Chapter 13
1141 Words
When Connor stood in front of the glass, he seemed to fear my reaction, and it didn’t take long. Mad with anger, I wanted to throw myself at him and hit the armoured glass hard enough to fall miserably on my buttocks, my head even sorer from the shock.
“Please, calm down!” he cried.
His voice echoed in my cell through the ceiling, which must have concealed speakers invisible to the naked eye.
“Take this pill,” he ordered, seeing that my skull was making me suffer horribly.
Despite the pain, I refused to grant him this favour. Rage consumed reason, and my heart was overwhelmed with the pain.
“I know you’re angry,” he said after a silence, “and I understand. But you’ll be treated well. Don’t worry. Certainly, I had to make some arrangements because I already know your formidable power, even if I haven’t yet witnessed it. But, I can’t risk letting you go, so gas is released into this room to suppress your telekinetic abilities, strength, and speed.”
“A room?” I said as I stood up. “It’s a prison!”
I couldn’t put my thoughts in order anymore. How was the Connor that I shared nights of love and a romantic dinner able to put me through such hell? I thought about my mother’s and Carmichael’s warnings. My heart clenched in my chest, and tears of fury filled my eyes.
“Where am I?”
“In a bunker in Copenhagen, buried fifty meters below the surface.”
“But why?”
“I need you.”
His gaze fell on the many books arranged on the ebony desk.
“Carmichael has been writing his memoirs since the revelation of his powers, and I need you to discover what I can’t find in them.”
“So you’ve read them already?”
“Yes.”
“So what am I doing in here?”
“I may have missed something, so I’d like you to take a look.”
“You have an army of castes at your disposal, and you ask me that?”
“I don’t want anyone knowing my family’s secrets, and I know I can trust you.”
“Trust? Let’s talk about trust!”
“I know you’re angry. I had not expected it to happen this way.”
“Really?”
“I sincerely meant everything I told you. I don’t want to give up on you.”
“Because you think I could come back to you after this?!”
“Come back to me? But I don’t consider you gone! We have to wait a bit for everything to fall into place.”
He seemed to think about what else he would say to me and started after taking a deep breath.
“I fell in love with you, Isabelle. I didn’t see it coming. And since that dinner in the ballroom, I know for sure, so I can’t wait for this to be over.”
A silence passed. I advanced a little closer to the window and spat at his face. A veil of sadness crossed his eyes. Did he believe there could be a sequel to our story after this?
“What if I don’t want to read those memoirs?”
“You risk staying here for a long time, and that’s not what I want, so please do as I told you.”
“But what do you want?!”
“I want to take my father’s place. I want my brother to abdicate. I know Everliegh will have no problem giving up her crown.”
“Not if you have to take the king’s place!”
“She will because I will force her to, if necessary.”
“She’ll kill you.”
“It’s possible, but not as long as I keep you here.”
“She’ll know where I am soon.”
“No, I don’t think so. And even if so, it will be a few months before that happens, and that time will serve my plans.”
“She’s waiting to hear from me.”
“She will. We have software that mimics your voice. When I give the order, a woman in the inner circle of my close allies will call her and pretend to be you.”
“My mother will suspect something. She knows me well.”
“She will suspect nothing. It won’t be difficult for us to make her believe that you still have trouble getting over your argument.”
I pale. He had thought of everything, and I realized, dazed, that he was a monster!
“So,” he continued, “if you want this all to be over soon, I need your help.”
“But for what purposes?”
“Separate him from your mother. It’ll be easier to achieve my goals if he’s isolated.”
“What will you do to him if you succeed?”
“I’m not going to kill him. I want him to abdicate, that’s all. And many want to help me achieve this. Once I get what I want, I’ll set you free. I hope that by then, you’ll have understood the value of my approach and that you’ll find the strength to forgive me because I cannot imagine reigning without you by my side.”
I stepped back. My legs barely carried me. Treacherous tears flooded my eyes again; I wiped them off with a sudden movement.
“That will never happen!”
He sighed and looked back at the glass of water on the floor.
“Take the pill, please.”
He watched me for a long time. His eyes sought mine, but I didn’t give him the pleasure of holding his gaze. The pain he inflicted on me tore at my heart. Just the day before, we were bathed in happiness, but his dark ambitions had shattered the promise of our story. He flicked a switch on the right side of the glass wall, which shut off his entire exterior light within the cell enclosures and then left. Soon after, I looked up at my cellmate. He hadn’t moved an eyelash. Tears poured down my cheeks in a torrent. He raised an arm to touch his ear and then nodded to make me understand that he had heard everything. His gaze then returned to Carmichael’s memoir. My eyes followed him before fixing on him again. He nodded yes, advising me to comply. He then made a gesture with his finger pointing again to the books, telling me that if I obeyed, I could probably leave.
He rested his palm on the glass, as he had done earlier. I imitated him in response. My eyes fixed on my neighbour, whose fate was as dark as mine.
- Writer
