A Collection of Ruins

Chapter 17 - Yesterday Hurt All of Us (Donny)

Donatella

It took her brother first.

A sweaty arm flung around her shoulders, warm laughter in her ear. "One day it will be your turn, and oh, how they'll chant your name – 'Donny the Determined'."

The fire flickered as the Fights finished, the light casting a warm glow over her brother's face.

They called him Gabriel the Good. They also called him handsome as heaven, with blonde hair and emerald green eyes. He had the pick of the lot, they said, but the only girl he ever picked was her. Her brother had made sure that where ever he went she had an invitation to, anything he did she could do too. It's where his nickname had stemmed from – Gabriel the Good, always looking after his sister. No one questioned it – to do so saw you immediately expelled from his circle, and everyone wanted in.

Her blonde hair spanned out, floating in the water, the sun hitting her golden skin as she floated there, on top of the lake. And then someone has grabbed her foot and dragged her under, she could swim, well, but she couldn't seem to remember how with all that weight crushing her, pushing her down. A strong hand grasped her arm and yanked until her head broke the surface. One of Gabriel's friends was there, holding her afloat. "Hang on, Don."

Her brother was running down the bank, another of his friends grabbed the perpetrator.

He wore an ugly sneer. "She deserves no better, daughter of a filthy traitor."

It didn't end too well for him after that.

They had never had parents, at least not one ones she could remember. They had been executed on the grounds of treason shortly after she was born. Despite their ugly heritage, maybe because of it, Gabriel strived to be a warrior. It was a surprise even to him when he was picked for the inner circle. She could see his knees tremor as he stood before Chris, no more than eighteen, back straight and head high, he was being offered a position – "...But only if Donny comes too."

She got to know Ellie when she was eleven, spending more time in their kitchen then she did in her own house. Her mother had been beautiful, fragilely so, smooth porcelain skin and so small, though it was clear that their rough and tough rebel leader loved her dearly.

She never strayed far from her brother's side, despite being the heart of their community, it was well known what their leader, could, and would do. And Ellie had just met Ronan, there was no room for Donny. Not yet.

She was twelve when the disease came, a blackness that had crept into the homes of families and left nobody behind to tell the tale. It had taken them five days before they even understood what was happening to them. That was how long it took to kill you – Donny knew; she had counted. Her brother had been an emissary, so well liked even those from the Met found he had no faults. Gabriel the Good had been the start of it all.

He had come riding home on his Sterilian horse, signalling his return from his latest trip to the Met. The girls had come out in droves to see him home, he gently laughed away their advances, like usual. But something was not right, she could see it in his eyes when they met hers. "Donny let's—"

It began with a fever, the first sign of infection, the wound weeping, failing to heal. For Gabriel it had been a small insignificant cut, he bit his nails, you see, when he was nervous and the skin on either side often tore. Small or not, it was still an open wound and with it he shook the hand of the wrong Met official. It appeared just to be an illness to begin with, for the first four days at least. On the fifth day the Met shut its wall. It had been in progress for years but in the four days after Gabriel's return the last touches had been added in haste and on the fifth day the wall had shut for good. Donny noticed because on that fifth day all that had been Gabriel had died. The whites of eyes showed, the emerald nearly completely eclipsed. His skin pale and clammy, his movements skittish, his voice a dull moan. She didn't kill him, even though he had tried to kill her, she wasn't strong enough for that. She doubted there was a person who was strong enough to kill Gabriel the Good. Instead he killed himself. As if in a moment of clarity he realised that what he had become and decided to end it, considerate even in death. Upon the news many other waited, trying to subdue and hold off their loved ones in case they had the same moment of clarity. None ever did, and everyone died in the attempt.

Donny had a thought, always a dangerous thing. And so recently abandoned she stole into the night, she knew the Met was to blame. She was the first Sterilian to see the wall in its completion, the first to notice the other smaller wall within it containing people with the same condition as Gabe. And she knew.

She took the news back to her recently abandoned leader, rumours flew as to his wife's whereabouts. It had been the twins who gave her new name, Donatella of the Dark. It had stuck, and so had they. They were near inseparable and were made inner circle together. She often came home to them already in it, or James in her bed.

James who was stalking towards her now, a thunderous expression on his face. She let out a laugh. "What has the 'wretched' city girl done now?"

"She's going to get him killed. I don't know what it is she inspires in him but the foolishness will get him killed."

"I can't think of a better way to go."

"Death from foolishness?" His voice was gruff.

"Not foolishness," she murmured her lips upon his, "it's hope, my love, and it's s better to die for it than live without it."

He sighed. "Donny—"

"Let's go home."