I drop my head forward, finding it too heavy to hold up straight. My untied hair falls in front of my face like a curtain as I struggle to keep my eyes open while I try to free my hands.

With a soft, pained grunt, I try to tilt my face sideways and shake it out of the way but it stubbornly stays in my eyes and tickles my nose and ears.

Nathaniel hisses to himself under his breath, standing up to get something from his closet.

A few seconds later I feel the cool tip of another needle pricking my arm. I don't even have the energy to see if it's the antidote or something else entirely, and protest if need be.

Nathaniel helps me sit up, my wrists still tied behind my back, as the injected liquid works it's way through my circulatory system before going back to perch gracefully on the edge of his bed frame.

"I apologize for letting extra venom enter you body, Ariya." He says solemnly, glancing at his fingers apologetically, "It happened by mistake while you were struggling against me. You must believe that I really did not mean for that to happen."

The corners of my mouth twist into a sneer in response.

"I never pegged you to be a straight faced liar." I half laugh, tilting my face to the side as I stare into Nathaniel's unyielding eyes, "And honestly, lying is such a huge turn off."

He opens his mouth to respond but closes it almost immediately, quietly swallowing back whatever he wants to say and clasps his hands together in his lap.

"I'm supposed to be smart. And self sufficient. Because apparently it's highly illegal to be intelligent and sexy and get the best of everything handed over to me, right? And having everything means that I'm not allowed to have problems. I'm supposed to sit straight and look pretty while I fucking save the world everyone else mopes over their sorry lives, because I have fucking everything that everyone so conveniently thinks they don't." I laugh airily, the swimming venom and antidote in my bloodstream making me delirious.

Nathaniel listens intently, his mask of sincerity is so convincing that I forget the rest of my enraged rant. It's hard to believe that I was naive enough to actually think of him as a friend.

"I'm sorry Ariya. I —"

"Famous last words. Of course you are sorry that you got caught." I scoff, cutting him off rudely, "Or maybe it's that spectacular hickey you're sporting on your neck. I bet it's your first one so it has to be the best you've ever had since you have no other experience to compare it to."

Nathaniel stiffens, shifting his legs slightly as his clasped fingers dig into the outside of his palms.

I'm vomiting words now- saying everything that crosses my mind without taking a single moment to filter my thoughts. I know that, but I can't bring myself to stop now.

"Here I thought that you actually liked spending time with me although you had no real choice. And trust me, it is lovely to live in your own deluded reality. I was fucking cross eyed about everything you did behind my tinted outlook, to the point where I thought you farted rainbows and unicorns. Little did I know that you were taking advantage of my desperate need to feel wanted by someone else!"

Tears fill my eyes now, and I can't even wipe them off since my hands are tied. I aggressively bring up my shoulder to wipe the snot tears on my sleeve quickly.

"I take it that you're upset." He nods slightly, "And that's fair. It completely is. But you must understand that you were never meant to find out. At least not this way."

"Stop acting so fucking condescending!" I spit, "Let me take a moment to cry. I bloody deserve it!"

Nathaniel says nothing as I sniff loudly, hiccupping periodically as my lower lip trembles. My throat begins to constrict and it's becoming harder for me to speak.

Externally my body is focused on creating a mind-blowing cry fest amidst my drug induced delirium while internally my brain is trying to absorb as much new information as it can. I mentally note the shelf in which the antidote and venom is stored inside Nathaniel's closet, the number of steps I need to get to the door and the slant of the shadows in the room

My tryst with isolation has always been a problem for me, but that's usually easy to forget with my mind occupied with other more important things. I briefly remember that my period is due in a couple of days which kind of makes my emotional hurricane understandable. I suppose the catatonic blend of toxins and antidote paired with the intense feeling of betrayal were only playing a part in amplifying my deepest insecurities.

With a troubled sigh, Nathaniel walks over to the window and draws the curtains apart to let the last of the moonlight stream in through the window glass. He stands silently, gazing out, as I take the time I need to let out my flurry of chronically bottled up negative emotions slowly.

As my hiccups reduce, another uneasy thought crosses my mind.

Not once in the last fifteen minutes, did I think of shouting for Dad's help. And that angers me because that just shows how much blind trust I have developed in Nathaniel.

Suddenly, something cold drops in my lap, making me sit up straight abruptly and look up at Nathaniel.

"I believe that's yours." He nods towards the thing that he's dropped in my lap.

I eye the small metal box-like structure wound with un-insulated copper wire curiously. One of its edges is dented, but the uneven surface is smooth as I run my index finger over it.

"This is—" I breathe out raggedly, my eyes flitting between Nathaniel and the little gizmo in my hand as a wave of uneasiness washes over my body, "It's the supersonic frequency reader that I was trying to construct. You stole it?"

More than the fact that he stole it, I'm more worried about the fact that he already knew what it was supposed to be. Even when it was far from a completely working model. He'd already expected my moves and curbed then in order to prevent any hindrance in whatever the fuck he was doing.

"I borrowed it." Nathaniel admits coolly, "And I fixed it too. You can now send messages to me as well as intercept any message I receive using Morse code."

I narrow my eyes, brow furrowing, as I process his words. Nothing seems to be making sense to my foggy mind.

Nathaniel stole my frequency detector before it was even complete because he didn't want me to intercept his secret communication with someone on the outside and sabotage his conniving schemes. But he also fixed it so I could hear it now. And that was supposed to mean what exactly?

"I understand that you're shaken right now. Scared and confused if I'm being bold." Nathaniel states, pulling my chair closer to the bed so that our knees are only a few centimetres away from touching, "But it's imperative for you to accept that we're not on different sides here."

"Right, of course." I shake my head slightly, pushing the wheeled chair back with my heels so that there's some distance between us. I cannot let him have access to stab me with the neurotoxin cocktail at whim again.

My action adds to Nathaniel's barely masked frustration. He pushes his hair back aggressively, the fifth or sixth time in the last twenty minutes. At this rate he's bound to have a receding hairline soon.

"I want this to be easy for both of us, Ariya. But since you're so bent on making this conversation difficult, I might as well start anyway." He closes his eyes for a few moments, "Just don't make this any more difficult than it already is. We need to get you back to bed before your father wakes up."

Please don't shout or try to run. That was the underlying message, basically.

"You want me to trust you?" I ask bluntly.

"Yes."

"Untie my hands then." I state, without a moment's pause, "I believe there should be a mutual level of trust."

I expect Nathaniel to outright refuse or come up with an excuse to keep my hands bound behind my back. But instead, he wordlessly walks around me and nimbly undoes the knots he's tied before neatly slinging the silk tie back onto the hook where it was before.

Massaging the blood flow back into my wrists, I steal a confounded glance at him when he isn't looking. I can't quite figure out what his game is, which worries me deeply. Because I'm really good at reading people when I actually make the effort to pay attention to them.

I shift in the rotating chair, causing it to spin until its side hits the edge of the laminated plywood desk behind me.

Nathaniel waits for me to settle down albeit glancing at the expensive watch around his wrist every couple of seconds, making no attempt to mask his impatience.

"It's almost five." I drawl, "You better get on with whatever you have to share because Dad will be up soon. The ensuing heart to heart can wait."

Sighing deeply as he twists his platinum, jewel encrusted signet ring, Nathaniel begins.

"Volatis holds the gateway to nuclear self sufficiency as well as the sole key to massive destruction that could lead to the end of humanity." He says grimly, "Now before you say something snarky about me bragging about Volatis' uranium content endlessly, I'd like to tell you a piece of classified history that's hidden from normal civilians for security as well as political reasons."

I straighten my neck, craning forward ever so slightly, as my inquisitiveness gets the better of my resolve to hold up a salty facade.

"After the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the consequences shook the world to its very core and made everyone question the price of war and the future of humanity. It was clearly evident that no country stood a chance against a foe that was armed with nukes unless they possessed nuclear arms themselves. But using them would always end up doing more harm than good. Despite this, the two rudimentary power blocs- the Western bloc led by the USA and the Eastern bloc led by the USSR began a race against time to acquire more and more nuclear arms against better judgement. Uranium was suddenly the most valuable resource known and close to all independent nations secretly began searching for uranium in their soil in the hopes of hitting a jackpot." Nathaniel pauses for a moment, knitting his brow tightly as he nervously runs his fingers through his hair out of habit, "It was in these strained times in the grim aftermath of the second world war that the United Nations was formed with the agenda of maintaining world peace, security and harmony and uphold all the values that its predecessor, The League of Nations failed to."

"Ok, but how do you fit into all this?" I raise my eyebrow, "Like, the history lesson is very interesting. But forgive me for questioning your role in this- um- crisis."

"I'm getting there." Nathaniel replies curtly, letting out a breathy exhale as he regards me with a flat expression.

"Well, faster." I prod on, "We don't have all day. Just give me a crisp summary. A cliff notes version preferably."

"Fine." he says, in a conceding tone, "In short, every major city in the world now has five kilograms of uranium connected to high end fission machines deep underground under a secret clause of the revised Geneva Convention to ensure that nuclear warfare will always be discouraged to the highest possible degree. These can all be triggered by even a small catalytic blast in the vicinity. And the only country with enough uranium for any of this is Volatis which is why it has been kept out of the public eye to prevent any antisocial outfits from getting any untoward ideas for world domination."

My breath hitches as I mentally conclude the perilous consequences of what Nathaniel is alluding to.

"And now that Volatis has been compromised— It means that someone else knows something they're not meant to." I trail off quietly.

"The world stands at the cusp of destruction if the intruding power chooses to." he concludes gravely with a nod of affirmation, "And the only person who has access to the purified uranium reserves is the ruling monarch of Volatis."

I stare at his shadow covered face pensively, the dying wisps of moonlight highlighting the stress lines on Nathaniel's otherwise calm and serene face.

"Now that my father is dead, the responsibility of protecting Volatis and it's secrets is mine. And I've been trying to protect you from ending up as collateral damage while I figure out how to access the uranium reserves myself since my father never disclosed the information to me. And I need to do this before our enemies figure it out." 

>●●<

It's been a long wait for this chapter :p- Also more lighthearted chapters coming up, and the much awaited fluff!

How're you doing? Has offline school/university started for you?

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