Charlotte watched as the remaining likeness to James Alexander faded away and the man she had known as Alastair Ramsey appeared before her. He retrieved a pair of glasses from his pocket and set it on his nose, before wiping the blood from his chin with a white handkerchief. His lips quirked at the corners as he met her gaze with cold disinterest.
"Where is James?" she growled.
"Do you honestly expect me to think you care?" Ramsey laughed. "I mean you were so ready to kill him tonight". Outrage rose in her stomach and her cheeks seared with embarrassment.
"I was ready to kill the person who would allow the carnage downstairs to happen. Who would harm Ethan, Annakiya, Matt... the person who would change Cary into... into whatever that was down there!"
"I just returned Carrick to what he was meant to be, an obedient, disciplined soldier".
"I should have been more careful with my shot," Charlotte growled. Ramsey chuckled.
"Maybe you should have just killed me the first night I arrived at the compound," he breathed. Tapping his head, his smug smile widened. "Alexander's memories revealed how close you came to ending me then and there. I knew of course that you were the biggest threat to me the moment I felt your alteration that night. Naturally I had to take precautions to protect myself. So many of my followers are honoured to hand over their alterations to me... I believe you met the man who let me evade your alteration thus far".
Charlotte's jaw tensed. She of course recalled the attack at the campsite and the altered that had wrapped his hands around her throat in the icy darkness. He had been as invisible to her as Ramsey almost always had been. Her failure to detect him had almost killed her and now her stupidity not to have made the link between his alteration and Ramsey's was going to risk her life again.
"Where is James?" she breathed, trying to hold on to her composure.
"Charlotte, Charlotte, Charlotte, why do you even care? He doesn't love you anymore," he said with a catlike grin. "I made sure of that".
"I'm not playing your games anymore Ramsey. Tell me where he is or I'll..."
"You'll what?" He opened his hands innocently to her. "You can't touch me Charlotte. Your alteration doesn't work against me and I can control your every move. I can wipe your memory. I can change it. I could teach you to worship me, to love me, to die for me. I could become you," he said and he morphed to her own likeness and back to his own gleeful expression with only seconds passing. "You would become the villain everyone already believes you to be".
"Just kill me then," she growled, taking a step towards him.
"But I have such better plans for you," he whispered reaching towards her and tracing a gloved finger along her cheek again.
"You are repulsive," she hissed.
"You won't think that for long," he exhaled. Charlotte felt her body turn rigid again, her muscles locking into place as he took control of her movements. He turned from her and strolled across the room. Charlotte watched him, trying to think of an escape. To her alteration there was nobody else near her. It was blind to Ramsey and he had control of her body. He paused at the other end of the room and ran his hand along the wall. The carved vines and leaves began to snake and slither along the wall, coming to life beneath his touch. The wall turned liquid and from its depths the vines retrieved James. The snaking tendrils from the wall wound tightly around his torso and limbs, his head hanging limply against his chest. Blood trickled from his temple and clumped in his blonde hair.
Ramsey turned towards her and sighed. "You know it is a pity he is even here. I mean I never wanted him. It was you I had sent for that day in DC. I wanted your alteration, not his". Charlotte's stomach clenched and she pressed her lips together afraid she would betray her anger towards the James she had known, the stranger that had rejected her and towards Ramsey who had created the entire mess from the very beginning. Guilt bloomed in her stomach. James was innocent of this. Everything that had happened to him was because of some need he had to protect her. He had ended up so hurt and alone all because he had wanted to keep her safe.
"It must kill you," he continued, beginning to peal the leather gloves from his pale, long fingers. "Not being able to trust him. Always lying and manipulating you. I really wondered going through his thoughts if he had ever really been honest with you".
"You think you know him," Charlotte whispered, trying to keep the hurt from her voice. "You think you can understand him, because you've searched through his thoughts and memories. You could never understand him, understand us..."
"But I do understand him," he exhaled, dropping one of the gloves to the floor. "I have come to understand everything in his mind. His memories are mine now. His past lives within me. He holds the key to all of this, because he holds you. Every moment you shared with him is up here". He touched his temple and then dragged the other glove from his hands. "I hardly realised what I was tapping into with your friends when I stole their memories. The new world of Kingston, the new alterations that existed. There is so much more for me to take. But first there's you. Your alteration..."
"My alteration would destroy you," she spat, trying to break free from his hold over her. He moved closer with each moment, an arrogant smile on his lips.
"You see that's where James' error aided me. He took your place. I took his memories and he showed me how to control your alteration. He understood it so perfectly, as perfectly as even you, I am sure. All those lessons in Kingston, all those hours you spent learning control. He taught you that. And he taught me too. He showed me what you could do, the true extent of your power. The Exhibition where you used Elmhirst's own fear to fool everybody was... beautiful and I want that..."
He was close enough to her that he could stretch out his fingers and touch her. Charlotte held her breath, her gaze on his hands. Once he touched her he would have more than just her alteration. Using Annakiya's power she would become whatever he wanted her to be. Her true self would cease to exist.
He stopped right before her, inches from her. He smiled smugly, his gaze travelling up and down her body. His hands hovered over her, not yet touching her, but repulsively close. She fought and struggled internally, desperate to regain control over her own body, but his grip was too tight.
"So beautiful..." he breathed, his hands moving towards her cheeks. Charlotte whimpered and then the silence of the room was torn apart by a gunshot. There was a sharp thud in the wall behind them and an explosion of splinters. Ramsey jutted out his jaw, his movements stilling as he tensed. He turned slowly around to find James standing on trembling legs, the gun Ramsey had fired earlier in his grip. James was too pale beneath the blood that marred his forehead. The wall was solid behind him. The vines that had held him had returned to carvings once more. His hand shook as he took aim at Ramsey again. Charlotte felt her body return to her own control and she backed away from Ramsey.
"You don't know when to give up do you?" he hissed.
"You stole my... life..." James whispered, his voice uneven. Charlotte sprinted towards the door. She heaved on the handles, but the door wouldn't budge. She hammered against it as another gunshot ripped through the room.
"Oh James you have no imagination left," Ramsey growled and suddenly James' pained curses filled the room. Charlotte spun around as James sunk to his knees, his back arching, his body contorted by the alteration that had been stolen from him.
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