48: Pasts

"It was you wasn't it?" The young boy asked.

My heart pounding in my ears. My breathing louder than my thoughts. I pressed a hand over my mouth and listened.

Those words, spoken by someone who had been abandoned and left to care for a child before they could understand war, seemed so private and painful. But I couldn't just leave, knowing that I'd leave Lance to a boy—no, a young man who had taken down someone as powerful as him. So I listened though it pained me to stand around wishing and only wishing to cut those chains that tethered Lance in that dark cold corner. And though it pained me, listening to the boy's story.

"Look at me," Nareem said, his tone measured but slowly loosing patience.  "Look at me!"

"Don't you remember me?" The young man went on. "I was this tall when you came striding into my village with your knights to warn us of an attack. You promised everyone would be safe, you said we'd all be given a new home. You never once said, we'd lose anyone."

I fought the urge to take a peek, but lost. Lance had yet to raise his head. Nareem stood, his hands gripping the bars that separated him from Lance. That protected Lance from his wrath.

"Why didn't you come back for us? Why did my parents have to fight for us in your place? Why did they have to die, when you said we had nothing to worry about? At least give me a reason! Lie to me won't you!!" His voice cracked, urging me to take the little boy in my arms and to tell him all would be fine.

"I waited, I held onto the hope that you'd come. You were a knight, you were our protectors, you'd save us, I told myself. But they came instead, those monsters, and they showed no mercy. Where were you? What made you forget your promise?" He paused only to take a breath. "My parents protected us till their last breaths, fighting till their last moments just to allow us enough time to escape."

I looked away. Lance's words suddenly gained new meaning. Knowing that you tried but failed, though you did your best. He tried his best, yet he still failed and now he carrys those failures in his heart.

"My sister was just a baby and I was just a kid." His tone eased but that made it harder to listen. "But I took her, held her, though she cried. And I, I took care of her the best I could. But my best wasn't enough, she needed her parents. I needed our parents...why won't you speak? Why?"

A moment of silence passed, the sound of shuffling feet then Lance's hoarse voice uttering these words, "your sister....how is she?"

The atmosphere deathly silent then, "no, you don't get to know," The boy said. Footsteps thudded against the floor. I darted for the tree trunk. Nareem exited the room and left quietly down the stairs.

I wavered between approaching Lance and leaving altogether. But I knew only one option was possible, leaving, beacuse his cell was locked and he wouldn't have taken food from me, not after that. So I returned down stairs quietly, my chest heavy with this newfound knowledge.

"What are you doing here?"

I froze in my steps. I raised my head to meet the hazel eyes of Xon.

But before I could speak, a dark figure appeared at the door, behind him.

"December, are you done?" Brise asked. Xon bristled at her voice.

"Done?" I repeated. Her stony gaze forced me to say, "yes, I'm done."

Brise passed him and met me at the foot of the stairs. She grabbed my arm, sinking her nails into my skin as she pulled me forward, sneering.

"Done with what?" Xon asked and we froze in place. His gaze icy cold, he eyed Brise. "What was your sister doing here?"

Brise dropped my hand and raised a hand to him when a scream filled the air. Like a feral beast in pain, his scream reached our ears sparking both the instinct to run and get closer.

"You're all gone!!" His words piercing the air and repeating itself against the building walls. A menacing laugh followed. "I'll tear this place to the ground and destroy each and every one of you!!"

Xon started up the stairs and towards the screams. Brise followed and I seemed to have no other choice but to follow as well. He arrived at one of the identical doors, retrieved a key from his trousers' pocket, forced it into the door and turned it. Click. The door fell open, we entered. The prisoner raised his head, hatred burning in his eyes.

I knew him. Well, at least I'd seen him before, sitting in that room opposite General Bao, a smug look plastered on his face the whole time.

Just like Lance, he hung by his wrist, on his knees, probably cold and unwilling to comply. But unlike Lance, he wasn't afraid to look you in the eye and let you know with that one movement that if he could, he'd wring your neck in a heartbeat. His eyes a gruesome shade of red, illuminated by the morning rays that slipped through his window. Though a few grey hairs peeked from his short brown hair and beard, his body was toned, his eyes alert, his spite as young as a teenager's.

His gaze set on Xon, a knowing look flashed in his eyes. A grin spread across his face, sending a shiver running down my spine.

"5-8-3," the prisoner said. He leaned forward, staring at Xon with an unrelenting interest. "It's you isn't it, 5-8-3?"

Xon's gaze fell to the floor, his gaze shifty, his fist shaking at his side, he turned round and stepped away. But he only completed a step, before the prisoner spoke again.

"Why do you rebel?" The red-eyed man said. "When this was never your home?"

Xon didn't so much as flinch.

"You think you're some hero don't you?" The older man pressed on. "Doing good. You must go to sleep every night patting yourself on the back for a job well done. Telling yourself what you're doing is courageous. You must feel so free. Well, I hope you don't forget who freed you. Who made you you boy. Who showed you fear and forced you to be brave."

"You will never be that person." Xon's every word dripped with venom.

The prisoner lunged, stopping short by the chains that restricted him in place. He crashed back into the walls, the chains clinking against the brick.

"You're nothing boy!!" He screamed out. "You're nothing but a worthless child slave from a foreign kingdom! I saved you and clothed you and gave you a home! You owe me your life!!"

Xon swiveled and stalked towards him. His every step carrying a mountain of rage. He gripped the iron bars, squeezing them out of shape as he peered into the cell at the deranged man who had once been a part of his past.

"What is a home?" Xon asked, his tone heavy with emotion and yet firm. "If not somewhere where you are loved and cared for. What did you do that was so different from the others? You saw me as nothing but an object. A toy you could play with when you were down. Something you could tear apart and fix together to tear apart again. And now you ask me why I rebel? And who set me free? I did it for myself, and every other kid out there like me. I may not be from this damn place but I sure as hell won't sit back and watch more children be forced to live under men like you!"

The prisoner smiled a self-satisfied smile, as if pleased with what he had done to Xon. "The king will make his move," he said. "And when he does, you will regret ever making him your enemy in the first place."

"And you won't get to watch, because you'll be here, locked up behind bars."

"They'll find me. They'll come."

"You can scream all you want. Call for help and refuse our offers but no one will hear you, and those that do have far passed the point of pity for men like you."

Xon stepped away and stepped out. Brise gave one long last look at the men and left as well. But I stayed back and I studied the man who prided himself with power and status, who even while chained, took the opportunity to inflict pain with just his words. The man, Lance wasn't. And yet the man whom everyone assumed Lance was.

"What is it peasant?" His words shot through me like a bolt of lightning.

I flinched. But I remained calm. "Why did you do it? Why did you give him that scar?"

He laughed. And I couldn't keep myself from hating such a man. "Because, I was bored."

I stepped back and hurried off, afraid of what I'd do if I'd stayed. If I was enraged than that made Xon at least a hundred times stronger than me.

With the morning hardly gone, I met in the elevator a pair of familiar grey eyes that once had no problem watching me bleed to death. She nodded and looked ahead, no further acknowledgement. Why would she, when she saw someone other than the person who was once under her blade?

A/n: so...what do you think?? No, but, seriously guys I don't even know who the bad guy is anymore.