Chapter 23

Chrome

My cheek pressed against the cold cement floor of the interrogation room. Every orifice and pore in my body screamed from my punishment while I lay sprawled in broken silence. My stunt on the playground had earned me a more severe punishment than I ever anticipated.

As it turned out, I awakened my Kinetic half when I touched the princess today. The king and my mother shared mixed feelings about it. My mother was all too jubilant now that I could wield an unbelievable amount of magic at their disposal; the king, however, was irritated because it awakened the princess’s powers—which wasn't on his terms.

The king unleashed his unrestrained fury on me for exposing my magic at the human school. He didn’t hold back with either fists or magic, whether it was his own or commanding someone else’s.

And then, he introduced another form of torture.

Grim.

Not only did Grim hold the ability to cancel out magic, depravity seeped from his breath, but in ways no one else knew about. My stepfather had no limits when it came to torture. And his task was not only to break me mentally, but to physically break me in a way no one should ever be ruined.

Hot, angry tears leaked from my eyes. My body ached in places I didn’t know could hurt in such a way. Violated wasn’t even the word to completely describe how I felt as an icy numbness latched its claws into my heart, similar to the phantom feeling of Grim’s grip as he pinned me down.

I lay broken and twisted at odd angles. My mind shattered as I tried to comprehend what I had just experienced. The black band on my wrist mocked me, knowing I couldn’t move to remove it. Why couldn’t my magic have stepped in to help me now? Why did it want to break past the bracelet’s suppressant to protect the princess?

I needed it now. But it failed me.

I wouldn’t give Grim the satisfaction of seeing me suffer. Never once did I make a sound during his assault. Instead, I found myself in a world I didn’t believe existed, with a little Kinetic Princess whose fire in her eyes spoke more than her actual words.

After he had finished, Grim stood up and adjusted his clothes, his belt buckle snapping into place with a sickening click. His last words, before leaving me alone and destroyed on the interrogation room floor, echoed in my ears. “Since you’re so fucking powerful, figure out how to heal yourself from this with the bracelets on…you little half-breed shit.” Spitting at my broken body, Grim turned and strode out of the room as if this was just another day and it was just another regular beating.

“Well? Did you do it?” I heard my mother’s hardened voice on the opposite side of the metal door seconds after he left the room.

Grim scoffed. “Of course, I did. He submitted. His will to fight is gone, and he is ours to control.” Hearing the pride oozing from his voice had a bout of nausea slamming into me so hard. I vomited onto the stone floor beneath me, still unable to move.

“Good,” she said. “Now, hurry up and remove his bracelets so he can heal. Otherwise, he’s useless to us.” The clicking of her heels disappeared down the corridor, and seconds later, Grim returned.

With his sneering scowl in place, he squatted beside me. “Act out of line again, and this will be your punishment from now on. You are ours. We made you. We can just as easily end your existence. Don’t forget it.”

I knew all too well what he meant a la the history of my conception. My body wasn’t mine to control. My mind wasn’t mine to control. My emotions weren’t mine either. I was their weapon. Theirs to be wielded at their disposal.

I wasn’t sure how much time had passed since Grim had left the interrogation room after having removed the bracelets so my body could heal. It could’ve been hours, or it could’ve been minutes. I didn’t care.

I didn’t even feel like a person—more like a ghost—as the real me had died hours ago at Grim’s hands.

The door squeaked open, breaking the silence of the cold room. “Chrome?”

Peri. “Go away.”

“Chrome, are you okay?” Her frantic voice came closer, as did her running feet slapping against the floor.

My baby sister wasn’t supposed to see me like this. I was her protector. A warrior. “Just go back, Peri,” I answered in a dead tone, keeping my eyes glued to a spot on the wall ahead.

“Chrome. You gotta get up. King Forest is coming down here soon. He can’t see you here like this.” Peri grabbed my hand and tried to pull my weight.

“It’s fine, Peri. Just go. You shouldn’t be here.”

“Chrome. You’re not getting it. He’s coming down here with someone else,” she said, which made me finally meet her hazel eyes.

“Who?”

“I can’t tell you. I shouldn’t even know. I overheard Momma tell Dad. And when I realized you still weren’t back yet…” Her eyes scanned me, concern wrapped in her eyes. “What happened to you?”

“Don’t worry about it. I’m getting up,” I said, pulling my hand from hers and pushing myself to my feet on shaky arms. The pain was gone, but I winced anyway.

“Come on,” Peri said, tugging me after her. We ran past the prisoners in the cells, ignoring them as we went, then stepped into the elevator. Looking at each other, we breathed a sigh of relief that we hadn’t run into anyone yet.

We reached the second to top floor of the King’s Palace, where our suite encapsulated the entire area. Once inside our home, Peri and I scanned the space for any sign of my mother and stepfather’s presence. They seemed to be absent, so she tugged me after her into her room where she closed the door and leaned against it. “Are you okay?” she asked again.

“I’ll be fine, Peri. Promise.” I offered a weak smile in an attempt to convince her, but she didn’t buy it given the deadpan expression she shot me.

“What happened today?” she pushed further.

I pressed my palms into my eyeballs in some sort of effort to rid the day’s events. “I don’t want to talk about it. The less you know the better. You’re only eight.” I released a sigh.

She stomped her foot, garnering my attention. A fierce little scowl planted on her face and arms crossed over her chest. “And you’re only ten! Not much of a difference, Chrome!”

I rolled my eyes. I wasn’t really ten, and she knew it. At least, based on my experiences. Thankfully, she hadn’t been forced to grow up as fast as me. Unfortunately, regardless of how much I tried to protect her, she still witnessed and knew things she shouldn’t. And she was sharp in piecing stuff together at times. But she had my mother and Grim fooled, as they saw only a sweet, innocent, and naïve little angel. “I—”

My words were cut off by a tug on my heart, vibrating like a violin string just before I was slammed with a fear so intense it knocked me back a few steps. Panic. I gripped a hand to my chest, my heart pounding in a riot as I looked at Peri for answers that she had no way of knowing.

Peri’s big honey-colored eyes widened further as she rushed to me. “What’s happening?”

My lungs felt restricted. No air. My hands shook as I searched for a way out of the room. From what? I didn’t know. I only knew that I was in danger. As quickly as the fear struck me, a sense of deflation chased it away, leaving behind a hopelessness I was well-acquainted with.

Yet, there was still a tiny fire burning within. A small flame that flickered out during Grim’s assault. That’s when I realized, these weren’t my emotions. How could they be? Everything was numb now. Frozen and accepting of the life that lay ahead of me.

So, if they weren’t mine, then to whom did they belong?

A slow simmer of power rose from the depths of my belly. It built and built until it consumed the desolation and fear. It blew through my veins like hurricane winds combined with high-voltage energetic waves, ready to explode.

As had happened on the playground, my feet remained planted to the carpeted floor. A vengeful, protective power was being forced to the surface. Just as it had been for me only a few days ago. This time, I experienced it as though it was second-hand, like an echo of the real thing but still potent all the same.

I could only think of the princess, and the pieces clicked into place.

Princess Gray was a hybrid like me. The king and my mother basically told me as much. They never told me who exactly was the other hybrid, only that they existed in the Royal Domain. Today proved everything that had transpired was due to both of our hybrid natures.

And the king was currently forcing her magic to awaken prematurely—like they had with me.

And if the princess was as powerful as me, then what was stopping her father from sending Grim to control her as well?

I had to protect her at all costs. It was an instinctual drive that I couldn’t explain…I just had to.

The memory looped in my head as Gray and I pushed deeper into the woods. Neither one of us had said much as we both needed to process everything that had happened back there with the bear.

Every touch of Gray’s presented me with a new vital memory. Sometimes, it didn’t involve her, but the ones that did had me reeling. The twisted nature of it all was that I had no way of knowing whether she knew of these events or not. The king did have ways of erasing memories, so it wouldn’t surprise me.

“When did you say your magic awakened?” I asked, breaking the silence.

Gray’s brows pinched together in confusion. “When I was thirteen. Why?”

I shook my head and sighed. “No reason. Just double-checking.”

The familiar vibrating tug on my heart jolted again as a strong wave of suspicion washed over me. Confusion, too? Gray’s lips were pushed out as her eyes narrowed ahead while stepping over sticks and limbs in the woods.

Her emotions. I still felt her emotions.

With my returning memories, I remembered that I’d always felt them. Parts of my past were still murky, just out of my reach in a dark fog. I recalled all the times since I was ten years old where I would be struck with her intense feelings out of the blue—but only if I was in her vicinity.

Especially when it came to Slate’s death.

How much of the anger I felt during my mental spiraling belonged to me? The darkness? Or was it Gray’s? The night of her escape and my fight with the Guild crossed my mind. I’d been close enough to the Palace to sense it. Savage rage gripped me after she had just discovered her father’s attempt to kill her. That begged the question, did that rage ever truly belong to the darkness to begin with?

My thoughts went into a tailspin as we continued to walk through the woods. More pieces of my past clicked into place. I tried not to dwell much on the trauma, as I’d already healed those wounds years ago after my escape. It took many dark years to deconstruct everything I’d experienced as a child and teen. Had it not been for Orion and the Elementals, I would’ve succumbed to the affliction long ago. Besides, the madness left the traumatizing memories for me to dwell in while leaving none of the beautiful connections or moments for me to hold onto.

My mind latched onto the most pressing concern. Should I tell Gray that I had always felt her emotions when nearby since that day on the playground? She was only beginning to trust me. To reveal something that could be perceived as a personal violation could undo that. Too much was at risk. And now, it seemed my sanity depended on her nearness, which threw in another factor.

That thought alone made me nauseous. I didn’t want to be dependent on her for my sanity. How fair was it to her to have that responsibility on her shoulders? On top of our realm’s fate resting in her palms.

It wasn’t.

I couldn’t do that to her. Not now. She already had too much to process. In the meantime, I’d work to block out her emotions to preserve her privacy.

“We need food.” I scanned the woods, listening for any disturbances in the nearby wildlife.

Gray’s stomach grumbled in agreement, causing a small smirk to twitch on one side of my mouth. “So, we hunt,” she said.

“I’ll hunt. You rest,” I said without thinking.

“Excuse me?”

Gray stood to my left, her notable scowl casting an icy glare at me, the one that always sent a thrill racing through me. “Problem?”

“I can hunt just fine.” Her words were clipped through her clenched jaw.

I raised my brows, my smirk growing. “Oh, you think this is because you’re a woman that I automatically assume you can’t hunt, hm?”

Gray continued to glare at me.

“Well, I’d hate to burst the horrible image you have concocted of me in that brain of yours, but you need rest. You haven’t had a chance to recover since the redfern poisoning.”

It wasn’t a complete lie, but it wasn’t the entire truth, either.

Gray scoffed and relaxed her stance. “I’m fine.”

“Are you? Because the dark circles under your eyes beg to differ,” I quipped, raising a brow. With each encounter, I watched exhaustion wear her down further and further.

“I’m not too tired to kill an animal.” A visible wince on her face said it all. She didn’t want to kill an animal—even for food.

My face fell from the softening in my heart at the realization. She was trying to prove herself to me, even though she had already far surpassed any expectations I’d ever held for her.

In a tone softer than I typically used, I said, “I know you could if you needed, but I’m offering to take the load off you. So, let me.”

Gray wrapped her arms around her midsection as she probably fought an inner battle of wills with herself on whether she ought to push the issue with me or not. But at last, she dropped her shoulders with a nod, “Okay,” she muttered, and the weight of the exhaustion pressed her down in defeat.

After Gray and I set up a temporary, makeshift campsite in the small clearing, I set off deeper into the woods, creating markers to find my way back. I knew where we were—as I chose it strategically—to be close enough to the rendezvous point, but it couldn’t hurt to be careful.

If all went well, Onyx should be waiting for my arrival. We weren’t far from the Hollow, only another half-day trek on foot before reaching the town of Perry. The plan was routine.

When we left for separate missions, we usually met up at specific checkpoints at designated times, to ensure both of us remained alive, while also gathering any new information that could be useful along the way. I missed the last checkpoint due to Gray tailing me, so I could imagine Onyx’s relief upon seeing me at this particular one.

Approaching the deadened pine tree marked with two pieces of metal pinned into the trunk in the shape of an X, I spotted my friend leaning against the bark, his back facing me.

With intention, I stepped on a stick, causing the snap and rustle of leaves to sound beneath my boots. Onyx spun around, his dagger out and aglow. “Holy shit.” As expected, his shoulders sagged in relief, and a smile pulled at the edges. “Thank fuck.”

Suddenly, big arms snatched me into a hug, patting my back, to which I returned. I was genuinely happy to see him, especially now that I remembered the valuable friendship we shared. A brotherly love for my friend swarmed my chest as a grin broke free. Relief washed through me, realizing I no longer ran on autopilot. I could actually feel.

“Dude, where were you back in Covington?” Onyx released me and took a step back to examine my state.

“I got caught up. Had the princess tailing me for three weeks in preparation to kill me on the king’s orders. I couldn’t lead her to you,” I explained.

Onyx cocked his head to the side. “And where is she now? Do you have her? Is she alive?” Uncertainty laced with an edge of fear crept into his voice with each word.

“She’s alive,” I assured, then chuckled at his hysterics. “She’s back at the campsite resting. It’s been an ordeal for her, so I insisted on hunting down dinner for the night.”

Onyx nodded in understanding and relief. “Good. It’s been years since I saw her last. It’ll be cool to have another familiar face around the Hollow.”

I shared that sentiment with him. “Anything new happening with the militia?”

Onyx’s cheeks puffed up before he blew out a breath. “Not really. I ran some food supplies to them—as well as some clothes. Hogan said it should last for a bit.”

“Good,” I said and pulled out a buck knife. “You up for a hunt?”

Excitement and challenge lit Onyx’s amber eyes with mischief. “Fuck yes.”