When the next day came, sun high over the horizon, the door of Leah's tower was opened.
She tried to sleep. She really did. But every time she closed her eyes all she could see was the dungeons, Ryan getting tortured with scalpels, water and being covered in gallons of his own blood, never allowed the escape of death.
She couldn't see him like that, so she kept her eyes open, letting everything around her keep her occupied until the Viceroy entered the room.
With a quick introduction and order to get properly dressed, he awaited Leah outside. She didn't really know what he meant, at first, so she just put something else on. Maybe he didn't like the colour or something? She didn't really care. Leah went to the door and was led down the stairs, her head spinning long before they got to the ground.
"What's happening?"
"There's something that Boss wishes to show you."
"Why?" She asked. "He's never cared before."
"Well that wasn't entirely his fault."
Leah's voice became bitter. "He put me in a soldier's camp and didn't flinch for a second to flog me or-or throw me in the damn dungeon!"
"That was for your own good. Besides, he couldn't be biased."
"Excuse me, he still could've- could've- look it's not about that. Just acknowledging me would've been nice."
"He did. He gave you certain... priorities."
"Priorities?! Is that what you call them?"
"That is what I made sure to give you, food and extra blankets."
"That's complete bull-"
"Hold your tongue!" He stopped in his tracks, facing her ferociously. "You will show respect in Boss' palace."
"Respect is earned." Leah muttered, words echoing from Heather. "Not bought."
"Perhaps you should consider how much your little friend in the dungeon is worth. Maybe then you will be wiser to keep quiet."
For a second her blood froze at the thought of him. Each nightmare coming back and slapping her violently in the head several times before making that guilt come back. Twice as strong. Leah didn't dare let it show, bottling it all within her. Along with the hate and the anger, following Viceroy quietly to wherever they were to go.
****
She was pushed into a place that she didn't know. One which had corridors as rich as the room she was in the night before, all around her it was unfamiliar and unnerving. Paintings of past heroes and kings and queens peering down at her. She continued to follow the Viceroy, trying to understand what was going on. She had so many questions, and she was hoping that at least she would get a few of her answers.
They entered one final door - this one different from all others. Not from how it looked, but how it felt when she went through.
"Ryan." she cried.
Behind a thick pane of glass, she could only watch helpless as Ryan was strapped at a table. There was whiteness was everywhere, sterilization and surgical tools. Just as he was in there, she was stuck in some sort of viewing room.
One which had tables and chairs, comforts and refreshments, but she wasn't using them. She was up against the window, her hands pressed onto the glass. Wanting to punch through with just her fists if she had to, just to get to him, to get him out.
She kept calling out his name, knocking her hands on the glass to get his attention.
But then she saw it. Saw the completely white eyes that replaced his light brown ones, the pale skin that seemed unnaturally grey. And the growls. The inhuman, unnatural sounds that she knew so well, but couldn't believe were coming out of his mouth. He wasn't responding to any words that she was saying. Or even recognising her face. Because he was already gone.
Leah couldn't breathe. "No..."
It wasn't him. At least not anymore. The infection had taken him over entirely and he was nothing but a mindless animal, grunting and screaming on a medical table. Surrounded by doctors who were barely able to control him... it.
"Ryan..." She barely breathed the name, the forgotten person that was so full of life two or three days ago. Gone in so little time. Tears were in her eyes and leaked from them. Her grief then switched to anger as she turned to the Viceroy, standing with such contempt that she could barely contain herself. "Why have you brought me here? To gloat? To prove that I've lost?!"
"Lost?" He asked. "To suggest that would mean to suggest that there was a chance that you might've won. Of which you yourself must've realised by now that there's none."
She didn't answer. It was too late, in any case.
"How far did you really think you would've gotten, Leah? After all you saw, all the people you knew, did you honestly think you would be able to hide forever?"
Again, it didn't need any words. She had too much pride to even shake her head.
"I must admit - Boss didn't see your escape coming. Nobody did, who would've thought a little servant like Heather would betray us in such a way. Running off with you and, what, seventeen of those little brats? Put us completely off production. Especially with those small bodies to clear up - quite the inconvenience."
Leah glared at him. Such hate could not be described, because she saw them. She knew them kids names and knew that they died with barely anyone to miss them. Nobody to remember them.
"You cannot escape who you are. Nobody can run from that."
"I could've- I should've run from this city. From everyone and you!"
"But you were too weak. You were looking after those petty orphans, and that witch Heather."
"Those petty orphans can have a future, more than the others you put in the morgue-!"
"They can. Perhaps in Boss' farms or mines, but not where they are now. Lazing away in that tiny shack."
"How can you do that?!" Leah was shouting now, at the world. At the world she wanted to change. "How can you just sit there and allow them to just starve and die?"
"Those children are assets. Investments. They are the reason that you have that tower, the reason there's still a modern society to speak of."
"I don't want that tower! I never wanted any of it-"
"He knows, Leah. He knows that you couldn't take what you were or your heritage, your destiny. So you ran from it. You ran like a coward."
"Fuck-"
"And with the help of that witch you were able to do it. To get away from who you were. At least, for a while."
"I thought... I wanted..."
"What, Leah? What could you possibly want out there which you haven't got right here?"
"Freedom!" Leah cried. "Out there I found a dozen kids who became my responsibility, a woman who was the best person I've ever known and I found Ryan! He showed me... He showed me what living was like." She turned back to face him, she became calmer, suddenly. Braver by the very memory of him. The deadman that was once her friend, her voice becoming a silent breath, of which could barely be heard. "And what I need to do."
For a moment Viceroy listened to the words from Boss. His reactions barely changing except for the occasional rise and fall of an eyebrow. There was something happening, which Leah could tell, but she didn't care anymore. She just couldn't care.
Viceroy looked at Leah carefully, following the instruction from Boss; watching as her hand fell from the glass in defeat. Trying, but failing, to look away from the sight. Seeing as he did, he nearly couldn't believe what he was being told. In preparation he folded his hands in his lap, looking up at Leah with curious, determined eyes.
"What if you could save him?"
Leah turned around.
Viceroy looked at the length of his nails, acting disinterested in the conversation. "If you could save his life, would you do it? No matter what the price?"
"What... Can you?"
He tilted his head slightly. But he did not reply, waiting for her to answer his question.
For a second. She was silent, wondering what she would do if she could, her eyes twitched in deep thought. Going over the hope, the small, impossible hope that she'd been given. "D'you know how long we've been friends? Days. Not weeks or years, but just a couple of days. It's enough, sometimes. Enough to see if there's goodness in someone in so little time. And Ryan is better than anybody that I've met, better than all of you put together.
"So maybe I'm young. Maybe I'm some naïve bitch who can't see what's gonna happen no matter what. But I know that Ryan is the best part of humanity and I'll be damned to see him die like this. So yeah. Yeah I would save his life - because the price'll be nothing compared to what he's worth."
"And if it was you?"
She held her gaze with the Viceroy.
"If the price was to admit to the world what you were," He rose from where he sat, walking closer to her, intimidating her through height and impenetrable stare. "If you had to announce to every person you knew, each man, woman and child you'll ever meet. What if the price was your freedom?"
Leah could see it. See herself being trapped in a cage built by her own hands. Her worst nightmare come true and there would be no turning back. No running away. Because whoever she'd try to go to would simply bring her back, collect their reward and she would be trapped again. She would become a fairy tale, a princess forever stuck waiting for a happy ever after. A prince that writhed on a hospital bed, dying.
There was only ever one choice.
****
There was a deathly silence among them. Leah stayed at the glass, standing against it, not moving for a moment, not even considering it. The Viceroy was also interested, but not so intrigued by what was yet to come. He sat in the chair, quietly watching as the doctors gathered and began the procedure. Keeping his hand aloft in the air, pondering what was to come.
The vial of strange liquid sat on a metal tray, the creature writhing in his restraints. Those who were permitted inside were either brave or foolish - but they weren't interested in gaining fame in either direction.
Whether they lived or died their families would be provided for; at least for a few months more. The men and women readied themselves with quiet exchanges of looks and small, pointless words. Then they continued, holding down the specimen and taking the injection off the table.
All sounds that he made were ignored, all interruptions completely irrelevant. One held up the syringe to the light, flicking the tube and squirting a tiny amount out in the manner she was most accustomed to. There was a breath that all shared. One that stifled the lungs before the final, terrible plunge.
The liquid entered Ryan's veins and he resisted the injection profoundly, gargling at the doctors and growling as all deadmen do. There were no effects, nothing happened, he just howled louder, enough for the entire city to shake in retaliation.
But then he felt it.
He felt the coldness of the injection freeze him all over - he began to shake in his bonds, gasping for air, strange liquid escaping his mouth. there was no breath that escaped his lips, his eyes becoming cloudier as if age took him over. They all backed away but Leah came closer, wanted to go closer to somehow help him. Then, in his crooked position, with his limbs screwed in horrible directions, he stopped.
Everything inside him stopped.
The doctors immediately reacted with procedures long since stopped but never forgotten. Some shouted to others their actions, tightening their hands into fists, thumping the chest before them, squeezing air into his lungs. Others looked for adrenaline, something to somehow awaken him but there was none; of course there was none.
Some were stuck in shock at watching another unknown fluid to spill out of his mouth, like rabies from a wild mutt, ashamed at what fate they'd given the poor boy. They tried to save him, and a minute passed, Leah was thumping her fist on the glass, screaming at them, shouting at him to wake up. Tears were streaming, muscles were burning and her heart was sinking into the floor, she couldn't take it. She couldn't take it!
He did not.
As quickly as they had begun their resuscitation, they stopped, they gave up reluctantly. Angry at their incompetence, but then they paused again. They stepped back in their shock, for despite all their expertise, they could not explain what they were witnessing. The colour that returned to his cheeks, his muscles miraculously and impossibly hardening.
They then could see his chest. His chest that was still, that was completely stopped without any hope of restarting, rise again. He was breathing. It was impossible, but his vitals were stabilizing. He had restarted his own heart. He was... alive.
All were staring in shock or disbelief, others in fear. But Leah - she was beaming. She was smiling and almost in tears at seeing one of the few people she still believed in to not be killed. Not have his life so mercilessly stolen from him.
"You see, Viceroy?" She uttered in such complete happiness that to stop smiling was impossible. She turned with such an expression to his slightly surprised one. Almost impressed, she would say. "The good guys always win."
"We'll see."