Our Existence Is Scandal

✦39✦

TWO WEEKS BEFORE THE ESCAPE OF TEMPEST

"I thought I would walk you to your appointment today."

I looked up through my eyelashes, my ears not believing what I'd heard. But there he was, the golden boy himself standing outside my cell with a grin. He was no longer dressed in the worn out clothes I'd seen him wear for all of our relationship, I suppose he no longer needed to pretend that he was a poor human brought to Mars against his will.

Because technically he owned it.

The man I had fallen in love with was singlehandedly responsible for the genocide of my people and the child in my stomach.

Humiliated was not the word.

It didn't come close to the way I felt.

I sat in the middle of my cell, it was padded now, soundproof but everyone around me wore thick padding on their ears. My posture had greatly improved, considering I would rather die than lay my back somewhere, even laying down to sleep was painful so I was often sedated by someone who would come every evening.

Stars know what they were doing to me as I was unconscious.

The fight in me was gone, I always thought I would die in a struggle with a blade to my neck and bruises littering my body. I thought I would die honorably and bloody with a smile on my face as I cherished my memories of the planet taken to me. But it was now clear to me that I would die alone.

Left to wither away whilst my mind tortured me with the face of my child's father.

I was losing weight, I was losing feathers around my hairline and I was losing my sanity. But it didn't seem that anyone cared, no I was just wrapped up and put in a bigger cell. With more space for me to feel trapped.

And the one person I would have once begged to see was now in front of me, looking at him I swore I could still see my feathers underneath his fingertips when I squinted. My blood staining his hands that once held me so gently.

The door slid open, and he approached me, without a care in the world. I pressed my eyes together and took a deep breath before getting to my feet shakily. I learned pretty fast that if I refused to get up, they would still take me where they wanted me to go, just unwillingly.

My blood ran cold as his hands moved to touch my stomach, caressing it, "You look so beautiful."

I didn't even have it in me to give him a response worth opening my mouth for. I suspect he knew that, understood that I understood that I was out of options. He was always good at reading me, guessing what I was thinking. Leaning down he pressed his ear up against the stomach, "Ive seen all the pictures, but I haven't even heard the heartbeat yet. It's been driving me mad so I thought I'd tag along today."

It wasn't him asking me, no it was that he wanted to come so he was coming.

I followed him quietly out of my cells, waiting at the door for the guards to put my handcuffs on me but I was surpsied when Ambrose stopped them. "No no, Andre no put those away," He waved them off as if repulsed by them, "This is the mother of my child you know? No need for all that. She won't put up a fuss right?"