Julia's point of view:
"Henley!" I screech in the middle of the night, standing rigidly as I clutch the bars of my cell, desperate for someone to hear me.
"Henley, please!" I yell again.
I could hear faint complaints coming from the prisoners around me, annoyed by my midnight outburst.
"Julia, what are you trying to do?" Felicity asks.
"I had a nightmare; my friends are in trouble and Henley might know why. I need answers," I breathe out, my knuckles turning white from clutching the metal bars.
"HENLEY I SWEAR IF YOU DON'T-" I begin to shout again, only to be cut off by my mouth forcibly being screwed shut.
A figure materializes in front of my cell, the dim light showing me nothing but an angry demeanor and half a face hidden by the shadows.
"Scream again and you'll wish you hadn't. What the hell do you want?" The person asks in a furious voice, freeing their hold on my body so I can speak again.
Instead of scaring me, however, I feel relieved upon the recognition of the voice.
She actually came.
"Henley please...you have to tell me what's happening in my city," I beg her.
"I don't have to tell you anything, you fool," Henley replies with malice.
She steps into the dimness of the light a bit more, allowing me to see a different side of her than what I did during my testing earlier today.
Felicity makes a small sound of fear, and I hear her scooting to the farthest corner of her cell.
The white bandages on the side of Henley's face that I burned a week ago are gone now, probably so she can sleep, and they show red and pink scars that stretch from the center of her face all the way to her left ear. The wounds, despite scaring, are still fresh and puffy; they give her an almost grotesque appearance, one golden eye swollen shut and the other looking at me with murder.
"Henley please, I'll do anything you want. Just please tell me if my friends are alright," I ask, swallowing the small amount of guilt I feel.
"I'd sooner worry about yourself, because when these tests are over, you're going to know torment like never before," she hisses, and I have to fight to roll my eyes at that promise that I've heard over and over. Henley wasn't going to tell me anything.
At least, not personally.
Someone else might, though.
"I wanna talk to Peter," I offer, knowing she wouldn't refuse that. She wants Peter back as much as I do, just for very different reasons. Henley thinks one day I'll talk to him and he'll just snap out of it, so she can brainwash him again into her servant.
"About what?" Henley growls.
"If...if I can tell him that I think our friends are in trouble, maybe something in him will snap out of this stupor that he's in," I offer, baiting her.
I'm not stupid; something might eventually bring him back, but me talking about friends he has no real memories of won't do anything. Henley monitors him every day, so if she knows anything, Peter will know, too.
I just hope Henley's foolish enough not to realize that at this hour of the night.
"That sounds far-fetched, even for you," Henley comments, sounding skeptical.
"I'll try anything," I push, lying so stupidly that I honestly can't believe she's buying into it.
Henley looks at me angrily for a moment, but I know I've intrigued her enough to know that she'll cave. Any chance to bring Peter back is a chance she'll get to use him in a way that'll truly hurt me, and she'll never refuse that.
"Fine," she grumbles, unlocking my cell and folding my arms painfully behind my back with her power before she quickly marches back the way she came.
I stumble after her, the dim light causing me to trip over my own feet from time to time.
We make our way to Peter's cell without speaking, twisting our way through each long hallway soundlessly.
When we arrive outside the door that leads to him, I make a point of stopping Henley before she can open it.
"What?" She questions, annoyed.
"Don't go in that room next door that lets you see into his cell," I tell her.
"I don't think so. Why the hell wouldn't I?" Henley retorts.
If Henley catches me trying to ask Peter if he knows what she knows about my friends instead of trying to jog his memory, she'll yank me out and take me back to my cell before I can even blink.
"He won't cooperate with me if he knows you're watching," I respond.
Which, in a way, could either be the truth or a lie depending on the mood he's in. Peter could tell me what I want to get me in trouble with Henley, or withhold the information just to make me mad.
"He knows you're always there when I go in and plays around with me because of it. Please, let me talk to him alone. You can wait out here in the hall until I come out. You won't be able to hear us, but it's worth a shot, right?" I ask, baiting her again to see just how much she's willing to do this.
Henley does not look happy by any means, and for one terrible minute, I think she's going to slap me across my face and send me right back to my cell for the night.
Or, at least, that's what she wants to do.
But instead, she huffs indignantly and unlocks his door, grabbing me by the shoulder and shoving me inside without anything further.
Thank God.
Peter stands in the middle of his cell with his exposed back facing mine, bruised and cut up as usual. He seemingly pays me no attention, focused more on playing around with the chains on his wrists.
"Miss me so much you needed to see me again after earlier today?" Peter asks, sounding bored.
"Cut the garbage and look at me so I don't have to explain why I'm here," I tell him, worried that Henley will go back on her decision to not observe us.
Just to annoy me, Peter readjusts his chains on both wrists before turning around to face me in such a painfully slow manner that it takes everything I have to not yell at him.
"It's no wonder you failed your truth test today; you lie exceptionally well," Peter compliments me.
"No, Henley's just easy to manipulate at this hour. Now listen, I need to know if you evaluated Henley earlier today and if so, did you happen to see anything about...you know, home? Our friends?" I ask.
"Correction: your friends. And why didn't you just evaluate her yourself on your way down here? The halls aren't power proof," Peter says.
"I haven't tried to evaluate anyone in weeks, and my powers don't work as well when I don't use them often enough," I explain quickly, wanting to get back to the matter at hand.
"So your powers aren't strong right now?" He asks, a bit too intrigued. "I mean, you couldn't do much damage to something if you wanted, could you?"
"Technically I still could, but it would take a lot of focus. Why does it matter, anyway?" I respond.
"Oh it doesn't, just being curious. Anyways, you want to know what Henley knows about your home because of...oh, the poor little baby had a nightmare," Peter laughs, red eyes glittering as he looks at me.
I feel heat rushing to my face at his words and attempt to say something terse before he cuts me off quickly.
"No need for a rebuttal, just having some fun. To answer your question, yes I evaluated her, and yes, something did happen back at your city that she really doesn't want you to know about. But since I know she's not watching and to know that you would have information she doesn't want you to have would make her angry if she was watching, I'll go ahead and tell you: remember that prison that used to house Henley before she escaped a while back?"
I nod my head.
"Well, your friends got caught about a week ago and were transferred there as prisoners. Something happened earlier today and the building collapsed with everyone inside. Henley thinks her brother is dead along with most of your friends. The whole thing's on tape," Peter explains, not sugarcoating a thing.
My throat immediately tightens, and he smiles at my anguish. Hot tears spring forth from the crevices of my eyes, and I quickly turn my back to Peter so he won't have the chance to take any more pleasure in this.
"Cassia's alive; Henley knows that much," He mentions, trying to get me to look at him again.
But I was not going to turn back around, not even for that. Instead I stare at the door, wanting to run out of this room, out of this prison, all the way home to the devastation and grieve for them properly.
"Oh come now, things could be worse," Peter mumbles indifferently, messing with the chains on his wrists again and causing weird clicking sounds to come from the metal.
For a moment, all I can think is, How? How could anything be possibly worse for anyone at this moment? Good things don't exist anymore.
"They could be in your shoes," Peter whispers, now suddenly so close to me that I can feel his breath in my ear.
I yelp and spin around quickly to face him, startled when he grabs my shoulders to hold me in place.
He didn't have chains on his ankles when I came in, which I had failed to notice. And those clicking sounds from the restraints on his wrists...Peter was breaking his handcuffs.
I feel fear for a minute, struggling against him and flickering in and out of transparency to escape. Peter moves his hands to my forearms, keeping me from fully getting away.
"Let go," I plead, feeling helpless.
"No one is going to save you now," he spits at me venomously, squeezing my arms so unbearably tight while pulling against my skin, intending to rip me apart.
"Let go," I repeat, continuing to struggle while looking into his eyes.
Any hope that I had from my dream earlier about there still being a chance to save him instantly vanishes, replaced with a definitive sense of finality. This is a monster in a dead person's body, adorned with eyes that reflect fire and suffering and a mind that tells him to exploit. The Peter I know would be the person who would fight against people like the one who holds me in a death grip. He'd be the one to bandage my wounds, not inflict them. He'd be the focus of my most peaceful dreams, not the instigator of my nightmares. If everything I've already done wasn't enough to save him, then nothing will. And even as he laughs at me now, a foreign noise that sounds like sandpaper in his throat, I realize that I was a fool to think otherwise.
"I said...LET GO!" I finally shout, ripping myself away from him so hard that his fingertips leave angry streaks against my skin.
He's briefly surprised, but quickly regains his composure and prepares to jump me again, but this time I'm ready.
Never mind not using my powers for a while, for I begin to feel them all building inside of me now as I call on them for desperate help.
With the power of control, I outstretch my arm and manage to halt Peter before he can take a step further, rendering him motionless before I quickly reel my arm back in a throwing motion.
His body follows my arm, immediately thrown to the back of his cell against the wall so forcefully that the steel groans under the impact.
He then falls to the ground, landing on his knees with a sickening sound.
"Clever...but you can't escape me," Peter rasps, trying to stand back up, only to fall again. I know he's not talking about escaping his physical clutches, or even this very cell, but rather the home that he had made in my mind.
I could throw him against this wall until he turned into a bloody pulp of a person, but it wouldn't do anything about the fact that I am still in love with who he used to be. Peter knows this, and he's using it to trap me.
"You'll always come back to me, whether you like it or not," He gloats, finally rising to his feet. "Love made you weak."
Angry tears blur my vision, and I suddenly can't stand the sight of him any longer. I let out a scream of rage and, recognizing that there are always pieces of earth in various metals, rip a piece of steel from the wall and hurdle it toward Peter.
I mold it to fit around his midsection, knocking him back once again and making both the torn steel and the steel on the wall fuse to trap him.
He once again looks stunned, but fury soon overtakes it.
"You bitch," he spats.
"Your inability to love is what makes you weak, not me," I reply tersely, feeling every connection I once had to him sever with each word. "And you won't control me any longer."
I turn away from him, knowing that this is it:
I'm letting him go, and there would be no coming back from that. I'm cutting my ties.
"Everything good you've ever done was because you had me. I am a part of you. Do you really think you can just walk away from that?" He tries to call out condescendingly, but I can sense a sort of fear in his words. By doing this, I'm taking away any real power he had over someone. He would soon become the helpless one, with no one left to exploit the way he has exploited me.
"Yes, I can," I say, turning around to look at him one last time. "And I want you to know one thing: my Peter was a part of me. You, however, are nothing."
He screams out in a blind rage, thrashing violently against the steel holding him to the wall and cursing me along with the world. I can sense whatever small grip he has on reality begin to slip, reducing him to the shell of a human.
I don't feel sorry.
Instead I walk calmly to the door, feeling the wire that's been wrapped around my heart finally begin to loosen.
Henley stands in the hallway outside where I left her, looking angry and confused.
"What the hell happened in there? I heard shouts and-"
"Our meeting didn't go well," I cut her off, choosing not to say any more than that.
Henley begins to curse at me as well, going on about how all I do is waste time and how worthless I am.
But I don't listen, ignoring her all the way back to my cell.
After locking me away, Henley retreats back down the prison corridor in a cloud of thunder, leaving me to myself.
"Care to share what just happened? You were gone a long time," Felicity asks me, playing with her dark hair while looking at me expectantly.
"I let him go," is all I say, knowing it's not nearly enough to accurately explain everything that just happened, but it's really all I can say.
Thankfully though, she seems to understand.
My mind drifts to my friends, most of their bodies plastered underneath debris. I think of Cassia, wondering if she'll find any of them alive. I also think of the turmoil she'll go through, how much she'll hate herself if she finds even one she can't save.
I wish I was there; I want to help so badly that I have to bite my tongue to keep me from whimpering.
It's unlikely I'll ever see any of them again, however. Whether they're alive or dead, I need to let them go just like I did Peter.
"You know, it takes real love to let someone go," Felicity mentions, seemingly reading my thoughts.
"I know."