edith piaf // la vie en rose.
THE ELEVATOR WAS STILL RUNNING. In fact, R.A's building was one of the untouched parts of the city where the rebels haven't blown it up. MK wondered why it hasn't been perished yet. She wished it was, but the men that escorted her from the car forced her to walk into the elevator and pressed the floor button for her before exiting back out.
The doors were closed and she was by herself again. The lift took up. She waited, slumping back against the wall for the doors to slide open and find R.A standing right at the door to kidnap her or possibly kill her, or for an explosion to come from the battle, for someone to save her maybe. Instead, it was just the lame elevator music playing innocently through the speaker as she was taken up to the high floors to the penthouse.
She has the opportunity to stop somewhere and try to escape. But maybe this was meant to be. Maybe she needed to stop, accept that nothing was going to be useful for her to get out. There could be one or a dozen guards at every floor if she tried to get out.
The elevator came to a stop and opened, but she took a while to get back on her feet and take a step in. The living room of the penthouse was only lit by a chandelier, quiet inside but she could hear structures crashing down from the windows. It was juxtaposition. Everything seemed to be reflecting on being relaxed and untouched. But soon, all of that would change. All it takes is one shot of fire aimed right at them.
No one was inside except for her. She looked out the glass that lead out to the balcony. The view outside was chaos. From afar she saw another building come tumbling down with flames from every direction. The poor citizens inside. At least she knew not all of them thought the same as WCKD. People inside the cities were living in buildings, some going to work, some with families and spouses.
When was it time for Lawrence's team to blow up the building MK stood in? So she could crash down with the broken floors and ceilings, where she can fall and die with debris crushing her fragile body, finally ending her long night?
There was a desk. On top were stacks of paper, some scattered across that it looked like someone was working pretty hard, an empty wine glass stood beside the reading lamp as well as blueprints and a map. All were signed with someone's writing.
The last time MK was there she saw the desk, but not the blueprint and map.
Not even the photo frame on the corner. She has never seen it before, so she picked it up. The photograph looked old so the frame was a small size. MK removes it from the black frame to look at it closer.
A family. They were smiling. All of them looked so happy. The mother seemed to smile the most while the young boy looked a bit more forced. The father was on one knee so his daughter could be the same height as him to put her tiny hand on his shoulder.
But what sent chills up MK's spine was the fact that all their faces— their eyes, were scratched out with their smiles a bit visible to see, as if a person had used their fingernail to erase them from the picture. All of them except for the little girl whose face remained out of all three.
MK knew who she was, she knew who the parents and the little boy were. That was her when she was a little girl, at least ten or eleven, her little brother being a bit younger and immature to behave like a young man, her parents that once looked genuinely happy and healthy. Her mother and father both looked like loving parents, protective over their two kids.
The setting in that photo took place years ago, long before the flare, long before her family were infected with the virus, long before MK could be old enough to hold a gun in her hands, long before she could meet a boy name Gally and be old enough to know what love felt like.
Someone else was with them too. MK squinted to get a better look of the grainy photograph. It was on the far left, a young woman who looked not too old but not too young, leaning against the paved wall in the background, giving a small smile as she was looking at the camera. It was just her and the little girl's face that weren't vandalized.
Both of them with blonde hair.
She didn't wanna do it, she didn't wanna jump to the conclusion, but it was a way to find out, and she trusted her gut feeling that what she was thinking could be true.
So MK flipped it over and read the handwriting labelled on the back.
WITH LOVE. FROM AUNT RUTH.
She heard heels clinking against the tiles behind her, her hands drowning in weakness as it held onto the photograph, and heard that raspy voice that belonged to that lady that fed her fried mussels. "Took you a while to figure it out."
MK turned around. She didn't sound so friendly to her anymore, something about her tone of voice. So calm but raspy . . . and evil. Pure evil.
She was on the shortness of breath. "Aunt . . . you're my aunt."
Ruth Arabella stiffly stared at her, and nodded. "Yes."
If only MK could reach out and touch her and strangle her to death. Unless she had forged that handwritten note on the back of the photo, that it was just some random lady and she had posed as her to make her think she was her niece, she wished it was something else other than the fact that this lady was her aunt who had been in this city the whole time, wanting her like a kid throwing a tantrum for a new toy.
Her eyes darted on hers like a staring contest. But she just stood there, stiff. Dead inside.
She was bloodied, burnt and ashy, yet the lady didn't even seem to care at all. She wore Jorge's coat that was a little too big for her to wear but it covered her dress that was stained from fighting. All that pain thrown at her physically and emotionally from WCKD and R.A, yet she couldn't move. She was done running.
"Maybe you'll see this as a small family reunion, but this is more like a step closer to becoming one of me. Your family was stubborn—well, genetics played a role in this but mostly your parents were. That's why you're like this, quite interesting."
She couldn't believe it. But it made sense for a start. But she had to ask, "Why?"
"Why what?"
"Why did you . . ."
"Maybe I should do the talking first. After all, I do have a lot to talk about. A lot of explaining to do, a lot of information I wanna give you, a reason why I want you . . . and why I want you here." Ruth Arabella gestured her over to the dinner table where she sat to eat the gourmet meal earlier, this time the table was placed with just two placemats instead of one.
A seat for MK and a seat for Ruth on the other side of the long table.
Ruth sat down first, but MK still didn't move. She kept staring at her.
"Sit. Unless you're not hungry. But I encourage you to eat. I can't insist you leave on an empty stomach. I gave you moules frites avec une verre. Now it's time for dessert."
Why bother?
MK shifted, then used the limited energy left in her to slump down in her seat. A man dressed in a fancy suit, most like the butler, comes out of the kitchen entry with two plates. MK stared at him as he serves them the gourmet dessert which was simply apple pie with a tall glass of milk and another glass of wine.
Was he forced to stay here? Where were the other people that lived inside the building in the other floors? Where was Ruth's assistant?
She heard noises from her right side coming from the record player. It was music, really old music possibly from the 40's with a scratching grainy singing voice.
"La Vie En Rose by Edith Piaf," Ruth said when she noticed MK was listening. "A classic."
The butler leaves and the two are left alone again.
"You always loved eating this. Apple pie with a glass of milk. It was always your favourite. Your dad would always give you the bigger slice."
Don't you dare talk about my Dad, MK wanted to scream.
"Eat. You look like you haven't eaten since the Last Supper."
MK, completely drained of the right emotions she could put her finger on, uses the fork and knife. She cuts off a piece of the pie and open her mouth, doing her best to chew and swallow.
"I hope you like it. It's very sweet because of the honey," Ruth says.
While eating, MK thought of Gally, who has no idea that this has happened to her, that she is now captured. She looks down to look at the ring on her, knowing this will be the last thing of Gally she'll ever own. Not flowers, not his hoodie, but the ring. Ruth ate casually as if what was happening outside wasn't any of her concern. MK ate slowly, listening to the explosions outside, waiting for them to come closer and closer.
"What is this, my last meal?" she finally speaks after feeling like it had been countless minutes of her being mute.
"Unless you wanna end up dead."
"You said you had a lot of explaining to do. So talk."
Ruth raised her brows at her, a bit impressed of her attitude. "Fair. It's true. I am your aunt Ruth. While your family did their own thing, I came from a medical background. When the virus went global I found out I was immune, and then I landed a job at WCKD. I only had one condition: I get to live if I take either you and your brother away for the trials. So you could join the other kids that were taken as well."
Thomas, Newt, Sonya, Aris, Teresa? Was she referring to them?
"I couldn't take your brother because it was too late. Your father infected him because he didn't wanna leave his room, he wanted to stay until he felt better. You were immune, lucky you, so you were the last option. I took you before your mom could scream out your name as WCKD threw you into the car. I did it to save the world, but I also did it because of the hatred I had towards your family. You and your brother were too young to understand the feud I had with your parents, but you guys got what I wanted. Happiness, kids, a husband. Attention. Love. It's not fair that I got to where I was with my hard work and money only to be left out of the picture by your Dad. Your mother was the last to show the symptoms and I let them turn without ending their miseries. Then I took you with me to see Ava Paige on the train."
MK listened, chewing her apple pie slowly, gripping the knife she wanted to throw at her.
"WCKD wiped your memories. Before you would scream at me, curse at me and wish I burned in hell. So in case the memories would come back, I created a serum to inject in your body so you could dream about your family as flashbacks, to keep you away from knowing the truth about what really happened. Instead of dreaming of your mother crying of her daughter being separated, she would instead try to kill you."
The La Vie En Rose song was suddenly cut off from the record player. The music died down and everything was quiet again. A tear left MK's eye, streaming down her cheek. The three years in the Glade and running in the Scorch, and in midst of heading to the city, she only dreamt of delusions.
"My family never died hating me . . ." MK said. "Instead they died hating you."
"They died hating the fact that you were gonna suffer alone."
"But I didn't," MK said. "You're insane. You're more insane than WCKD."
MK's estranged aunt stared at her, leaving her apple pie untouched now. She grabs her wine glass and took a huge gulp. "I am not. If you were in my shoes you would of done the same thing."
MK watched her drink the wine. She looked at her glass of milk and grabbed it. MK drinks the milk and smashes the glass on the floor as a cold response towards her.
Instead of reacting, Ruth just blinked. "I don't get it. I send my men to come collect you, I killed your family letting WCKD abduct you with my help, killed your crank friend and you react by smashing a glass on my floor? At least slap me across the face. I'm all for it."
"You were jealous. And you killed my family. A family that you never really knew."
"Oh I did know every single detail about you guys." She got up and went over to her desk. Keys jangled in R.A's drawer and she pulls out a file of messy papers. She throws them across the dinner table.
"Read it and weep."
MK picked up two papers, both were drawings that were made by a little kid. All were signed by MK's name. From crayon drawings to watercolour paintings, looking over at all the progress she made over the years. Her art skills improved as well as her handwriting.
As she looked at all them, frantic and in shock, Ruth continued talking. "Your brother was five while you were ten. You loved art, but you dropped out of one art class because you couldn't take the stress, but you never stopped drawing and painting in your sketchbooks. You were so young and lucky. And I got to see how big you've gotten in the Glade and even before that."
MK's lips trembled, then she broke down into tears, dropping the artwork down to the floor. Her vulnerability came back, her weakness, what broke her down. The people she hated, the people she wanted to defeat, they broke her down.
Ruth caused all of this. She claimed the lives of people MK loved, because of her selfish behaviour.
It all unfolded. "You were scared, weren't you? Scared that I would come back and get back at you for what you did, so you lured me to the city just to win me over my friends- and my own boyfriend so no one would go against you over something personal? You didn't want me to tell anyone about you and where I had been."
"And if WCKD found out that other people found out about me, they wouldn't let me work with them and have their benefits."
"You're insane," MK repeated those words.
"Don't be difficult, MaryKate. If you were in my shoes, you would of done the same thing."
"You killed my family. You killed Dereka."
"Technically it was Ted that killed your friend. The man that I sent in the city to come find you? He was the one holding a gun."
"All Dereka wanted was to be happy. She hated herself because she used the Bliss on her when she could of saved her family. You were my only option to find the Bliss and we couldn't find it."
"Oh I knew you and that thing invaded the comfort of my home earlier. I saw the surveillance footage. But you should of looked deeper. I know I said I didn't possess any Bliss, but my office had plenty of those, I just had to hide them. Such a shame for your friend."
MK clenches her jaw in anger. "Why did you bring me here?"
"I already gave you an explanation."
"No, I mean why do you want me so badly? I know you want me dead. I don't have money, I don't have anything to offer to WCKD. The city is being torn apart so there's no time to experiment on me anymore. Why not just kill me now?" MK asked her the same question she did at Ted.
"Because I need you alive." Same answer Ted gave her.
"For what?" Another question MK wanted to know.
"Do you plan on living in the city?"
"No." In the condition they were in? Most definitely not.
"I wanna propose an opportunity. Remember I said I landed a job at WCKD and I had benefits and conditions? It's part of the contract: if a location perishes, we have to relocate. It will be like this city, or maybe a headquarters. I am not sure. But it's developed with people, food, medicine, entertainment. Freedom. I am eligible to come with them. And I can bring someone with me."