"You didn't deserve it?" She scoffed. "You weremadefor it. Your training and the cause is the only reason youexist, you ungrateful little bitch."
I backed up a step, my heart in my throat and pain stabbing even deeper in my chest, twisting like the knife Vann had thrust into my stomach.
"Your life's been full of pain? Oh,boo hoo.You're a weapon, not a person. You're nothing more than a knife, an object to be picked up and directed towards a target. Nobody cares if a knife feels pain, so why should I sympathise with yours?"
I caught my breath, the cruelty hooking into a deep, vulnerable part of me. The part that hoped and dreamed of something better, that waited for a white knight to rescue me. The part that thought for years upon years that, if I was the best weapon I could be, the Origin would look on me favourably.
But she didn't care if I trained hard, or if I gave everything to the cause. I wasn't even a person to her.
This time, I knew for sure the fighting paused in spots around us, and I dared a glance away from the Origin to see some of the weapons had stopped their violent motions, hands flickering instead of solid colour. All their eyes were on the Origin, the betrayal, anger, and hurt I felt reflected in their eyes.
"We're the same," I whispered to myself, realising I'd been fighting my family, my cousins, maybe my brothers and sisters—the keepers didn't tell us the specifics of how we were related.
"We're the same," I said louder, drawing their narrowed stares. I weathered it with wide, blurry eyes and an unsteady bottom lip. "The only difference is I ran away. That's all I did wrong. These shadowkind brought me to the void because I killed one of them, like we werealltrained to do. This could have happened to any of you. And she'd have come to put you down, too."
Some of them shook their heads, eyes hardening, but others lowered their hands slightly, expressions confused.
"You killed a monster?" someone asked—a small, flame-haired woman I vaguely recognised from inspections.
I nodded, tears overflowing. "And then they brought me here. I thought they'd kill me, but they—" I stabbed my finger at the keepers. "They hurt me more than these monsters ever have."
"I don't buy it," a twenty-something man said, shaking his dark head. "It's bullshit; she's been brainwashed."
"Precisely," the Origin agreed.
The woman who spoke swallowed, her eyes shuttering as she silenced whatever she thought. Fear—I saw it in the tight line of her posture, in her grey eyes—the same colour as mine. Another reminder that we were all one big, fucked up family.
No one would agree with me as long as the Origin was here. They were all too scared.
"We don't want to hurt anyone," I said, knowing I'd already lost whatever persuasion I'd managed to gain. "I swear. We just want to be left alone. We're not going to hurt you. Please just—just leave usalone."
"Don't listen to her delusional ramblings," a tall, stocky keeper barked, and I shrank back instinctively, so many memories flashing through my head that I forgot how to breathe right.
"Hala!" Mav shouted, a warning that came too late.
I'd flinched away from the keeper, but in my thoughtless panic, I backed closer to the Origin. I only realised how close she was when a cloud of steam slammed into my side and a ruthless hand grabbed my arm, spinning me to meet her snarling face.
I knew she was angry at me talking to the other weapons, but I hadn't realised quite how furious she was. I saw it now, even through my tears. Her lips were white, her face taut with rage, and her eyes blazed with pure, undiluted murder as she burned her handprint into my skin.
I wrenched away, my breathing ruptured to pieces and a howl between my clenched teeth. Before, she'd burned me with glancing touches and swift hits, but now, as she held on…
"Insolentbitch," she hissed, and released me. I clutched my arm with a sob, hunched over, shaking, unable to think of anything but the screaming pain. I'd only experienced small burns before today, but this went deep, spread far, and it wasunbearable. I couldn't do this anymore. I wanted to lay on the floor and weep.
I can’t—I can’t—
"This is what happens to disobedient weapons," she said, as cold as winter.
There was no fight left in me, nothing to give me strength as the Origin flicked her hand and a blistering storm of steam hit me as hard as a solid wall.
My feet were ripped from under me and my agonised body flew through the air, completely weightless. I screamed until my voice broke, my whole front covered in searing mist, burning deeper, spreading damage further until I started to disconnect from my body, the pain too much to process.
I barely felt when I slammed into something solid and rock-hard, slumping against the base. Completely ruined.
26
My tongue was coated in blood, and a smear of blurring grease across my eyes blotted out the room around me. I processed everything through a dense filter of pain; my ankle was twisted but it didn't hurt as badly as the deep, open wounds on my arms. My whole front was covered in red, blistered flesh, throbbing and screaming. I took short, shallow gasps of air, but even those agitated my burns until the room went black for long seconds.
But my hearing, even fuzzy, was still intact. And the sounds that met my ears made my whole body lock up. Fighting, struggling, grunts of pain—a swift reminder of who else was in this room. Who else was fighting for his life.