Indomitable

f i f t y - e i g h t

Killure blinked up at Remi through his long, dark lashes and furrowed his dark brows. The sun shone brightly on his dark skin, giving it a golden hue. He gently grabbed her waist and set her on the ground between his legs.

Remi immediately averted her gaze and, like a dried out fruit, shrivelled. She brought her knees to her chest and wrapped her arms around them, resting her chin on the top of her knees. She knew he would be disgusted with her after what she'd shown him, but it still hurt. Her heart squeezed painfully inside her chest, threatening to stiffen into glass and shatter, sending glass through her arteries and destroying her body.

Remi had hid her dark secret for so long. Those two kids, innocent and young, were tortured for days and had to go through the terror and pain of starving to death and being robbed of their lives so early on... because of her. She hated—no, loathed—herself for it.

When her father came into her room for the first time in months, little Remi had been elated. She'd run over to her daddy and wrapped her tiny arms around his leg, jutting out her bottom lip and whimpering about her broken dolls. They didn't work anymore. They needed fixed.

This was the catalyst that set into motion Remi's release into the real world. It took Remi a few years to realize the enormity of the horrific thing she'd done, but when she did, the impact hit her like a freight train.

She'd tried to kill herself, overwhelmed with the horror and guilt of what she'd done. Sure, her dad brought the kids back to life afterwards and erased their memories of the incident before sending them back to their parents in perfect health. However, it still didn't take away from what she had done—at least not in her mind. Of course she was revived, and kept in isolation for months until they were sure she'd never attempt such a thing again. It was in that solitary room that Remi made up her mind to forget about what she'd done and become a better person from that point onward. 

Pushing the memory to the back of her mind became easier and easier as the years went on, until Remi was able to forget about it nearly entirely and pretend it never happened. Pretend that there were no children whom she'd tortured then murdered, and a servant she'd abused her power on. Sometimes they still plagued Remi in nightmares, staring at her with wide, terrified eyes while smiling and sipping from their tea in their frilly doll clothes. After a nightmare like this, she'd wake up in the middle of the night in a cold sweat, her heart pounding hard against her chest and adrenaline pumping through her veins. Adrenaline wasn't the only thing pumped through her veins after a nightmare like this, though—self loathing also ran rampant through her body. She was so disgusted with herself and her hypocrisy. How could she go around on her moral high horse, as Killure always so eloquently put it, when she was guilty of something so horrific?

And yet, she couldn't just throw away her morals. She loved the feeling of helping other people, and the joy that lighted up their faces afterwards. There was nothing like it.

"They locked you in your room as a child?" Killure's deep, silky voice startled her out of her thoughts. There was a subtle anger beneath his calm voice.

Remi snapped her eyes back up to meet his. She blinked away the tears that had welled up in her eyes as she'd been thinking, threatening to spill over. "I—" she started, then paused for a few moments to clear her throat and continue. "Yes. My uncle was always trying experiments on us, adding new variables to certain controlled situations. I was an experimental group, isolated from the rest of the world. It was lonely. I remember feeling so sad all the time. Blue was also caged, but visited frequently by Bliss, who could roam  around the house and yard to her little heart's content. I got to come out though, after... after what happened." 

He eyed her carefully with those dreamy ocean blue eyes of his. "Your own uncle did that to you, hmm? I'd be surprised, but I already know what family is capable of doing to their blood. Why did they let you out of your room after that? I doubt your uncle showed compassion or your father grew a backbone—that's a more recent and probably temporary development."