𝗮𝗹𝗹 𝘁𝗵𝗼𝘀𝗲 𝘄𝗿𝗼𝗻𝗴𝗲𝗱 / 𝗿𝗮𝗳𝗲 𝗰𝗮𝗺𝗲𝗿𝗼𝗻

twenty-one

"If thats what you want." He shrugs almost lazily, before reaching out and picking up the gun. Ward doesn't hesitate, he dosen't spare another thought before his finger clicks down on the trigger, and she flinches, but she isn't sure why. "Right, I forgot this wasn't loaded." He laughs and puts the gun back down, sliding it towards her. "You can keep that, but I hope you understand I'll be taking this." He pockets the knife, covered in dried blood, and she knows she won't ever see it again.

A part of her is grateful, and truthfully, she doesn't ever want to.

Her finger tips brush over the gun, and Valerie briefly wonders what it would feel like to throw the weapon right back at him, right at his head. What kind of sound it would make as it smacked against his skull, if it would break his skin and his blood would splatter across the table and onto her face, landing on top of Peters.

Dried blood mixing with fresh blood.

But she doesn't, as much as she enjoys the idea, she knows she can't. So instead she replays the scene over and over again in her head until it almost feels real, and settles for that.

Valerie knows that keeping the gun is a joke to him, amusement even gleams in his eyes as he watches her pick it up.

How she'd spent the past two weeks carrying it around with her everywhere, keeping it close like it was a means of survival, when he knew this whole time it was useless. But the thing is, despite how angry she feels slipping it back in the waistband of her pants, she knows shes taking a step ahead of Ward that he won't see coming.

Because she has three bullets waiting back in her room for her, should fit most standard guns, Rafe had told her.

He wouldn't leave a loaded gun lying around. But if you find an unloaded one. . .

It felt like a win lodged somewhere in a field of losses. So she tried to look for the bright side, but it was hard to find.

"Well I guess now that this is all over, I'll just kill your brother." Her head snapped right to Ward, and she met his eyes. But this time he wasn't laughing. "Or maybe Rafe." He pauses, thoughts passed through his eyes but none of them confirmed the one thing she was hoping; this is a joke.

He was serious. And just when she thought nothing, absolutely nothing could be worse than this, "Actually, how about you pick?" He hums. "Rafe or your brother?"

"You'd kill your own son?" She fires back. "To what? Prove a point? To get back at me? What are you five?"

"Brother it is then." He grins, shoving himself up from his seat and rounding the table. He seems angered by her unwillingness to participate in his game, and within moments decides if she will not, he will just have to force her. "I'm trying to teach you a lesson. Your actions have consequences, you can't just go around killing people, Valerie." He wraps a hand around her arm and pulls her up from her seat.

"And you can?" She snaps back.

"I can do whatever I want." His voice is close to her ear as he speaks low, dangerously, and drags her out of the room and down the hallway. And as much as she hates the entitlement of each word he speaks, she knows he isn't wrong.

That with every camera, every guard, every gun, every person held over her head, he can. He will. And he has.

Theres too much truth to his words when he leads her into a familiar room, and she knows she's being taken to her brother.

He's going to make her watch.

The first thing she sees when they enter the sitting room is the door. The irony of him keeping her brother in the same cell she was once kept in herself doesn't fail to itch her brain in all the wrong ways, and even though she tries not to let him, he continues to press all of her buttons and make her tick.