Chapter 27
648 Words
“Eve! Eve!”
My eyes opened. I gathered my strength to sit up and unsurprisingly discovered my return to the cell. Someone still had the delicacy to lay me down on the stinking mattress and not on the floor this time.
“Eve! I’m here.”
Ethan. Even by thought transmission, I never wanted to speak to him again. Memories of that horrible night raced through my head, so I took a deep breath to clear my mind. A burning hatred radiated from my throat, but it comforted me to still have the strength to feel something despite my condition.
“Eve! The master wanted to submit you because he knows that you’ll never do it on your own. Give up and we can live happily ever after.”
Happy. How could he think such a thing? I ignored him all the more and dragged myself to the bars of Blake’s cell. I also noticed that I had been put in grey canvas pyjamas which weren’t intended to protect me from the cold, but at least had the merit of covering me a little.
“Eve, please,” Ethan implored me before receding this time.
A foggy veil prevented me from seeing more than a metre.
“Everliegh! What did they do to you?”
“Nothing worth telling.”
“My brother has gone mad, right?”
“I don’t know if your brother was ever sane, Blake. But I don’t care. What I want today is to make him pay.”
“If only! But you can’t, my dear, let alone in this state, I worry about you, you should eat.”
“Mmm,” I think, looking at the plate filled with a pasty substance of an undetermined colour, “how long have you been here?”
“Too long for me to remember, but long enough to know that the game can’t be won, it isn’t easy to leave such a place without powers.”
“Have you already tried?”
“Sure! Thousands of times. But I’ve been drugged for so long…and more importantly, constantly starved to make sure I can’t use my powers anymore.”
“That’s horrible! But what did you do to him?”
“I challenged him and failed. Eat now!”
“Blake, what’s the nature of your powers, exactly?”
“I have the same as Magnus. Strength, speed, telepathy and telekinesis. We received all of these powers together with a very different degree of potency.”
“The other time, when I touched you, you sent me against the wall; your powers returned to you, right?”
“It was a simple reflex. My body reacts on its own, sometimes, a sign that there’s a little something left, but nothing sufficient. No, believe me, I’m far too weak to stage an escape. I only eat once or twice a week and I haven’t walked in so long that I can’t remember the last time my legs carried me.”
“So take my meal!” I said, in a determined voice.
“What? But you have to eat!”
“You’ll leave me some leftovers.”
“But you could die!”
“So what! What matters to me is that we get out of here, and for that, you must regain your strength whatever the cost. If you’re powerful enough, then we have a chance to escape.”
“It’s true that their drug has hardly any effects on me anymore, but it would take forever!”
“No more than dying slowly within these walls.”
The silence had returned. Blake devoured the thick porridge intended for me before I replaced the empty plate in front of the bars of my cell.
“Everliegh, what are you thinking?” he called out to me, visibly worried about my mental state.
Revenge, I thought.
- Writer
