Choose Wisely

Chapter Twenty-Six: Die For Love

West laced his fingers with mine, fitting into the grooves. I lay over the bed covers, next to him. It had been a long day of searching and fruitless, after it all. We'd collapsed into bed- still fully clothed- and the silence between us had been rife of all the things we couldn't say.

"What was Rachel like?" I asked him softly. I might have known her post-erasure but she had been twisted into a different person. I had never known the real Rachel like he had. I could never have known the real Rachel like he had.

"She was..." He lost himself in memory. "She was stubborn. Unbelievably so. Rachel looked past all the rumours surrounding my family and I; everyone knew about what my uncle and my mother and the gossip was vicious and relentless. She heard it, I know she did, but she ignored it. First time I met her, she struck up a conversation. I was so tired of people baiting me, I snapped at her that if she came too close, I might bite."

I smiled a little. "Is this where her stubborness comes in?"

"It is. Rachel waited until I'd done snapping at her and then simply asked if I had a bad day. I told her it had been a bad month and then... we just kept talking. Rachel was sweet but stubborn, gorgeous but unwilling to admit it. She was unhappy with her Choices: they weren't bad but the two of them were practically illiterate. Writing their names down for them would have been a group effort."

"So this is when you swooped in with your literary skills," I teased, though I was caught up in the story. "No wonder she fell for you."

"Well between my infamous status in the district and my ability to write my name without scratching my head several times," West rejoined. "I was a winner, for sure."

"This is how you woo women then," I said. "You waltz up with a bad reputation and carve your name into their hearts. That way, you leave your mark."

"I didn't write anything on your heart," he said. "Your name was already written on mine. You marked me the time you chose me. If I die tomorrow, the autopsy will open me up and see it there, digging in so deep, it's a wonder I didn't die sooner."

"Maybe they'll say you died for love."

West turned, pressing closer to me, his lips intent on holding me prisoner. "What a worthy cause to die for."

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I woke up in the delictums. The cell bars framed my vision of the outside and the stench of something rank forced its scent on me as I shifted to a sitting positon. The slippery, grimy wall was at my back but I was too sore to move away from it. Everything in here was an ode to older times: you would have thought the prisons would have been updated.

But they liked to keep us in the dark. It wasn't like we could have escaped anyway.

Memories flashed back at me: fragmented, broken. Pain. Screaming his name. West.

He'd been knocked unconscious first, but brutally, his head knocking against the ground as I'd screamed. I'd dropped down beside him but Father had dragged me back up, forcing me to inhale the poison that had seeped through my limbs and snatched away my resolve.

Daniella had told me she'd next woken up in the facility that would later take the torturous time to drive the right thoughts into her brain. So why hadn't I?

Fear- not for myself, but for West- seized me in its jaws.Where was he? I tried to look around the cells near me, my hands gripping the cell bars as I scanned desperately. But with my limited scope, I could barely see anything. My fear only grew and soon, I felt incapacitated by it.