✖ Chapter 6 ✖

        ROSE WAS NOT my Rose. My Rose wouldn't have glared at me with such hatred in her previously bright eyes. My Rose would have been tossing dirty looks to Cecilia instead of to me. She would have that odd mixture of confidence and fear in her gaze. She wouldn't show weakness, and though she wasn't showing any right now, she wasn't showing much of any emotion right now.

        Daniel shrunk behind me a little, but I was too stunned to tear my gaze from her. Though she clearly wasn't herself, she was alive. Which meant Carson's vision had been false or misread. Rose was still here, still breathing.

        I was shaking my head and I didn't really know why. I wanted to walk over to her, to tell her how much I missed and loved her even though that was the most pathetic thought I've ever had. I wanted to kiss her, to feel those soft lips against mine just one more time. But the more I looked at her, the more obvious it became that I couldn't possibly do any of that.

        It had Rose's body, but it would never be her.

      "Not quite the reunion you were hoping for, I presume," Cecilia spoke as she walked forward some, not phased by mine and Daniel's stern stares. Clearly she's used to being hated.

       "What did you do to her?" I snapped, eyes glancing over at Rose to see she was still standing still, eye hooded as if she were conscious, but not actually alive.

        Cecilia pursed her lips, clasped her hands. "Oh, nothing really. I just... fixed her," she said with a mere shrug of her shoulders. Cecilia's lips quirked upwards into a devious smile. "Go on. I'm sure she'd love to catch up with you."

        Clenching my hands together, my jaw locked as I contemplated my options. Rose was still Rose, in a sense. She couldn't hurt me. I didn't believe that she would. Whatever Cecilia did to her, it couldn't possibly be so horrible that she'd harm me or Daniel. Or anyone. Rose had too good of a soul for that.

        My mind wound back to the grocery store back in the woods, what seemed like forever ago. Rose had stopped my temper before I lost control of it. Another reason I haven't taken a step towards her. This was not Rose. Rose had never been one for violence.

        And yet, I couldn't help but to cling onto that little sense of hope that she was still partly herself.

        "Rose..." My voice was steady, a lot more confident than I felt. I was about to speak again when her eyes snapped to mine.

        Before I could prepare myself, she held her hand palm-up and lifted it, my feet flying out from beneath me and my throat being pushed against. She flicked her wrist, sending me into the wall hard enough to leave cracks behind in the cement. She let me slump to the floor before releasing her invisible hold on my throat, my breath leaving me in gasps as I tried to maintain my breathing again.

        I gaped up at her, eyes wide as I rubbed my neck. Then my glare snapped to Cecilia, but the shackles were still binding my wrists and my magic. "What did you do?" There was so much hatred in my voice, and even Daniel looked pissed, something I've never seen before.

        "I told you," said Cecilia proudly, smiling back at Rose. "I. Fixed. Her."

        "You ruined her. Rose isn't an experiment," I spat through gritted teeth, getting to my feet though my back was aching from the impact.

        Cecilia smirked. "She would certainly be a success, if she were one."

        Anger coursed through me, my jaw clenched so tight it hurt, my nails leaving indents in my palms. They took Rose away from me, twisted her into this being that doesn't even have feelings. Made her into a monster that has no other look than that of a dead soul, empty eyes with nothing more to see. 

        The thoughts swirled around my mind so many times that I had finally snapped, and snapped the link of the shackles along with it. I heard a gasp, but didn't care to see who as I finally got my hands around Cecilia's throat. I only got time to see a glimpse of terror before, right when I went to snap her neck, that same force yanked me away.

        I smacked into the wall, but didn't give in that easily, keeping my eyes narrowed on Cecilia. She fell to her knees, and fire burned my back. It was Rose - or what Rose was changed into being. It had to be. But I kept my stare the best I could, wincing only when I felt the fire burning off my skin.

        Out of my peripheral vision, I saw Daniel charge Rose, taking them both to the ground. Guards filed into the room and I lost my glare right when Cecilia was running out of breath. She scrambled away from me, heaving and gasping. I wanted to feel satisfied, but now I had ten guards pointing guns at me.

        Chewing the inside of my cheek, I turned around to face them, opening my arms wide. "If you think this is a punishment, you're painfully mistaken." My eyes wavered over to Rose who was now aiding Cecilia, but still with no sign of emotion in her at all. I swallowed. "I really have nothing to live for anymore, so go on and shoot me. You'll be doing me a favor."

        And yet I knew it was just me talking nonsense. I would find a way to save Rose sooner or later. I wouldn't let her live out her life this way, clueless with what she was doing. I wouldn't let this Rose take away the one I loved.

        Daniel was in the guard's grasps again just as Evelyn walked over to me. "No," she said smoothly, eyes scanning my face and then the burn marks that had gone through my jumper. "Don't shoot. Death would be too easy for him."

        "If you think you're intimidating," I said, "believe me, I've been through much worse than your little methods of discipline here."

        Cecilia and Rose were already walking out the door, not even looking back or announcing their departure. I felt a part of me deflate, but returned my gaze to Evelyn.

        She was smiling.

        "All right, then. Let's try a method you've yet to come across, shall we?"

***

        I screamed out of pain and out of hurt as the electricity shot through my body. Pain because of what I was going through, and hurt out of losing Rose. Out of failing her. I promised I'd never let anything happen to her and yet, I failed.

        "Enough." Evelyn's voice sounded, quietly, as if I were sleeping. Her silhouette was all I could see from the blur of my vision, sweat mixing with the water of my eyes. "Get him changed and back to his cell. We're done for today."

        They had switched me into only pants and took off my shirt, hanging my arms by the ceiling above my head and my feet clamped with the electric cords used to torture me. Of course they hadn't been enough, and soon I had felt the knife digging into my back, seeming to write letters though I didn't know what.

        Guards walked over and I was too weak to fight against them as they got me down, cleaned off my back and dried my sweat before getting me a new jumper. My eyes were heavy, threatening to close on me but I had to stay alert. I couldn't be out in the open and asleep. I was too paranoid for such a thing. I had to be alert.

        It was the exhaustion talking, of course. The only people that could harm me were the guards and they had already done their part. But I felt watched constantly, as if I was always a target and I was. I was an enemy to practically everyone.

        Daniel's face was pressed against the glass when we got to my cell, worry on his face but I didn't stare much. As soon as the door opened, I fell onto the bed on my stomach, careful not to flip onto my sore back. He was tapping his glass, from the corner of my eye I could see that.

        But sooner or later, my eyes betrayed me and finally closed.

***

        It was unusual to be sitting under the sun again, leaned back on my palms with my face angled towards the sky, the warmth soaking in my skin. I was smiling when I felt the presence of someone next to me, and I glanced over to see Rose.

        Except she wasn't the beautiful Rose I had come to be obsessed with. Her eyes were hollowed pits, her skin was stretched and eerie, and her teeth were sharper. Her hands had not fingernails, but long claws as if she were a wolf or something. She was grinning, barring those sharp teeth that resembled fangs.

        I scrambled back, gaping up at her. "Rose?" She didn't answer. "Rose?"

        Standing now, I backed against a tree and she was merely a few feet away. A laugh fled her lips, one that sounded anything but human. There was no emotion in the tone other than bitterness, and in the blink of an eye, she was in front of me, trailing her nail from my temple to my chin.

        "It's time we fix you," she finally whispered, but her lips did not move with the sound, making the matter all the more scarier.

        But before I could question anything, she jammed her claws to the left of my chest, right where my heart would be. I didn't have time to scream before she snatched the organ out of my chest, her devious laugh echoing in my ears until I finally collapsed.

        I woke up screaming. 

(early update because I love you all that much. sorry it's short, though...comment your thoughts? x)