The Price of Protection

Chapter 31~ Shall We Dance

(Needs Editing)

MARIUS:

The last couple of days have been different. After I leave, her face drains of all emotion and she becomes very closed-off looking. She ends up making her way to the bed at some point and then sleeps for hours. I don't know what else to do-- I've been there every morning and allowed her and Quinn to spend an hour together daily. They typically spend half of that outside. The first day they had been out there, Quinn had tried to distract the guards so that Celine could run. Celine didn't even try... I, of course, warned Quinn in no uncertain terms, and loud enough so that Celine would hear, that if she tried again then she would be locked in her room to eat burnt toast for the remainder of her stay. She glared and mumbled something about choking me in my sleep much to my personal amusement.

Celine, though, doesn't even seem to care who is around her or where she is. Our mornings together have become quieter, even so, she has stopped sitting across from me quietly and now sits quietly on the opposite side of the sofa from me. She claimed it was because she "needed more room for her legs" but the glances she thinks I don't notice say differently. Other than that minor change, she is reserved and hopeless-looking at all times. I fear that her very soul is withering away before me and I can't fathom that thought-- for it is her very soul that continues to draw me in. To remove any semblance of my usual self and open a part of my mind that I didn't even know existed until she did. Her world seemed to swallow mine up and I was powerless against it. She may as well be a powerful enchantress from the books she reads with the effortlessness of her ability to completely envelop your thoughts so fiercely, that it truly feels as if I've been blessedly cursed with her some days.

At the moment, I still have much to do. There are too many moving pieces for so much of my mind to be entwined with Celine. If I don't solve this Mesrine issue in the next couple of weeks then the juggling act I've been doing with all of the moving parts of our plan becomes a violent tragedy. If I can manage to completely uproot the last facets of his enterprise then I will effectively render him powerless. This will not completely remove him as a threat but, short of killing him, I do not yet have an answer to that problem.

Remington:

"Go and see how she's doing, Remi!"

"Remington, has she eaten today?"

"Remington, I want an update on her asap!"

"If you make her more upset, I'll kill you myself!"

Between Marius and Quinn, I feel as if my job currently revolves around Celine and her wellness. That last one was Quinn this morning when Marius found me in her room for breakfast and told me to see if I could get Celine's darkness to break. The way he talks sometimes makes me question what year it is.

As I saunter uneasily up to her door, the a-hole that messed quinn up when she first arrived is in his usual place. Not moments after Celine had been escorted out of the dining room that first day, Marius had strode with a steely calmness around the room, his guards awating his next order. When he stood directly aross the table from the guard that had harmed her he paused, arms clutched behind his back and turned slowly with a far off gaze in his eyes. he only said, "Right. hand. red."

I remember my confusion as I stood silently, watching the scene. Marius hadn't even looked at the guard but it must've been a code for something because there was a sudden sickening crunch of bone and I whirled to see that the guard had taken his own firearm and brought it down on his own hand, breaking it. I wonder to this day, did he not hesitate out of fear? Loyalty and Respect? What causes that type of fealty?