Feared

Fifty-Three: Alterations

Charlotte took a step forward to help, desperate too to keep out of Ramsey's reach when James' panic hit her. She latched on to it, forcing James' fear over the room. Ramsey stumbled to a halt as James tried to fight her off. She moved towards Ramsey, keeping her distance, unsure if she had the hold she needed on him. James didn't see her as she approached him and seized the gun from his hand. She turned it on Ramsey. She didn't think. She pulled the trigger, the recoil of the gun jarring her somewhat. Yet the bullet never found home. It stopped in mid-air before Ramsey his gaze burning with a ferocity she had rarely seen before.

"Pathetic, Miss Owens," he growled. "But fitting perhaps. This is how Elmhirst was killed. The bullet fired and then Alexander sent it back". Charlotte gritted her teeth. "Poetic justice surely?"

The bullet rotated in the air and began to pick up speed, just as it had when she had faced Elmhirst. Charlotte felt James slip into unconsciousness and her alteration fail, just as the bullet flew through the air towards Charlotte. Pain exploded in her shoulder and she cried out, collapsing to her knees. Ramsey walked forward his hand held aloft. She could feel the bullet driving deeper and deeper into her flesh, the pain radiating through her entire body, blinding her.

"How you ever made it through Kingston I will never understand. Ill-disciplined and selfish. You ruined everything..."

Charlotte could feel his fear beginning to break through, cracking through the aura of nothingness he usually portrayed. "I brought an end to the cruelty... to the corruption... I gave you your freedom and this is how you think to repay me". Her voice was a tremoring whisper. The bullet felt as if it was burning a hole through her.

"Freedom?" he yelled and she felt his mask slip and the entire weight of his hatred and fear hit her. Her alteration moved as swiftly as her remaining strength allowed. Ramsey stumbled backwards, clutching his throat, his eyes bugging wildly, but her alteration had only started to sink its teeth into him when he had slammed down the barriers against her once more. Charlotte stumbled to her feet. Her left arm limp and immobile. Breathing hurt. Her lungs couldn't draw in enough air and her head swam with fogginess.

Ramsey reined in his fury, his face twitching horribly as he closed the distance between them in a few steps. He turned James' alteration on her once more. Her body locked in place, the muscles in her arm turning rigid. A pained cry escaped her lips, a pathetic, helpless whimper as he reached towards her.

To her surprise, Ramsay paused and frowned. Charlotte saw a moment of confusion, a distant ache of unease. "Please don't," she breathed. "Don't hurt me – please". She could see it again, and then she felt it, a distant resonance of familiarity. It wasn't Ramsey's hate for them, his fear of them, but something else, something far more potent. It was like a distant memory calling to her. "Please don't hurt me, don't... I couldn't bear it. Please..." Ramsey shook his head violently, as if trying to dislodge the unease that stilled his advance on her for the briefest moment.

Ramsey ran his hand through his hair, a habit not his, but belonging to the old James. The same gesture James had used when he was faced with bringing harm to her. Despite it being small, Charlotte could taste it, like water in the desert. She latched on. The room shimmered and she smiled. Scenes began to unfurl around them, vivid projections of James' worst memories.

"What are you doing?" Ramsey breathed. "You can't hurt me".

"No – but I can hurt James," she whispered. "The old James. The James you've clung to in your mind, because you think it will give you power over me. You may be able to hide your true self from me, but I know James' fear and it lives inside you, a poison eating at you".

One after another the worst moments between her and James began to unfold around them, too vivid and clear to ignore or dismiss, as real and painful as they were the first time they had happened; the explosion that had almost killed her as a child in the old school; the fights with Elmhirst; Bennett's heavy hand; defending Jun Lin in the Food Hall; facing her in the arena when he wouldn't shoot her; the detention halls; the moment he had sent her away; when she came back and was to be executed in the arena; when he saw how Ramsey looked at her...

"I'm not afraid of this," Ramsey growled. "This can't hurt me". She could feel panic and anxiety radiating from him.

"No, maybe not," she breathed, "but you can't touch me in here. In here you can't get my alteration, but that anxiety James' presence within you is creating, is making you weak. In here you can't tell what is real and what is not. This is my world". His defensive walls were crumbling beneath her alteration. She dragged his fear forward, the fear of her, of all of them, of his failure, of being nothing. He hated them for what they had destroyed and now he feared even more what she could do to him, the weakness and fear she was able to find within him. His panic washed over her, tainting the air and feeding her alteration. The more he tried to fight her off, the more his panic weakened his power, she could feel him beginning to break, beginning to fall apart. She could sense his struggle, his desperate need to get away from her attack.

And then beyond her alteration she felt the world rip apart. The room exploded, Ramsey using James' alteration to stop her in a last desperate attempt to save himself. Charlotte careened through the air. Her alteration tightened its grip on Ramsey, pressing upon him with all her might. Her human body didn't matter at that moment. She could hear his gurgled yells through the cacophony of destruction. They filled the space. They filled her head and heart.

Her alteration had almost crushed him, when she collided with the wall and was slammed into blackness.

Thanks again for reading! I hope you enjoyed this chapter and things are beginning to make sense! Please vote and comment before you go! I would love to hear what you're thinking after all of this! Sorcha x