[ 9 ]
Ruby got up from her chair in the darkened room and told her older sister, "I can't let them do this alone, Violet. I want to go with them."
Her eyes were puffy from all the crying and her face was wet with tears. With her pale face, crimson eyes and red velvet colored hair, Violet always thought Ruby was the prettier one of the Raine's two daughters. Ruby had also the advantage of having been born a red head. In Vesperia, social classes were solely based on hair color. The province where the Raine's lived, being the most poor, was filled with violet haired people. Those who were red haired were higher up and treated better. The reds, like her and Dieter, lived in the nicer part of town.
But in that moment, she was a crying mess. Unlike the perfect red she always was.
Ruby was one year younger than Violet was and she was more attached to their mother. Violet was always her father's favorite girl and she wanted to die with them as well, but she also wanted to protect her sister from all harm. If her parents wanted them to hide, she would try to keep her sister alive. She could not let her turn herself in too. After that day, they would only have each other. At least until they could find Indigo. He and the other rebels would help them. They had to. Her parents had given their entire lives to the cause.
With all her strength, Ruby pushed Violet away and started climbing up the ladder to join them back on the surface, tears streaming down her face all the while. Violet quickly followed behind her and tried to stop her. She tried to reason with her in whispers, tugging on her leg to keep her from going any further. "Ruby, don't!"
"Let me go, Violet!" She said rather loudly, trying to get them caught by the soldiers of the Vesperian army who were in Violet's bedroom. "I want to go with them!"
They both heard the soldiers shuffling around the room and muttering to each other with confusion, looking for the sound of their voices. They finally opened the closet just as Ruby was moving the floor boards aside so that she could get out.
"What do we have here?" Cade Hood, general from the Vesperian army smirked at the sight of Ruby and Violet. The kind-hearted boy who saved her in the forest was no longer there, not found in his dark brown eyes. In front of his legion he was replaced by a confident, arrogant, and smirking young man who was loyal to the crown. He would not let anyone get in the way of his mission.
Cade Hood was the king's closest and most trusted friend.
"Little Ruby and Violet Raine. King Hemmings wants you two in his palace for some special treatment tonight." He told them with amusement seeping through his words.
His soldiers quickly pulled the two girls up to ground level and Violet searched around the room for her parents, hoping they were still alive. She could barely breathe past the lump in her throat that was caused by her current grief. She wanted to cry, and scream, and fight back. But in that moment she seemed to be paralyzed with fear. There were so many of them, and any attempts would be futile. When she found her parents, they were sat on the bed, bounded and gagged, she felt a sharp pang on her chest because she knew it was all over for them. This was the last time she would ever see them alive and she couldn't hug them or tell them how much they mean to her.
General Hood looked Violet over, his eyes scanning every inch of her body. Violet wanted to hide, as the eyes of the other soldiers fell upon her too.
Like King Hemmings, Cade Hood was very young and handsome, a prodigy of the Vesperian Army. But the compassion and familiarity she had once found in his eyes was no longer there. Or maybe he was just doing a very good job in hiding it in front of his men. He was a smart young man who was good with war strategy and creating weapons of mass destruction, that was one of the reasons why the king had made him head of the army to fight the rebels even though he was only seventeen years old.
