Conform or Suffer

Chapter 3 Bones

A Year Later

*

Breaking glass startled Quig. He looked out of his Royal Moth Car's tinted window.

A man disguised in a black mask threw another rock into the brownstone's back window. He attempted to force his way into the garden room.

Quig's ex, Ann, clung to the man's side. "You lied to me. Why are you in disguise?"

The man mumbled something to her.

She punched him. "Leave her alone and go after me."

The man twisted her arm twice and crawled through the broken window.

Quig called his grandmother. "Nan-Gran, locate Yoleta. Tell her to send a security team over to the brownstone!" He ran out of his car.

Ann kicked the door open. "He is going to kill Grew-Ella's mother."

Quig rushed after the intruder, tears stinging the corners of his eyes.

Grew-Ella rushed in, and she tore off the man's mask

Quig covered Grew-Ella's mother's body with his own.

Trent pummeled Quig relentlessly.

"Leave them alone." Grew-Ella flew at him. Her hands reached out like claws.

Trent tossed her into a planter. "Grew-Ella, I'll send you to a workhouse or Kill Home if you don't leave."

"Don't touch them!" She struck him, but Trent barely budged.

Fragile bones in Quig's left-sided wing were crushed between Trent's fingers, and he screamed in pain.

Trent hacked off a piece with a switchblade from his pocket. He tossed a clump of feathers, muscles, and flexible bones, and it collided with a wall-sized glass window.

Quig scratched at his attacker's surgically enhanced elf ears.

Trent sprayed Quig with caustic repulsion spray, a type of mace, and both gagged.

Sticky, pungent sweat mixed with hair dye trickled over the side of Trent's cheek onto his chiseled chin, exposing patches of gray as he struck Quig in the back with a potted succulent. "Grew-Ella's mother must die. I'm taking her to the Kill Home to be executed for high crimes against the government. She'll be the second person I kill today. Maybe the third." Trent stabbed him.

Quig shielded Grew-Ella's short mother with his body, and he punched Trent in the knee twice. His bruised hands reached toward the warm light streaming over him, but his arms collapsed onto the broken tiles.

Grew-Ella smashed a vase displayed on the party table, and she clutched a sharp piece, stabbing Trent's muscled thigh. She stabbed him again, and the tip broke, leaving bits of blue and white porcelain embedded in his leg.

Quig couldn't hear Trent's thunderous screams because he lost consciousness.

A team of private medics and security officers rushed into the garden room, surrounding Trent.

"Who called you?" Trent asked.

Yoleta pointed to the moth-shaped badge on her black and pink silk uniform. The government's top executioner stepped closer to him. Each step of her gold-painted steel boots echoed through the air. "I wouldn't be here if Grew-Ella didn't edit my campaign speeches and her brother wasn't my lead bodyguard."

"Stay in your castle." Trent lunged at her, his fingers violently pressing into Yoleta's throat. He grabbed her pointed elf ears, but she overpowered him.

She wrestled him to the floor and wrapped cuffs and chains over his struggling wrists.

The lead medic brushed Quig's black hair out of his tear-filled eyes and strapped an oxygen mask over his face.

Quig stared up at Grew-Ella, and his mind drifted as thoughts about the other alternate versions of himself spread across the multiverse. 'Are they dying like me, or are they starting families?' His eyelids closed because of his misfiring brain.

"He appears to be half-elf and pixie. Does anyone know if he is allergic to pain relievers, consumed drugs, or took a hit of Truths and Lies Party Time Serum in the last twelve hours?" the lead medic asked.

A medic crouched next to Quig. First Day Trainee was imprinted on his uniform. "How does Quig's race determine what meds we give him? Aren't we all technically human?"

The lead medic pointed to Quig's wings and then to her own dragon wings. "There are genetic variations in all races. Even though most humanoids reproduce with each other, if you mix the wrong meds, you'll cut the blood supply to his healthy wing or kill him."

"Quig doesn't take party drugs. He's a gangly, straitlaced nerd," Trent said.

Grew-Ella reached out to her mother, Karen. "Mom, we can't lose him."

Karen's sprite wings were not feathered and dissimilar to Grew-Ella's. Her inflexible butterfly wings could not wrap around in a hug, so she used her arms. She was under five feet tall with freckled eyes.

A stepped over broken planters. Her gold boots imprinted in the dirt, and she lifted Quig's severed wingtip.

Yoleta rushed in and out with a jug of ice and handed it to the woman.

Trent struggled with the dark metal chains. "Yoleta, aren't you going to arrest Professor Grew-Ella?" Droplets of blood trickled down his leg and fell upon pots of roses and their wounded petals. "I deserve better and should have remained king."

"Sweetie, your former royal title is a joke. Grew-Ella only scraped your leg. You're lucky she didn't kill you. If Quig dies, I'll execute you." Yoleta kicked his injured leg.

Trent landed on the thorns of dying roses.

A medic approached Yoleta and pointed at Trent's bloody leg. "No, Yoleta, Professor Grew-Ella jabbed him deep into his muscle."

"Leave him here because it means sending another ambulance," Yoleta said.

"Don't leave me, old bat," Trent begged.

Yoleta pinched his cheek. "I'm younger than you and don't lie about my age. As the government's workhouse board executioner, I might slaughter you even if you're not sent to a Kill Home. If you plan to live, the prime minister must sign a blood contract to keep this among ourselves."

"Karen is a Kindness Rebel and spoke against our government." Trent lunged at Yoleta.

She pushed him away. "The Kindness Rebels are a political party, not an anarchist group."

Trent grunted in pain. "Being a Kindness Rebel should be illegal because I'm the former king."

Yoleta's mouth narrowed. "Your idiotic attack was about the money you stole from your ex-wives."

"Who told you? I bet it was Quig's oldest sister. She'll never delight us with another of her so-called enchanted visions anymore." Trent attempted to smile, but his eyes lowered.

"What did you do?" Grew-Ella asked.

"Never touched her," Trent said.

Yoleta grabbed his arm. "Sweetie, I'll make this vanish, but I require a deal that the prime minister and I won't try to assassinate each other. Did he send you to kill Karen?"

Trent said nothing.