♕✿~♕✿~Chapter 27//: She's dead♕✿~♕✿~

~~Make sure to read CHAPTER 26 before reading this chapter since I updated twice today!~~

Ahren's POV

I stare in silent shock at the people trapped behind bars. They all looked severely malnourished, their bones showing through. If a wind were to come down here, they would all topple down for sure.

Is Madi here? I wonder as I look into the other cells. My mind conjured up an image of a weak Madi with her bones showing through, and I push the image away. I would get Madi out of here and keep her out of harm's way. I would.

"What should we do about them?" Nick asks me, referring to the prisoners.

"We need to get them out," I immediately answer. We couldn't just leave them here to die. We had to let them out, and it would probably be best if we questioned them back at the palace.

I tell this to Nick, who voices his agreement with my plan. "Nick, can you get a couple of the magnetrons to come down here to help me release the prisoners? And bring a couple other soldiers as well to escort them," I request Nick. He nods and rushes out quickly, leaving me alone with the prisoners.

I move towards the cell closest to me and hold onto the bars tightly. I burn away the metal, creating a large gap for the person to squeeze through. The prisoner is a middle-aged woman who hesitantly walks out, looking scared and confused. I hold onto her gently.

"It's alright, ma'am. We're here to help you. You're free now," I murmur to her, helping her sit down. At my words, she looks at me in slight disbelief like she can't believe that she's now free. It makes me wonder how long she has been down here, but I don't think I want to know.

I leave the woman to her thoughts and move on to the next cell, helping a girl my age out. In the next cell, an old man is let out. I soon hear footsteps and turn around to notice Nick and at least ten soldiers behind him.

We immediately get to work, me and the magnetrons letting the prisoners out and Nick and the rest of the soldiers helping the prisoners understand the situation. As I move through each cell, I look carefully for Madi's golden hair. Once, I see a girl with blonde hair in a cell and rushed to her, only to realize it wasn't Madi.

Where could she be? I wonder as I let out one of the last prisoners. My heart was beating fast from the spike of adrenaline in me, and panic was seeping through me. If Madi wasn't here, where would she be at?

She had to be in this base. She had to. I wouldn't, couldn't, accept the fact that maybe she wasn't here. I didn't want to consider other possibilities.

I went up to Nick. "I didn't find her here," I mutter quietly to him, my eyes darting left and right. Maybe I had just missed her. Maybe she was right here in front of me.

Nick calms me down. "She's probably in another part of the base. We can go question the Rogue Dawn members after we move the prisoners," he tells me. I distractedly agree with him, now anxiously waiting to move the prisoners up to ground level.

We soon gather all of the prisoners in one place and coerce them to move. We lead them down the hallways and up the stairs to outside, where they all promptly fa to the ground, practically kissing the cold grass and crying out in pure bliss. I can't help but feel relief that we had found them and let them out.

Once I make sure the prisoners are lead safely away, I move to walk towards the prisoners, ready to demand answers from them. Nick follows closely behind.

"I need to question the prisoners immediately," I tell one of the soldiers guarding the prisoners. She moves out of my way, letting Nick and I pass through.

The prisoners are tied up, their weapons stripped from them. Many of them sport bloody arms and bruised faces. I feel slightly nervous as I lean down in front of one of the prisoners, his face cut and one of his eyes shut. I had never had much experience interrogating prisoners and torturing the answer out of them.

I had to make sure it looked like I was in power or else I wouldn't get any answers out of this man.

"Let's make this easy, alright?" I start saying. "I'm going to ask you a question and you're going to answer me. If you refuse to answer, you're going to be punished." I gesture to one of the guards on duty, and he quickly appears by my side.

The Rogue Dawn man narrows his one eye at me, a sneer coming onto his face. "Would you look at this? The boy prince trying to act like a king. How pitiful," the man spits at me. I grit my teeth, willing myself to ignore his words.

I desperately wanted to demand from him to tell me where Madi was, but I was afraid of what the answer might be. "Who is your leader?" I decide to ask him instead. He stays defiantly silent. I decide to ask him again, to give him another chance to answer.

He still stays silent. I sigh as I nod to Officer Gliacon. I had hoped the man would have some sense and answer, but now he would have to deal with pain.

Officer Gliacon grabs the man's arm in a vice grip and a second later, the man screams out in pain. The skin of the man's arm starts to turn blue, and ice crystals erupted all over his skin. I knew exactly what Officer Gliacon was doing and it wasn't something that was painless.

Officer Gliacon was freezing this man's blood.

He stopped when I gestured for him to, and I turned back to face the man who was breathing raggedly, taking painful breaths.

"Now, I'm going to ask again, who is your leader?" He stays silent and Officer Gliacon moved forward again.

"Nathan!" He yells out. I stop Officer Gliacon. "The leader of the Rogue Dawn is a man named Nathan."

"Where is he right now?" I ask him, patiently waiting for an answer. I had quickly realized that this man was just a normal man who had probably never felt much pain before. It was the reason why he was giving out answers so willingly.

"I don't know. I swear! He left yesterday without saying a word to anyone," the man tells me hurriedly. I narrow my eyes at him, trying to decide if he was telling the truth. He didn't seem like he had a very high position in the Rogue Dawn. In fact, he just looked like he was one of Nathan's pawns.

I decide he's telling the truth on this one. I prepare myself to ask the question I've been wanting to ask.

"Where is Madison Williams?"

I can see the flicker of recognition in the man's eyes. Perhaps he recognizes the name. But then he clears his face of any emotion. I catch him swallowing nervously.

Why was he so nervous about answering this question? But then I noticed the harsh glares the other Rogue Dawn members were throwing at him.

"Don't pay attention to them," I tell the man sharply, making him focus on me again. "Now answer the question. Where. Is. Madison. Williams," I ask him in a low voice.

He's silent, his eyes still worriedly darting to the other Rogue Dawn members. I gesture to Officer Gliacon once more, who takes a step forward, already reaching out for the man's other arm.

"She's dead!" he suddenly yells out. Officer Gliacon stops moving towards the man, and t seems like everybody else stops as well. My body is rigid, my breathing momentarily stopping as I stare at the man in disbelief for the words he had just yelled.

My mouth opens and closes, my ears refuse to hear the man as he talks once more. "How-why-what do you mean she's dead?" My words come out in a sharp yell.

This can't be true. He must be lying. She couldn't have died. Wasn't I fast enough? She can't be dead, she can't be.

Did I fail to save her?

The man has the audacity to smirk cruelly. "What I mean by that is she's dead. She's not breathing anymore. Her corpse lies somewhere, not living and cold. Nathan killed her. He torturously killed-"

The man's words stop as I jump forward and wrap my hands around his throat. I can't stop myself from tightening my grip on his throat. I can't control the fire burning within me and burning into the man's throat. His taunting words fuel my anger and absolute hatred for him as he screams in pain, his skin burning underneath my touch. Somebody grabs a hold of me and pulls me off of him, dragging me away from the wretched man.

I angrily turn towards the person who stopped me from giving the man exactly what he deserved. Nick looks at me carefully.

"Control yourself, Ahren," he tells me in a low voice. "You lost yourself there. We need these prisoners alive for the moment so we can question them."

All the anger leaves me in one rush, leaving my body cold and numb. The man's words are repeating in my head. She's dead, she's dead, she's dead.

My chest is painfully tight where I find it almost impossible to breathe. I manage to take in a shuddering breath.

"Did you hear that man?" I ask Nick with a voice void of anything. "Madi's..." I can't say the word. I feel like if I say it, it will become true then. I wouldn't be able to deny it then.

"Do you think he's telling the truth?" I question Nick, wanting to hear him say no. He's only quiet, his unspoken words giving me an answer.

We didn't find her here today, and where else could she be? She can only be dead.

Something lodges itself into my throat as an indescribable grief overcomes me. This grief was crushing me slowly, pressing down on me. I threatened to crack underneath the sudden pressure and break down right there, but I tried my best to hold myself together.

I refused to believe that she was dead, but everything was pointing in that direction. I hadn't even gotten a chance to say goodbye to her. The last memory I had of her was telling her to go back inside the palace when the Rogue Dawn had attacked.

I felt myself breaking, and I desperately grabbed onto my broken pieces. I only wanted to hold myself together until we got back to the palace. And then when I was in the safety of my room, I would fling away the pieces of myself and let myself get crushed by the weight pushing down on me.

"What're we going to do with the prisoners after they are questioned?" I ask Nick. He looks at them. I don't, not wanting to look at them ever again.

"They're traitors to the crown. And treason is punishable by death. They'll be executed at the Bowl of Bones," Nick tells me.

I start a bit hearing those words. The Bowl of Bones hasn't been used since a long time. It's been a while since anyone was executed there.

Maybe I should have felt empathy for the Rogue Dawn member's family. After all, I knew the pain of losing family.

But all I could feel was relief that they were going to receive the fates they deserved.

♕✿~♕✿~♕✿~♕✿~♕✿~

I really am an evil author. I bet some of you were thinking this was the time Madi and Ahren would be reunited.

But they're both going to have to go through a lot of pain before they reach their happy endings.

Hope you all enjoyed this double update! Have a great week!

Glass_Sword