Chapter 20

Pain. That was all she could feel as she kneeled before the torturous man and the boy who proved he didn't care for her when he sat and did nothing. Her arm bled and dripped into a pool of blood beside her and she dipped her hand in it, curling into a fist and splashing it at the boy she had given herself to, who she hadn't yet loved but was on her way to it. To the boy who winced at the sound of his father's name and sat there in a still deadly silence.

He was a coward.

Elphcoe was ranting on and on but her ears were ringing, and her head was spinning, and she could hardly think let alone listen to another word out of his mouth. Her arm was throbbing with so much pain and she didn't know if being on the brink of death with no food and rotting away in a cell was something she would go back to.

It was something she would go back to, because she was with the ones she loved and that was the most important thing to her, her friends who she loved with everything in her, who she would give the world to and who sat behind her shrieking and spitting at the man who had carved the word into her arm.

Slut.

She wasn't a slut. She didn't believe in that word, she had no care for it.

It was a degrading term used to shame and she would never shame someone for what they liked to do or who they liked to do. What they liked to wear or less of what they wore, it was a vile term used for offence and she wasn't offended because she knew better, what she did was up to her and the term made her stronger.

It fuelled her hatred even more for the man and the boy and the pain.

"Bring her to me," Elphcoe snapped his fingers and Una watched as the guards dragged Amelia with them, she was thrashing in their grip in a best attempt to get away and Una had to look away at the trail of blood she was leaving behind.

She was slashed through her stomach and through the red dress she wore and as they dragged her, Una watched her trip over the multiple layers of fabrics, screaming when her wound was open, and they pulled her along without a care for the pain.

She wanted to do something, her chains rattled so furiously, and she realised that no matter what - she needed to try and get out for the life that Elysia saw for her, and she needed to get Amelia out. She had helped them, and she was one of them whether she knew it or not it was a part of her life to find and help them and be their friend and to have them trust her and to get her out because she deserved that much.

Una watched with fury evident in her features, she had tried standing up, tried pushing herself forward - tried to take Amelia's place and face that pain again instead of watching as Amelia had to go through it just because she was kind, because she was generous and risked herself to help those in need and she didn't deserve that kind of pain, she didn't deserve the wound in her stomach or to be dragged by her hair or to be hurt by the man.

Elphcoe's eyes glowered at her with fury and he gripped her, allowing her to fall into him, to sit on him and take Una's place and she squirmed to get free, struggling against him and wishing to just stand again instead of being anywhere near him.

She would have taken being in the dungeons with the people in front of her, the ones that felt like a family and a home and a life that she wished to live if they were in it than sitting on him as the blade in his hand inched closer and closer to her.

She was screaming, begging, "please! No, no, no, please - ple-please don't!"

Una was shouting at him, shouting at Elphcoe as the blade pierced Amelia's skin and the heart squad screamed too, rattling chains and shouts of pure and total fury sounded around them, and Una's eyes snapped to Gus, "do something!"

He didn't listen, he kept his head forward and Una yanked on her chains, "Gus!"

Silence.

She spat at him, thrashing in the guards hold when they kept her down and with a voice filled with pure and total hatred she said, "coward. You are nothing but a disgusting coward!"

Silence.

"Do something good!" she shrieked louder than everyone else, she was fuming, and Amelia's screams rang through her mind so vividly that she knew she wouldn't be able to get that out, she wouldn't forget the blood that poured down her arm much like her own, she would see it and remember the events of today if there was some small and slim chance that she was to live.

"Think about someone else for a change," Una's voice was a whisper that time and her eyes glazed with tears already spilling and she fell, shoulders slumped and pain in her eyes and she didn't care if she was in any more pain than what she felt in that moment.

But her friends started screaming at Gus too, their attention off of Elphcoe and to the boy they had known for a much longer time. Delilah's voice was quiet as she spoke and so was Ferris' and River's voice boomed in anger but Elysia's was louder.

"Dad," Gus snapped, turning to his father who was carving the last letter, a smile of pleasure on his lips and his blade slowly carving the letter R into her skin.

"Too late," Elphcoe sighed contently, shoving Amelia away from him and watching her fall to the ground. She scrambled to her feet, trying to get away from the guards who finally chained her to the wall next to Ferris.

He was looking at her, looking at the blood on her arm and he knew that he couldn't help her, he wished to help her - they all did, but she was placed next to him and there was no comfort he could give her but he reached for her hand and squeezed it tightly and she looked at him with so much pain in her eyes.

He recognised the pain, the fear, the sadness and sick.

Because he saw it in the mirror.

"You are all terribly angry, I have to admit," Elphcoe said, looking down at them all, "maybe you would like to know how Miss Gates is here."

The guards let out a howl of laughter directed towards the girl who was trying to ignore the throbbing pain in her arm. She was leaning against the wall, head fell back and her breathing short and she could hardly cope with it.

She was squeezing Ferris' hand so tightly but he didn't care, he could see how much it was hurting her - how she could hardly move from the pain, uncomfortable and scared and wishing for death and he had been like that for over seven days, he had wished for death, he had wished that he didn't need to cope with any of it anymore.

But he had his friends, he had something to live for and he wanted Amelia to know that if there was some way to get out of this, then she had something to live for too. She winced in pain when her head fell back, and Ferris had enough of watching it, he didn't care if the guards stopped him or pulled him away, but he had to try something.

So, he shuffled closer to her, ignoring the rattling of chains and silently guided her to lean on him, to lean on something at least more comfortable than the wall. Her sobs rang through his ear and Delilah had always told him he was very good at comforting people, so he comforted her.

Elphcoe was distracted by Una as she kneeled before him further away from her friends - on full display but she didn't care, and Ferris whispered to Amelia, he told her it would be fine, that in a month the pain would be gone, and it would be a scar to show that she had survived.

"There is no way to survive this," her voice was harsh and low, and her eyes narrowed to slits at anyone who looked her way, she clung to his hand and he was clinging to her warmth, "he will kill all of us one by one."

"What happened to the hope you had?" Ferris mumbled, eying the girl, "you risked everything for the greater good, don't let that escape you, don't think like that."

"How are we going to get out of here?" she asked, and Ferris looked around his friends, showing them to her and she didn't understand what he meant until her eyes widened ever so slightly.

She remembered the boy that wasn't there, she could see him. She knew he must have gone through something because he had the most energy out of all of them, he wasn't as weak, but he was in pain and she felt it and she couldn't do anything about the pain he felt because her magic didn't cover it.

She knew she couldn't think of him, she knew if she did then they would realise he wasn't there and she couldn't risk his life as well as the rest of them, but she understood. She understood what the boy meant, she didn't even know his name and, yet he was so willing to help her because of how he was, he was kind and she was grateful for that.

She was grateful for his arm that she leaned on, the comfort his hand squeezing hers gave her, his soft voice and the fact that he was risking himself to help her, he was a true hero. Her ears rang as the pain in her arm made her weaker and weaker but she tried not to think of it, of Elphcoe who had changed the topic of conversation, who didn't realise that no one cared about him because he was worthless and cruel.

And she realised that the boy that wasn't there was their hope. He wouldn't back down for the friends that he loved and didn't know him but the boy beside her had trust for him, trusted him with every bone in his body and she knew that he would arrive, she had to have hope like the rest of them did.

"Miss Gates," her head snapped to Elphcoe and with disgust, he looked at Ferris, and to her and to the fact that she needed him for support and he needed her too because he was terribly weak and they were keeping each other up. They leaned on each other and even just the sound of each other's voices was soothing enough to calm them just for a second.

"She is here because as her arm says," Elphcoe grinned, "she is a traitor."

"You are disgusting," Una growled, trying to stand once more - to get to him and kill him for all that he had done. He had captured them, left them to rot for dead and tortured them and they were still there, they were still alive and none of them would go down without a fight.

They wouldn't give him the satisfaction of giving up no matter what he wanted, no matter if he carved every single word he could think of into each of their bodies, they weren't going to give up. They couldn't, they had to fight, and they had to win, and they had no idea how they would do that, they had no idea how they would get out.

But they had to.

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Hours, they had been in that room for hours upon end whilst Elphcoe talked and talked and talked about traitors and himself and his city and that he would rule it for the rest of his life. Una had made the smallest comment, a growl under her breath, "I'll make it a short life."

She didn't think that anyone would hear her, but he did, and he had stopped what he was talking about to turn to her, ordered the guards to hurt her and they did, they beat her to the ground, cuts all over her face and bruises and Gus ordered them to stop and when they did she flipped him off, keeping her head held high and her eyes narrowed.

Ever second passing was more pain added to the stinging on her arm, seeping through every letter was blood rolling down her arm and over her own hands and over the dried-up blood that had stained her hand from River's wound and to the ground. She had to lift her arm and hold it, it was losing too much, and she swayed from side to side, eyes blank with weakness and her head still head high.

She had thought over the thought of dying, she knew there was the highest possibility but that life that Elysia had told her about, her life, it was supposed to be wonderful and all of her friends were there so if she tried then she could get that, she could get what Elysia thought was wonderful and Elysia lived in a beautiful luxury so wonderful to her was like paradise.

All her mind could think of was why.

It floated through her head and she knew that Elphcoe could hear her, read her mind and know what she wanted so he was dragging it out, he was ignoring the pleads inside her head because she wanted to know what Gus was going to say, she wanted to know everything that Gus had failed to tell her, and she knew that regardless, she would hate him even more than she did.

But then Elphcoe snapped his fingers and Gus stood from his seat on his father's command and he said, "I think your lovely friends have waited long enough. Now, Angus, would you like to tell them how you used them, how you used this lovely girl in front of me?"

Gus' jaw tightened, and he looked at them all, looked at the scowls and the pain and the anger and the hatred and he felt it too, he felt it for himself.

"Last year when my dad was going to kill my mum," he started, looking over all of them and Amelia's eyes widened. She remembered Cassia, the woman who was kind to her and had the bright eyes and wonderful smile and how she managed to get out, to run away and leave the castle behind her, she wished she could have done that too.

"I stepped in."

"Very heroic," Una grumbled under her breath, flipping him off when his eyes snapped to her.

"He gave me a job. He stripped me of my powers, he ordered me to go to a village of his choice - your village - and told me that I had to find someone. I had to convince them to come to the city with me, I had to bring them here and if I killed them in front of my father...he would restore my powers." Gus took a deep breath.

"Angus, you are holding back all of the information!" Elphcoe snapped, tutting whilst Gus shook his head.

He took a deep breath, stepping forward down a step and Una winced, "I hadn't lost all of my powers. I could still shield, and I could feel the powers of others around me. That was part of the job, I had to kill another person and kill their powers in order to get my own.

I felt your powers, Una. I had to bring you here because I have to kill you, I have to steal your powers."

"You failed," she spat, screaming at the guards not to touch her and pushing out her chained hands to push them back, and they stumbled and on Elphcoe's command, they left her alone, "you have the wrong girl. I don't have powers, I don't want powers like yours if I'm going to turn into a horrible excuse for a human being. You are a vile monster and I am not like you!"

"Your powers aren't like mine, Una," he said, "you have something, you have abilities, but I don't know what. But I could feel it, I could feel the magic around you, I could feel what I used to have, and I knew it was you that I had to take."

"You are nothing but a selfish, cowardly, piece of shit," she spat at him when he went closer, and she reached for the blood on the floor, splashing it over him. He tried to stop her, but she didn't care, she was fuming with anger and she knew the truth.

She didn't have powers.

"I had to make sure that you were the one to take back," he said, "and you made it easy for me. You were in that tea shop every day, I could watch you. I kept an eye on you, I studied you and what you did and who you were, and I became obsessed with it. For the longest time, I forgot about it - I forgot about the mission I had, to get you here, for a month after I helped you I liked it, I liked being with you and seeing you happy because I hardly did, and I felt normal.

I felt like a teenager again when I was with you, not someone with a death sentence. All I ever did was to keep my mum safe-"

"No, it wasn't!" she exclaimed, "because you don't need your powers, Gus, you just want them, you want to feel powerful but no matter what you can do, no matter the things you can do with your mind or the magic you can cast, you will never be powerful. You are a weak boy, you are a coward!"

He took another step forward and she scowled at him, "from the start all I was doing was...using you, I was selfish and horrible, and I did it for my own benefit but what happened, I couldn't help it. I couldn't help that our time together was the best days of my life, I couldn't help that I wanted to make you happy, and I wanted you to come to the city to see it and see the happiness and brightness and people and meet them.

I wanted you to meet them, and I know I was selfish - I know I am selfish...but if I don't do this, if I don't kill you. He's going to kill me," he broke down and she was sure he wanted her to feel sorry, to feel bad, to sacrifice herself for him.

"I would die for my friends, I would die for the people I love," she growled, "you would rather sacrifice the people who would give the world to you."

He looked at her and she saw the pain and she saw the blade in his hand and she realised it was now, he was going to try now. After his speech, after he told her the truth - this was when she was going to die, this was when he was going to kill her.

She was trying to think of a plan, a way, something that could help her and distract him, something that would get her out of this and what she could use to his advantage and then it clicked. It was a miracle that she thought of it, no, it was luck.

"I couldn't help, Una," he whispered, "I couldn't help the fact that I fell in love with you."

This was it, she thought, but she couldn't think about it because Elphcoe would hear her and stop her and she couldn't overdo it. She had to just do it, she had to look at him and she let the anger wash away and in a broken voice, she whispered, "don't lie to me, Gus."

His eyes glazed with tears and she had to hide her glare, she had to stare at him with broken eyes and her lips parted and her own tears streaming down her face, "I'm not," he choked out, his hands curling into fists, "I'm not lying Una."

She let out a sob. Her shoulders had slumped, and she looked at him with hurt and sadness and he shook his head, taking one more step until he was right in front of her and he took her head in his hands and he kissed her, and she had to kiss him back as nausea swirled in her stomach.

"Please Gus," she cried out, sobbing, leaning into him, her forehead against his and her tears mixing with his own, "please we can get out of this, we can run away, we can leave here and never come back. We'll never have to think of this place again, or Elphcoe."

She was trying to think of what he wanted to hear, trying to appeal to him, appeal to his love that wasn't love it was obsession he was obsessed with her, she was an object to him, that was all she was - a trophy, and he wanted that trophy.

"I...I can't," he choked out, holding her head with his free hand, kissing her every chance he got, and he didn't care for his father or what he was doing or saying and she couldn't hear him over her fury, she was trying to save herself and her friends and she would do all that she could in order to do that.

She lifted her eyes to his, leaning forward so that she kissed him that time, trying not to vomit when she pulled away, and she took a shaky breath, nodding her head and said, "yes you can."

"He'll kill me before we even escape," he took a shaky breath, and she thrashed and cried and shook her head and he gripped her hair with his hand, sliding the blade out from under her jacket and her friends behind he realised what was going to happen.

He was hesitating, and she eyed his hand and the blade and his face, "I'm so sorry baby," he whispered, tightening his grip on her hair and she yelped and he couldn't bear it.

So, she thought for a split second, that was all she could have was one second to think of what to do next and she looked up at him, wondering if it would help, wondering if her words had a hold over him and she whispered, "I love you, Gus, I'm in love with you."

She could feel the hand on her hair loosen and she had time, she had a few more seconds to think of her next move as the blade hovered over her neck and he still gripped her hair and he cried and cried and cried and, "don't...don't look at me, Gus."

His eyes found her as she talked, and she shook her head, "don't look at me...do it quickly, Gus don't look at me!"

Her friends didn't know what was happening, but she did, she allowed those seconds to fill her mind with ideas and he looked away from her and Elphcoe tried to stop him but it was too late, he looked away and she took the opportunity.

She lurched forward, hands squeezing his own and he screamed so loudly she had to let go. She let out a gasp, the blade had dropped to the floor and Gus stumbled back so far, he knocked into the brick wall with shock and pain in his eyes.

She intended to squeeze his hand as tightly as she could so that the blade would drop, and she would pick it up, but she did more damage. She looked at her hands in shock and the room was silent, not even Elphcoe said a word and she wondered why but he was looking at her, hand lifted as though he was going to do something, to order the guards but he didn't.

Her hands looked the same, but she looked at Gus', it was red, a dark red patterned with burns and blisters and it was her doing, she had burned him with her hands. She moved her hand to the chains that kept her from her freedom and she let out the smallest squeak when the metal around her melted to the ground and set her arms free.

Elphcoe reacted then, he clicked his fingers and the guards came at her and as though she knew what she was doing as they came for her at either side, she shoved her arms out and her palms erupted fire to engulf the guards.

As though the commotion in the room had alerted the lurker outside, the door slammed open to the room and the roar around them shook the furniture and the trophies and the pictures on the wall and Una had to stumble back in shock as she looked at the animal, at the Lion.

And then she realised.

It was Flynn.

She had to act fast, she grabbed the blade that was on the ground and she had a mission before she did anything else. She fell to her knees in front of Gus who was still as shocked as ever and with the blade tightly gripped in her hand, she grabbed his arm, pulled up the sleeve of the clothes he wore and carved a large, deep line down the tattooed heart.

He had betrayed them.

He was officially out of the heart squad.

She kicked his face when he tried to move and at the sound of Elphcoe's voice, she turned and hurled the blade at him, watching it pierce his skin and lodge into his shoulder. Guards came at her from all angles and she used what she could of her hands, of the powers and she kicked them and punched them and hurt her hands to save herself.

She couldn't fight, she had never been trained and she knew that with the punches and kicks she was doing more damage to herself, but she was high on the adrenaline and she would do all that she could to get out of this.

She stumbled as she watched Flynn in his shifting form, a majestic lion with blood dripping from its teeth as he slaughtered a guard, ripping him to pieces and she realised that her friends were still chained up.

She melted the chains one by one, sending a painfully sad smile to Amelia who could hardly move from the blood, but she fought as best as she could when she stood, kicking down the guards and throwing punch after punch.

She dropped in front of River when she reached him, melting the chains and watching the metal fall to the floor and he gripped her warm wrists so she would look at him, and regardless of being weak, regardless of the exhaustion mixed with the adrenaline and his long to fight and kill as many of the guards as he could, he whispered, "you, Una Reynolds...you are my hero."

She stopped, the sound of the fighting in her ear but she could hardly hear it and as though she realised she had gotten free, that although they were still in the castle, they had won, she let down her guard and she threw her arms around him so tightly, squeezing him for dear life but he was the same, he held her and she held him and it was a moment shared between two teenagers, two friends, who were overcome with a shocking relief.

Guards kept coming, more and more and more and there was only so much damage they could all do, so she shouted, "Del!"

And she turned, and she grabbed River's hand and Elysia's and Ferris grabbed Amelia and Delilah held onto Flynn and they all joined together and as the guards tumbled through the door, they transported out of that castle.

And all Una could think of was that she hoped that it was for good.

"Are we dead?" Delilah squeaked when they arrived in a house Una didn't recognise but she knew it was too risky for them to transport back to the apartment. Una would be lying if she hadn't thought the same thing. That everything had happened so fast, that they somehow managed to stick to their fate and stay alive and get out that it felt fake.

Una had stumbled into the wall, the adrenaline was slowly leaving her body and all she could do was stare at her hands, all she could do was move each finger and look at them and think of all the damage she had done, everything she did back there at the castle was for her friends and she would do it again if she had to, she would fight until the brink of death for them over and over.

With these abilities or not, she would never go down without a fight.

"How did you do that?" asked Elysia, rubbing her hand that had burned in pain at Una's touch. Her voice was hardly a whisper and she watched Una with awe, shocked, wide-eyed awe and all of them were looking at the girl's hands.

"I...I don't know," she choked out.

"Has that ever...happened before?" asked Delilah, reaching forward and touching her hand. She almost yelped at the heat coming off of them and she was more shocked that Una couldn't feel it.

She felt like a kettle after it had been boiled.

"No," Una furiously shook her head.

"It's her powers," River said, looking at her hands and then to her face to see the shock because Gus was right, she did have powers.

Ferris shifted and their eyes widened and Elysia said, "so...that makes her-"

River cut her off, "she's like me. Una, you're a controller."

"But...but I burned him!" she said, eyes wide, "and - and the guards."

"Exactly," River said, stepping forward, and reaching for her hand. He had the ability to turn his hands into the freezing cold, he could control water and solidify it, he could be freezing and when he took her hand it didn't feel any different from the other times he had, "you're a fire controller, Una."

She gasped, it was so obvious and, yet she could hardly think of it, the possibility of it, a controller, she was a fire controller and as though it had fallen into place, she clasped her free hand over her mouth, looking at her friends and then to River and asked, "Powers...they are most likely to be genetic, right?"

Her friend didn't speak, but River nodded, trying to wipe the blood on her arm that still dripped from her cut.

She looked River in the eye, talking mostly to him and with a voice so quiet it was barely audible, she choked out, "my dad is in jail...for burning down a house."

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The End.