Through Glass(66)

“That is one way of putting it, I suppose,” he said and smiled.

He smiled and I could tell it was meant to be warm and welcoming, however, it shot through me like ice, the look never hitting his eyes. I smiled back, my lips straining at my discomfort. I wasn’t sure if he could tell or not, yet his smile left awfully quickly, leaving his hate filled eyes to bore into me.

“I like to think of us more as a republic than anything. I’m just one of the many heads.”

“And the other heads?” I asked as I turned to face him, narrowing my eyes at him. I looked at him with my own brand of hatred, needing to know, to have someone to trust. Right now, I didn’t trust anyone and this man wasn’t helping me with that.

“They are trying to figure out what to do with you, my dear.” He smiled at me again, the sneer in his lip making my insides curl. He leaned up against the wall directly across from me, his legs crossing over each other as if we were merely having a casual conversation. Even I could tell it was otherwise. He was leading up to something, something that made my insides squirm. I sat up straighter, preparing myself for what was coming, knowing that it would be anything other than casual.

“What about me?” I asked, regretting that I asked almost instantly, but I had a feeling he would tell me anyway, whether I asked or not. Judging by the look in his eyes, he wanted to share his distaste.

“A little girl, picked up out of the dark, starved and already turning.” He pushed himself off the wall he had been leaning against, his tall frame towering over me as he began to walk toward me. It didn’t matter that I stood, he was still an oppressive menace. I squared my shoulders, standing my ground. My mind was already working to find ways to attack him, to get past him, even though I knew it wasn’t going to do any good.

“You had more poison in your blood than anyone we have picked up to date.” He looked down at me, his lip sneering in hatred. “So much poison…” he whispered, his voice soft as he carefully licked his bottom lip. The action turned my nerves uncomfortable. I stepped back in a desperate attempt to move away from him, not wanting to find out what he really meant by that. I took another step only to hit the wall with a heavy thump that rocked through my spine. I cringed against it, the fear that his gaze was giving me rippling through me.

“What are you saying?” I gasped out the words, my chest tight from the fear he seemed to have infected the room with.

“That you are more monster than human, my girl. You are already changing. It’s only a matter of time before you’re gone and a monster takes your place. Is that so hard to believe?”

I tensed at his words, the same uncomfortable fear prickling over me. Bridget had told me this before, that I was going to become one of them—an Ulama. I hadn’t accepted it as much as I did now with this man’s dark, angry stare cementing it into place. The same look that Bridget had given me before, only more disgusted.

He smiled again and turned away from me, back toward the wall he had leaned against only a moment before. My insides loosened the moment he moved away, my lungs remembering to breathe almost immediately.

“Where is my brother?” I asked, letting the question I so desperately needed an answer to flow off my tongue.

He turned and narrowed his eyes at me like I had soiled myself before moving away with his hands behind his back as he began to pace the small floor of the cell.

“Ah yes, Travis.” He spoke my brother’s name like he pitied him. “What an unfortunate turn of events that was for him. His older sister, now younger, reunited with him only to be marked for death.”

My shoulders tensed at his words, even though I shouldn’t have been surprised. I had a feeling Bridget hadn’t told me everything. I think Abran had just filled in the missing pieces.

“What are you saying?” I asked as my brain slowly put everything together. I asked the question, even though I knew. I didn’t need the answer, I just wanted him to say it.

They were going to kill me.

“You asked me where the other leaders of Azul are and that is where. In trial, listening as Travis begs for your life to be spared.” He stopped pacing as he looked at me, his hate filled eyes boring into me as he spoke of my impending death as though it was a joyous occasion.

“Spared?” I asked the word like a question, but it was a question I didn’t need the answer to. I already knew what he was saying.

“My, my, you ask a lot of questions. Is it so hard for your little, poisoned brain to follow what I am saying?”

I let the hate of his words wash over me, the disgust lodging itself into my heart as I let the truth behind his words sink into me. I sat still as I stared at him without knowing what to say and not trusting myself to move.

“Yes, it seems it is,” he said when it became clear I wasn’t going to say anything, his lip turning up into a sneer. “So, I will tell you simply. There is a cold place in Hell for monsters like you and I am going to see to it that you get there.”

My own hate bubbled over at his words. I couldn’t even focus as the numbness took over, my desire to act on the strong emotion almost too much. I fought the need to rush him, knowing just by the way he looked at me that he would gladly kill me now. Something I was sure he could do. Even knowing that, I didn’t care.

After everything, this place was just another death sentence and this time, I had no weapon to use against them. I was a prisoner in a box… but then, I had been a prisoner in a box before and I’d had no weapon then, either.