[ 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.
He came closer to Violet and said, "Before we go, I'd like to have some time alone with this one. I have a few things to say to her." He told the other soldiers and they all chuckled, taking her sister and parents out of the room. Violet felt her breath hitch in her throat, not for herself, but for her sister. She spotted Paisely in the back of the room, and he himself had personally gone to Ruby, grabbing her by the arm and dragging her away to the waiting military car.
The group of soldiers left the room, only Cade and Violet remained.
"Listen," Cade began in a low voice once he was sure they were out of ear shot. "I might be able to spare you, Violet..." He trailed off nervously, his brown eyes meeting her violet ones. She then realized his act in their presence had been only that--an act. His eyes were back to being the compassionate ones she remembered from the boy in the forest. He genuinely wanted to help her, and she still didn't understand why.
Why would he be willing to risk his own life just to spare hers?
"What about my family?" She asked him, looking now towards the empty doorway. She also wanted to know what the extent of his intentions were. What if he was only lying? What if him trying to help her was an act? He was a brunette after all and she knew they couldn't be trusted. Brunette boys didn't care for violet girls like her. But then what would be his reason to do so? She knew nothing about the revolution. She was no possible threat. Maybe he knew that and he pitied her for it.
Looking into his dark brown eyes, she saw a genuine desire to help her, despite the fact that he was supposed to be on the King's side.
Violet stuck her hand in the pocket of her purple school dress and she felt something. The purple pearl necklace he had given her two weeks prior. Her eyes widened in shock as she remembered what he told her--to put it on if she wanted to remember everything. Then she realized it was a memory necklace. The technology in her country was advanced, but it was only for the blondes and brunettes to use. She had heard of the memory necklaces in class. When a blonde or a brunette didn't want someone else to recall a certain memory, they would use a special device on them that would compact the memory into a colored pearl, the same color as the person's hair. That meant the necklace Cade gave her belonged to her. It contained the information as to why she didn't remember him.
She held it between them and the realization sunk in for him--she still didn't remember who he was. He watched her slowly reach behind herself and put the necklace on. As the pearl fell against her collarbones, she was taken back to a far off time in her memories. So much information being unlocked. Now her eyes were filled with recognition. She gasped as she fell back into reality, and she found herself throwing her arms around him. "Cade!" She cried, and he slowly drew his arms around her too.
Now Violet knew for a fact that Cade wasn't a bad guy, he just acted like one in front of his army troops. From her unlocked memories, she knew that he used to live in her Porpra when he was a little boy and she remembered the day King Mer Hemmings IV, the current King's father, took Cade in when his parents died.
Violet remembered him well, everyone knew the Hood family. They stood out anywhere in the province because they lacked what everyone else had, violet or red hair. They were brunettes. And brunettes were far above violets and even reds. But the people with the most power were the blondes. They were the supreme rulers of everything.
Cade's father was a very intelligent and well respected scientist, and they had moved to Porpra from Crown City. It was said by rumors that were floating around that they had been kicked out of there because Dr. Hood was building a transporting machine that could prevent the reign of the Hemmings family from ever happening. And so, they needed to move a place where no one would find them. That place was Violet's home town of Porpra. Being the poorest in the kingdom, no one would expect them to go there.
The Hood's son stood out at school for more than just his hair color, he was also the best in his class, far more intelligent than his red classmates. He had been placed with the reds at school, but had personal tutors to teach him more advanced classes. Violet and her classmates all knew that if someone in the town was going to be of a higher rank someday, it would be him.
He walked over to her slowly, closing the distance between them, and caressed her cheek gently. She tried not to flinch away, but she was just so afraid, and his hand sent a chill down her spine. He was genuinely pained and it was clear in his words. "I don't think I can help them. Ciel wants them dead because the rebels were able to kill his parents and his brother. He's planning a televised execution of them at dawn tomorrow morning. I may be able to help Ruby because his main concern right now is finding your parents. That's the best I can do."
"But," She breathed in surprise. "Why would you want to help me?"
He sighed, sadness flashing across his eyes. She found her answer before he even started talking. "Because when my parents died, you were the only one who was truly there for me when everyone else wasn't. Since that day...I fell in love with you." Violet remembered that day well. Everyone was murmuring about how Cade was an orphan because his parents and his sister had passed away, but no one dared to approach him. He was a brunette after all, and he wasn't like the other kids. But Violet had approached him, given him a hug, and assured him that things were going to get better. She had been the only person to genuinely give him words of hope.
She looked up at him in disbelief when he said that.
She breathed out a response, "Who would've thought the general of the army would fall in love with me? A violet you were raised to hate."
Cade shook his head quickly. "I don't care about those stupid rules. The Hemmings family made those stupid laws just so they could remain in power. They're all blondes, of course they'd give blondes special treatment."
Violet never would have expected him to fall in love with her. After all, he'd only lived in the same province as her until he was twelve, which was the year his parents fishing boat had been hit by a military submarine when they were using our waters to test their war equipment. After that, he moved to Crown City, where he was adopted by the royal family. He had gone from being a second class citizen, to the slums, and then to practically being a prince. A true rags to riches story.
"Aren't you afraid the King will find out?" She asked him.
He replied fearlessly, willing to take on the whole world for her. "I'll take the risk. I know Ciel's friendship to me is conditional."
In the end, Violet had little time to weigh her choices and agree to let him help her escape or deny herself the opportunity and end up dead, as her parents would soon be. At least if she made it out alive, she could strategize and devise a plan to bust them out of the clutches of the king. It sounded insane, but hope was the only thing she could rely on.
She nodded in agreement after a moment, "What do I need to do?"
"You and your worthless family are gonna die tonight." He spat as he straightened up. He was no longer whispering to her, his entire demeanor changing because he could hear his legion standing outside behind the closed door. Violet looked up at him in confusion. "Play along." He whispered, before raising his voice to yell at her again. "You think you and all these fucking peasants are gonna win in a war against our glorious empire?"
He laughed in her face.
"All we want is freedom and equality." She told him. She wanted the soldiers to hear that, to hear what she and her parents were fighting for. There was nothing wrong about it. "The people of Vesperia are like prisoners, without any room to move up the social or economic ladder. The only person in this country who actually thrives is the king, as well as the other blondes and brunettes. We just want a nation that is run by the people, for the people. We want a nation where everyone can have a voice."
"When everyone gets a voice people disagree, violence happens." Cade said, and Violet wondered if he actually believed that. Was that really his mind speaking, or was it the king's rules?
Reaching for something clipped to his army belt, he grabbed a gun in his hand. When he saw the fear in her eyes, he whispered to her again. "Don't be afraid. This gun is programmed to make it look like you're dead. But you'll only be in a deep sleep. So make them believe I'm actually hurting you."
"Please don't kill me." She pleaded, knowing there was a legion of soldiers in the hallway, trying to listen in on their conversation.
"We're gonna kill every single rebel bastard, starting with you and your family." He said with a clenched jaw. Though his words were full of hate, she could easily tell he was only on the king's side because he didn't want to die, just as so many others had.
"Hide out in one of the old abandoned factories in the outskirts of the province. Then steal a raft and get to Laurentia. They'll never find you. I'll deliver food and water there periodically, but if you ever run out of it, there are edible berries and coconuts, and you can catch fish." He gave her instructions in a low voice, like he had been thinking about it for a while. Violet didn't question him, only nodded quietly.
He put the gun to her forehead and her breathing became rapid as her fear began to overcome her. What if he actually ended up killing her?
"Trust me," He assured her in a whisper. "I would never do anything to actually hurt you. But I should warn you, its going to leave a very painful bruise. You'll wake up in an hour and then you'll be able to make your escape." A few miles from her home province was a small island that the King didn't know about and her people always used it to grow rare fruits that only fertile on that soil.
His finger was about to pull the trigger, but he stopped himself. He leaned in slowly to give her a kiss on the cheek but she lifted her arm to stop him, tangling a weak hand in his hair, she pulled him in for a kiss on the lips. This was different form the one she had gotten from Dieter. This was a kiss she knew was forbidden, but she craved it. His lips against hers.
"Thank you." She mouthed when we pulled away from her and he gave a slight nod in her direction.
"Stay safe." He told her, and then, she saw him pull the trigger.
-
this chapter is a little bit longer than the other ones i have been writing and posting recently. but i didn't want to cut it short because i thought all of the information here is vital to the story.
but anyway, thank you all so much for reading. tomorrow i will try to post about two chapters for you all. so please stay tuned for that.
have a wonderful night!
-clary