Final Truth

Chapter 14: A Decision

Julia's point of view:

As I lay half asleep and shivering in my prison cell, the uneasy sound of a distant door opening catches my immediate attention.

I struggle to sit up, my head pounding and my cheeks sticky with dried tears. I crawl over to the prison bars that separate me from Felicity, my hands shaking with frigidness.

"Felicity, someone's coming," I whisper, my voice hoarse and hollow.

I hear her stir and move around to see me, her green eyes sleepy and confused. "What's going on?" She asks.

"Someone's coming," I say with a hint of fear, the movement in the night almost terrifying against the previous silence that it was.

And sure enough, a few moments later Peter materializes at the door of my prison cell, although I have to strain to see him against the darkness of night.

"Come to kill me?" I ask, hoping to get some kind of explanation from his unscheduled visit.

He unlocks my door and holds it open, not even bothering to yell at me or yank me up off the ground. I even hold out my wrists for him to handcuff like he usually does, but Peter just ignores the gesture.

"Henley wants you to do something," He says plainly, not a hint of emotion in his voice.

"Lord help me if this is another test," I grumble to myself as I rise up off the ground, leaning up against the prison bars to support my weak stature.

I walk out of my cell for the first time freely, not having my hands tied behind my back or cruel words being spoken in my ears.

"Let's go," Peter says, choosing to simply walk beside me as I follow him to where I am needed now.

I look up at him and strain to see his face in the dark hallway, his attitude making me nervous; I'd rather him yell at me than treat me with indifference so then at least I'd have a reason for his attitude.

He seems intent on covering up his eyes, letting his right hand block the side of his face so I don't see. Either that, or he's so repelled at the thought of me that he can't even look me in the face.

"Are you okay?" I try, but he bitterly tells me to leave him alone. I utter nothing else after that.

We take a different turn down the halls, coming to a room that is not the lab but rather something else.

Peter opens the door and I step in, being presented with a very peculiar sight of Henley looking like a disheveled mess and video cameras set up around a lone chair that sits in the middle of the room.

A nearby clock read 2:00 a.m.

"What's going on?" I demand.

"You are going to make a speech that will be broadcasted back to the city; your stupid citizens won't stop fighting Will, and it's nearly impossible for him to find the box of powers. You are going to tell your citizens that you are okay and that they must surrender to Will before things get ugly; in addition to that, you will urge your friends to hand over the box," Henley tells me straightforwardly, causing my head to spin.

Two women whom I've never met before come up behind me while I try to piece together her words, one brushing out my hair and the other powdering my face to make me look presentable.

"Henley, I can't...won't...do this; it would be helping you and Will and betraying the people that I love. I'm not going to make a speech," I say firmly.

I can feel something inside Henley snap as soon as I utter my words, for she suddenly pulls a gun out that I had not noticed on her and immediately points it at Peter, causing him to raise his hands in confusion.