back here.”
The male did not respond, simply walked towards the door.
From her lips came a name synonymous with Satan in her mind. “Svana. That woman will ruin you all… You know that.”
The man halted and turned his head enough so that she might see his profile. “It would be wise for you to choose your topics of conversation with greater restraint.”
Claire scoffed and looked at the suddenly still Beta. “You follow a madwoman.”
“I follow Shepherd.”
Claire actually smiled, a little wicked, and laughed at the man. “And he loves her. Your point is invalid.”
“The future is what matters, and your ignorant opinion matters little.”
“A fact of which I am well aware.”
At the door, he spoke over his shoulder. “Do not measure your worth by one minor success, Miss O’Donnell.”
“I agree. I measure it by my countless failures instead.”
“You fight for what you believe in, yet when you grew fragile, your answer was to seek out a meaningless death. Mine is to spend what years I have left working for a greater purpose. I will see the world altered, improved. You and I are not that different. I simply chose to be stronger and was willing to pay the price to enact change.”
She had no idea where the words were coming from or why they seemed so important. “Your logic is corrupted. I chose to die before I became like you. That makes me stronger than you are.”
The man faced her one last time, those striking eyes unsettling. “It does not make you stronger. It makes you a coward.”
Claire felt as if he had struck her, the storm in her words unleashing nothing more than a pointless whispering breeze… because there was an undeniable fragment of truth in his words.
There was nothing else to be said between them, the man dismissing her as if she were nothing.
The door closed with a thud. She must have stood there for ages, staring at the metal, half numb.
Eventually, she moved towards the food, chewed and swallowed with no idea of what she ate, nor did she notice that she did not get sick.
Thinking of that stupid book, The Art of War, of Sun Tzu and all he seemed to have accomplished, Claire remembered: Thus the expert in battle moves the enemy, and is not moved by him.
Jules had just done that to her.
So, how does one move a mountain? Her words were nothing to Shepherd, arguments ended in sex, but her actions had affected him more than once.
On occasion she must have caused distraction in his pursuit.
The monster even said he loved her, in his own twisted fashion.
That gave her influence of a sort, now she just needed to learn how to wield it.
Her green eyes went to the watercolor of poppies still resting against the wall—a mindless project that had once made her cell a little more bearable. The unwelcome cord in her chest pulsed. She needed a reaction, something small, a place to begin.
Absently, she prepared her paints, her mind full of one image, one hard truth. There was no need for much color, the world was nothing but shades of grey under a bruised sky.