Chapter 12
Negotiation
"What do you mean it's none of my business!?" I shouted, fists clenching into tight balls.
I heard the table creak as if it was about to snap in two, and took a deep breath, trying to calm myself down before I broke everything in sight.
"I have every right to know. I'm just as much one of you as everyone else!" I tried again, my voice lower but still not disguising the white hot raged that flowed freely through my body.
"No Kaylee, you are not." Akshana said tiredly, rubbing her temples. There were dark circles under her intense eyes as she leaned against the table and crossed her arms over her small chest.
"Just because I've permitted you to advance in your training here does not mean you are a citizen. You did not grow up here, you are not accustomed to our ways, and you're far too immature."
"This isn't about whether or not you deem my maturity level fit for your high class standards of living in a glorified ditch!" I spat, and her head snapped back, eyes narrowing to a poisonous glare. "That is a living, breathing, suffering human being down there! What kinda place are you down here running lady?"
In a flash, I felt myself thrown back by some sort of invisible force. Not enough to slam me into the wall, but enough that I stumbled and fell back on my butt.
It was only later that I realized it was Akshana using her shifting against me.
"You will not disrespect Valerod!" She practically screeched. "I spent years and years all on my own to get it to its glory as it is now, and if you ever, ever say something like that so help me god Kaylee I'll throw you right in there with the prisoner!"
"His name is Adam." I responded defiantly, not letting her threat phase me.
"And you will certainly not disrespect me!" She continued as if I hadn't said anything. "You know what you were before I let you in here? Huh? You were a sniveling little girl running around playing with a power that you shouldn't even have! That you were too ignorant to know how to control! And look at you now, I feed you and train you and this is the thanks I get?" By now her voice is just as loud as mine, only it's much deeper and echoes on the stone walls.
"I will not thank someone who tortures other human beings for sport." I responded a bit more calmly, standing up and dusting myself off.
She sighed and let her head drop, cradling it in her hands before straightening up and looking me in the eye again.
"Kaylee, I'm sorry for losing my temper. But I do not like being disrespected." She began in a voice that sounded like she was straining to be cool and collected. "The fact of the matter is, yes. We are keeping him prisoner. But you don't understand, he isn't just some innocent bystander."
She paused and glanced sideways at me. "You might want to sit down."
I glared at her for a moment longer than necessary before huffing and sitting down on the same bench I had when she first told me I was a shifter. It already felt like forever ago.
"You see Kaylee, what you fail to understand is that his father is Ezekiel," She explained in a tone that said that that sentence should've clarified everything. Once she saw my blank expression she smirked triumphantly before continuing.
"Ezekiel used to live here in Valerod, and he led alongside me. We were the best of friends. He had the beauty of an angel, and with nothing but his words he could move mountains within people and change lives." A small sad smile brushed over her face as she lost herself back in time.
"But over time he became mad with power. He started coming up with these crazy theories about wiping out all of the human race because he didn't think they deserved to inhabit the earth, that all they were doing was destroying it, and that we shouldn't have to hide down here any longer even if it meant killing everyone up above."
"I'm begging you Shana," Ezekiel said to me, holding my hands in his large rough ones and looking deeply into my eyes with that twinkling look he sometimes got.
"The people up there, they don't deserve all that they have. They've taken what rightfully belongs to people like us. Who know how to take care of the earth and how to coexist."
"They're nothing but a bunch of weaklings, we'd be doing them a justice by getting rid of them," he spat. "But I can't do this without you. Our people, they won't be committed unless you go along with me. Please Shana. Please. I need you."
His large eyes drooped downwards like that of a sad puppies, tugging at my heart strings. I looked down and away, not saying anything, but didn't let go of his hands.
"Don't do it for Ezekiel your fellow ruler of Valerod. Do it for Zeek. Your best friend."
Taking a deep breath and closing my eyes, I mustered all the courage I could find. I knew what would happen when I gave him my answer.
"Zeek," I began delicately, looking back up at him and caressing his cheek with a small smile. "I love you so much, you know I do. You're like the big brother I never had."
He smiled back warmly and leaned his head into my hand, breath feathering over my skin.
"But I can't. I can't do this with you." At that his smile dissolved, and he took a stiff step away from me. I sighed, knowing he would react this way. "It isn't right. And if we give up our morals, what are we? What are we without them?"
His eyes narrowed and he brushed a pale hand through his thick hair. "I think the real question is what are you with them? And with them, you are just as weak and revolting as one of the pathetic swines I intend to rid the earth of."
His words stung me to the core, just as my refusal had probably done to him. But that was his way. His words were his best weapons and he knew all too well how to use them.
For a brief passing moment, his face softened and I saw the scrappy little boy I'd befriended all those years ago. He leaned down and pressed a gentle kiss to my cheek, his spicy scent overwhelming me for a moment, before he pulled away and his face became stone again.
"Goodbye Akshana. I wish it didn't have to end this way. I really do."
With that, he left, turning precisely on his heel and walking calmly out the door, leaving me alone with my aching heart.
I was silent throughout her story, imaging a much younger version of Akshana, one with brightness and hope and an unshakable love for her best friend.
"I did love him." She said as if she had read my mind. "Maybe even more than I cared to admit."
"And then I found out he had already had son with one of the house keepers. The son was Adam, and he was eleven years old." When she spoke of him, all the bitterness and hatred that had accumulated over the years seeped into her voice.
"Eleven years. Eleven god damn years they were able to hide him. Eleven years that I didn't know he was already in love with someone else."
She shut her eyes and sighed. "Ezekiel and his mistress managed to escape, but we were able to capture his son. We thought maybe they'd come back for him. But they didn't. They never did. They abandoned him here. And ever since then we've kept him here. Not able to trust him because of his father. But after all these years he still didn't give us any information on him."
She turned her eyes back up to mine, and I saw a side of her I had never seen before. One filled with pain, longing, and the sting of being betrayed. One that made her look like she might break if the wind blew a little too hard.
"That boy, is just like his father. He will say anything to manipulate you. To get your hopes up, only to crash them into the ground. He's a snake. And his favorite game is to mess with your head. So whatever he said to you, Kaylee, I wouldn't dwell on it for too long."
For a moment, I tried to put myself in Adams shoes. To be raised in secrecy for eleven years, almost as if you were a disgrace. And then to be left behind by your parents without a single second thought, without them even batting an eye. To be trapped in the darkness to the point just prior to starvation, and probably tortured as well.
And that's when I decided I wouldn't tell Akshana what he had said.
"It just sounded like gibberish anyways." I said indifferently, my voice devoid of any emotion that would give me away.
A pleased smile hinted at her face, but not for long. "Thank you for understanding Kaylee." She murmured.
"But, with all due respect," I added on, making whatever happiness that ghosted over her face disappear. "He was only eleven years old when his parents left him. How could he possibly know anything?"
Akshana's sharp brows pulled together in exasperation, and she sighed. "Kaylee..." She began.
But I didn't give her a chance to finish. "Maybe you should just let him go? I mean it isn't as if his father told him any incriminating information when he was just a-"
"Kaylee!" Akshana snapped, slamming her hand down and making the table creak loudly.
My sentence dropped off into the air with her outburst, and I blinked a couple of times.
"Kaylee I appreciate your humility, I do," Akshana said through tight lips and closed eyes. "But he isn't coming out of there any time soon, for reasons you have no need to know."
"Well then I want to go in there with him," I tried again confidently, though I wasn't really sure of what made me so confident at such a stupid request.
A hint of amusement edged at Akshana's dark face. "You want us to lock you up with him?" She asked.
I shook my head fiercely, imagining how smug and content she'd look as she locked me in a cage with Adam and threw away the key.
"No. I want to be able to visit him. Whenever I want, for as long as I want, as often as I want."
The bemused smirk was replaced with an irritable scowl. "And why in gods name would I let you do that? What can you possibly mean to me? What can you offer me?"
Well, you got me there.
I looked away for a moment, mind racing for anything to clutch at, anything to give me leverage.
"You wouldn't have let me in here, trained me in my shifting, if I wasn't significant." I began slowly, though I wasn't really sure where I was going with this. "Clearly you want me here for a reason. Clearly I'm of some value to you, or my abilities at least."
"And maybe I don't know what those reasons are, sure, but I'm guessing you wouldn't be too happy if I just went AWOL one day and took my precious powers with me. Showed all the oblivious people up there what I'm really capable of, tell them exactly how I discovered what I can do, now would you?" I tilted my head to the side and gave a small snide smile.
Her fists clenched into tight balls, and her lips stretched so thin I thought they might snap like an overstrained rubber band. "Fine Kaylee. Fine. You get to visit your little criminal."
My shoulders lifted a little higher, but she wasted no time cutting me back down to size. "But if he so much as takes a single step outside of his cell, there will be hell to pay." She threatened, pointing a narrow finger at my chest.
"I won't help him escape, as much as I think he deserves to be free, I won't." I swore, palms by either side of my head. "All I want to do is talk to him."
But why, even I wasn't quite sure.