Arise (Cruel and Beautiful World Book 3)

by L. Stoddard Hancock

  “How’d he find them?” demanded Hera, still holding Cress but looking accusatorily at Xander.

  Silent tears fell from Xander’s eyes. “Saevus has been watching old security footage of me. He’s following my every move since Deryn’s escape and he noticed I disappeared behind their building several times. He sent Guardians to investigate. It’s my fault. It’s -”

  “Xander, no.” Deryn took his face in her hands. “It’s not your fault.”

  “Sounds like it is,” Hera said venomously.

  Deryn seethed. “If it weren’t for Xander they would’ve been caught six months ago, you ungrateful bitch! He saved them!”

  “He signed their death warrant.”

  Cress pushed Hera away. “For once in your life, just stop!”

  As Cress walked away from her, he noticed Talon standing close by, observing everything that was happening. Cress went to him.

  “Please. Please don’t make me leave. I’ll do whatever you want. I’ll bow down to you if I have to.” He dropped to his knees. “I can’t leave like this. If Anan is really dead I need to fight. I need to do this for him!”

  Talon regarded him for a moment. Before he could respond, several others stepped forward, dropping to their knees beside Cress.

  “Stop that!” said Talon. “I don’t want to be your ruler. It was never about that. But this war is coming to a head and we need to stand united. If you stay, there will be no more petty arguments and no more complaints about the way things are being done, unless you have something constructive to say. We won’t win as we are now. This is an army, just like Saevus’s guards, and we need to fight like one. If you promise me that you will be a soldier in this army, that you will contribute to this war and help all of those who stand beside you, then you can stay.”

  “Yes,” said Cress, nodding desperately. “I promise.”

  The others who were kneeling followed suit.

  “Then no one leaves today. But I reserve the right to change my mind tomorrow. Training begins in one hour,” announced Talon. “Xander, Deryn, follow me.”

  Deryn helped Xander to his feet. She looked around but didn’t see April.

  “Dax, could you find April for me?” she asked. “Tell her what’s happened.”

  “Of course,” said Dakota.

  “I promise you,” Deryn whispered to Xander as they followed Talon with their arms wrapped around each other. “This wasn’t your fault.”

  Xander nodded. But he didn’t believe it.

  CHAPTER 38

  Finley walked to Saevus’s tower, the atrocious execution of his wife still haunting her thoughts. He’d sent her a message summoning her there and, she had to admit, she was a bit paranoid. The president had clearly gone off the deep end and she feared he’d placed cameras in the homes of his Guardians. It wouldn’t be out of character for him.

  Normally, Finley wouldn’t care. She was rarely ever home. But the previous night she had contacted Odette. They’d kept it minimal since Odette and Neo went into hiding but, after everything that had happened, she felt they needed to know.

  They would have gotten ahold of Xander and told him everything by now.

  Would that change anything?

  Finley hoped so.

  As she approached the tower’s doors, her heart started racing. She’d made a grave mistake speaking back to the president the night before. She knew she had, but she couldn’t stop herself.

  For years, Finley had made it a point to be invisible. But Saevus saw her now and it was too late to slip back into the shadows.

  She had gone to see Lona as soon as she’d received the message. If Lona didn’t hear from her in the next couple of hours, she would go to Odette and they’d get the hell out of Utopia.

  At that point, they didn’t even know if it was possible to get out, but they had to try.

  The guards outside the tower opened the doors for her. With a confident breath, Finley stepped through.

  A wave was waiting on the other end for her. It was the one whose hand Saevus had stomped into the glass the night before. She motioned for Finley to follow her without saying a word.

  Finley was brought into the conference room. Only two people sat at the long table, the president at its head and her father just beside him. Stuart looked a little worse for wear. He’d been up all night searching for one of Adelaide Saevus’s group, who’d apparently gotten away.

  “Ah! Finley! How nice of you to join us,” said Saevus. He gestured to the empty chair on his other side.

  Finley sat, keeping her eyes on her father. His breathing seemed uneven as he stared downward.

  “It appears the tables have turned as far as the Scouts are concerned,” said the president, looking from Finley to Stuart. “For years you have been one of my top Guardians, Stuart, but returning here this morning empty handed cannot be forgiven.”

  Stuart suppressed a shudder. “Yes, my president.”

  “Finley, on the other hand, has shown great promise as of late. It seems that Xander’s absence has given you a voice.”

  Finley kept her face firm. She needed to be convincing. “As you may recall, my president, Xander and I had rekindled our relationship recently. After just one week, he ended it with me in quite the cruel fashion. Looking at the timeline, I now realize that Leon was already in his possession. Knowing that his rejection more than likely stemmed from his feelings for a toxic piece of trash has left me bitter.”

  “Yet you seem to have grown closer to Luka and Lona since his departure.”

  “Luka was used by Xander. He knows it now, and I’ve made my feelings on the matter very clear to him.” A lie. She and Luka never spoke of Xander. Not once. “And Lona was simply naïve. She thought Xander was her friend but she was mistaken. She is not cast from the same mold as the rest of us and would serve you better as an advisor.”

  Saevus chuckled softly. “I doubt that girl could advise me of anything.”

  “You underestimate her, sir.”

  “Perhaps.” His gaze moved back to Stuart. “First things first. Finley, dear, tell me your feelings on this matter. Should I or should I not punish your father for his considerable failure today?”

  Finley looked across the table at her father. For a brief moment, she felt pity. Then his eyes rose to meet hers, his face falling into a grimace as he threatened her to defy him.

  That face caused her to be hit with a million memories at once. Memories of how cruel this man truly was.

  She saw him hitting her mother in front of her when she was just a child. Always telling her she was not good enough, smart enough, pretty enough, claiming no one would ever want her. Just a hideous pig. That was what he’d called her. She remembered sitting on the couch in the living room with her mother, trying to comfort her as he loudly raped Deryn in the other room, making his slave cry and scream and beg for mercy. At the time, she’d only felt anger for her mother. It wasn’t until a year later when it finally hit her that a girl she knew was being forced to have sex with her father. That was when she first truly felt disgusted with herself.

  Finley saw his face when she became a Guardian, laughing at her as she trembled in fear when her wristband was installed, burrowing deep into her bones. She saw how he didn’t care at all when she came home to find that her mother had taken her own life. Or so everyone believed. Finley did not. Her mother was depressed but she wasn’t suicidal. But Stuart ... he was a maniac.

  “He should, sir,” answered Finley. “He was thrilled when Xander received his punishment on New Year’s, and his failure today is far worse.”

  Saevus smiled, sending chills down her spine. “I believe you’re right.” Without so much as a movement, a flinch, a blink of his eye, the president grabbed Stuart’s Element from its holster and sent a streak of light straight at the man’s face.

  Stuart fell backwards out of his chair screaming. His face was split open. He held a hand over it in a pathetic attempt to stop the bleeding.

  “Just one st
rike and you’re already down, Father,” said Finley, watching him with a wicked grin. “I would appreciate it if you didn’t disgrace the Scout name with your lack of discipline.”

  Stuart scowled at her as he stood, blood dripping through his fingers and onto the floor. When he looked back at the president, the man just smiled and motioned at the chair again.

  Stuart put it upright and sat back down.

  “I actually have a different form of punishment for you today, Stuart. That was just for fun.” Saevus placed the Element on the table. He reached into his pocket and came out with two small metal circles. “Place these on your temples.”

  Stuart took them skeptically. He had to release his bloody eye to put them on.

  “This is still in its testing phase, so I’m not quite sure how it will work.” Saevus pulled a small remote with a single green button out of his pocket. He aimed it at Stuart’s head and pressed.

  Finley held her breath as she watched her father squirm, his mouth frothing as an electrical current shot through his mind. When it ended, his head collapsed onto the table. She stared as his back pumping up and down, two quick breaths, one long, five quick breaths, no breaths. He just couldn’t seem to get it right.

  “What is that?” she asked.

  “A new form of mental torture,” answered Saevus. “It’s meant to make you see delusions but it clearly still has some bugs to work out. Did you see anything out of the ordinary, Stuart?”

  Stuart lifted his head. He tried to speak but nothing came out. He nodded.

  “Splendid! What was it?”

  His tongue sounded heavy as he tried again. Drool fell from the corners of his mouth. “D .... Dr ... Dra ...”

  “Dragon?” finished Finley, pointing at Saevus’s crest on her wristband.

  He nodded again.

  “Interesting.” Saevus pressed the button.

  Stuart screamed for only a moment before his head plopped onto the table.

  “I think the power is too strong. I’ll need to make note of that,” said Saevus as casually as if he were talking about the weather. “Care to give it a try, Finley dear?”

  Finley had no interest. Especially when her father sat up straight again, a mixture of blood and saliva dribbling down his chin. But she was playing a part and the woman Saevus wanted her to be would agree without hesitation. He was privy to how cruel her father was to her. Everyone was.

  Finley sucked back any feelings she may have had for the man in front of her and nodded. Saevus handed her the remote. She and her father locked eyes one final time before she pressed the button.

  This time when Stuart’s head collapsed it did not come back up.

  Finley and Saevus waited.

  “Father?” she said.

  Saevus grabbed Stuart’s hair and pulled him upright. The man was still there, breathing and bleeding, but the life behind his eyes was gone.

  He was completely blank.

  “Oh dear. I guess they were right. It does only take three.”

  “What?” asked Finley.

  “All test subjects have ended up in this strange mental state after three shocks to their brain. Not a vegetable, exactly, he’ll still be able to walk and listen, but he can no longer contribute much to society.”

  “You intentionally made him like this?”

  The president smiled. “Not me. You. I only pressed the button twice.”

  “But -”

  “Guards, come in here.”

  The two guards stationed outside of the conference room door entered.

  “Please escort Mr. Scout to the dungeons.”

  “Yes, my president,” they said in unison.

  As Stuart was propped on his feet, he began to scream. There was nothing malicious about it and he wasn’t struggling. He was just screaming for the sake of it. Maybe he saw something behind his clouded eyes, possibly that dragon he spoke of, but Finley would never know.

  “Sir, I understand he failed to catch the remaining Outsider, but isn’t this too much? You’ve lost so many Guardians recently,” said Finley.

  “Unworthy. All of them. Your father embarrassed me and, now, he never will again.”

  Her throat ached. It was a funny feeling, being one of the two hands to condemn her father to a fate worse than death. The fact that she had hated him did not make her feel any better about it.

  Saevus watched her curiously. “Were you hoping for death?”

  “Not by my hand,” she answered honestly.

  “I will keep that in mind when I finally dispose of him.”

  Finley gulped and nodded.

  “Enough of that.” Saevus tossed Stuart’s Element onto the floor. “Out with the old and in with the new. I’ve brought you here to have a serious discussion about your future.”

  “Does it involve filling my head with monsters and driving me insane?”

  His mouth twitched. “Not if you play your cards right. Actually, I want to discuss my son.”

  “Oh.” Finley tried to hide her surprise. She could still feel the boy trembling in her arms while his mother was brutally murdered mere feet from him.

  “Yes. I believe his name is Ronan, though I don’t much care for it. He’s young and should be easy to mold, but I fear he may have some of the delusional idealism of his mother engrained in him. Therefore, I think it would be best to erase her from his mind entirely.”

  “And how would you do that?”

  “By offering him a replacement.”

  This time, Finley could not hide her surprise.

  “As I see it, there are only two Guardians the right age to be my second wife and a mother to my son.”

  A wave of dread rushed through her.

  “While Lona is conventionally more beautiful than you are -”

  A pang of jealousy tugged inside of her but she pushed it aside. Matter at hand.

  “- her mere presence irritates me, and if I’m going to commit to this it needs to be with someone I can stand.”

  “What a romantic proposal,” said Finley, unable to contain herself.

  Saevus just gave her another one of those wicked smiled. She wanted to claw it right off of him.

  “Come now, Finley. We both know marriage has nothing to do with love and romance. Look at your parents.”

  Something stabbed at her heart as she thought of her mother again.

  “Look at my first marriage.”

  “Yes, I’ve seen firsthand how you treat your wives,” said Finley.

  “Only those who betray me,” said Saevus. “I do hope you wouldn’t be quite so foolish.”

  “Of course not, sir.” She paused and took a breath. “But -”

  “I don’t suppose your hesitance has anything to do with Atticus Ruby.”

  She stiffened. “What -”

  “I have it on good authority that the two of you have been to each other’s residences quite often lately.”

  Not by choice, she thought. “Does that mean you’ve been tracking my movements with cameras, like Xander.”

  “Nonsense. I had my guards track you for me.”

  It was unclear if that was supposed to make her feel better.

  “It makes sense. Jilted by the one you love, you’ve decided to seek solace in the arms of the person who most resembles him.”

  Finley’s insides cringed but her exterior remained calm.

  “Why don’t you go to him now?”

  An odd excitement fell upon Saevus. His expression was both delighted and conniving. She had to admit, she was curious about what he was getting at.

  “Discuss it with him. I’ll give you until this evening to make a decision.”

  Finley stood. “Of course, sir.”

  She headed for the exit but was quickly stopped by the call of her name.

  “If you’re a good wife, I may even let you enjoy Xander from time to time once he’s under my control.”

  Finley closed her eyes, her heart aching as she thought of the teenage boy she’d once loved s
o deeply. “I have no interest in touching that filth ever again.”

  A lie, of course, but not in the way Saevus was suggesting. While she told herself she was happy Xander had finally discovered he was capable of love, it killed her to know that she wasn’t the one to make him realize it. For years she had tried and for years she had failed.

  Finley left Saevus’s conference room and then his tower. While walking toward Atticus’s house, she called Lona and asked her if she wanted to come over for dinner later. It was simply meant to inform her that she was, in fact, alive but Lona accepted the invite. She guessed that meant she was cooking for two that night.

  Atticus’s wave Ezra answered the door. He always smiled at her in a way she’d never seen a wave smile before.

  Ezra led her to Atticus’s study and opened the door.

  Inside, Atticus was sitting at his desk, wearing a pair of glasses as he flipped through a journal.

  Atticus glanced up as the door closed. It wasn’t until his gaze moved sideways that Finley noticed he wasn’t alone. The woman from the night before, the one who’d tried to pretend Ronan was hers, was sitting on the seat below the bay window, her red-rimmed eyes wet as she clutched a half-empty bottle of whiskey.

  “What’s she doing here?” asked Finley.

  “Wenton expressed an interest in her last night, so I requested her companionship until further notice,” explained Atticus. “Since I’ve never asked for a slave before, the president was more than happy to oblige.”

  The woman stared at them, looking both fearful and defiant.

  “And the whiskey?”

  Atticus looked back down at his journal. “She didn’t want to read. She didn’t want to eat. It was the one thing she did accept.”

  “Did you maybe tell her you weren’t going to rape her?” snapped Finley.

  “I didn’t bring her to my bedroom so I thought it was implied,” he drawled.

  Finley marched over and tore the bottle from the woman’s hands. She bent down and said, “The Resistance knows you and your friends have been captured. On the chance that they attempt a rescue mission, I suggest you stay sober.”