ELBINA 3

Chapter 23

(Lucas POV)

"ELLA!"
She's not listening.
They clamp a hand in my hair and push my head down again, shoving me forward till I nearly trip over my own feet.
The hold they have on me is so solid that it doesn't even feel like people. It feels like I'm secured by metal, every move I make can't create a single reaction from them. It can't loosen the hold, maybe it's because I'm exhausted.
Maybe it's because my knees are shaking from the shock, at what we'd been put through.
At how close I was to dying just moments ago.
And fuck... It was weird, because I was ready for it.
I was terrified, a gut wrenching pain when I looked at how scared she was looking back at me.
The way she shook her head minutely, her hand shaking so much and the torrents of tears from her eyes.
But I'd accepted it.
Except I can see that's not what she believes right now.
We're taken out of the warehouse and out into the empty backstreet, forced towards two run down cars.
Ella is barely pushed forwards, she's just walking on like nothing matters. Aimlessly ducking into the back seat of the yellow rusted car, followed by Arden who gets in the front.
My heart skyrockets, feeling them push me to the other. An older white car parked in front of the other.
"No!" I can't let her out of my sight.
"Bloody hell, stop moving." I growled in response to them, throwing myself around more.
I stamp on their feet, pulling my arms at the same time so I get out a hand.
My elbow raised and hit one in the nose till they fell backwards onto the ground.
With one hand free, I turn in the last one's grip until my fist smacks into their cheek.
It stings my own knuckles against the sharp bone but I don't care, I don't care.
I can see Arden smiling in the front seat of the car, leaning back and looking at me once I've knocked him to the ground.
So I start running for her car, she keeps a steady eye on me as she pulls her seatbelt across her body.
She doesn't flinch when I'm slammed into the hood of the car, my jaw in agony from the hit.
An elbow pressed down into my neck so it's hard to breathe, my snarl forming at the smile she has.
A winning smile... A kind of smile that I wanted gone off the face of the earth the more I looked at it..
"You bitch!" I spit at her.
I hate her so much.
She's evil and there's no other way to put it.
I'd shout at her again in hopes of getting rid of that calm smile. Cause we had to be a nuisance, right? We had to aggravate her a little and Ella had.
She'd stopped a lot of people dying today.
But at this point... I'm not sure Arden necessarily cared about that.
It wasn't her agenda in the end.
She just didn't care if it did kill people, so I'm not sure if that makes her more evil or not.
But all of a sudden, I just stop.
All that rage in me just dissipates, an eerie quiet in my ears as if the tornado just lifted from the ground. Where all the damage that it could have caused doesn't happen and people are left with an unsettled silence. I can even feel them pause on me too, unsure about my sudden change.
An intense catch in my throat forms, I'm choking on it.
All I want to do is bawl my eyes out, cry till my head is screaming at me to stop.
And I see Arden turn partly in her seat too, before she's turning back to look at me with a knowing expression.
She'd given up.
I looked at her through the window, sat right in the middle of two men with her shoulders flush against the seat.
She's given up.
I know that because her eye catches mine, her eyelids swollen and sore looking but she's not crying anymore.
And she certainly doesn't look the same, staring through me.
Staring like I'm not even here.
I'M HERE!
SEE ME, LOOK AT ME!
There's no recognition there and even if there was, she doesn't hold my gaze for very long before dropping her head.
No.
She's the last person I have left.
She can't be gone too.
I can't lose anyone else, so she needs to fucking see me!
"ELLA!" I'm pulled back, nearly falling over my own feet as they drag me backwards.
"I'm here, please! See me!"
"Ella." This time, there's tears in my eyes. It isn't working, no amount of shouting is even catching her attention and it's terrifying.
It's like she thinks I'm already dead but I'm not.
I'm here.
Aren't I?
And before I know it, I'm shoved into the car in front. My face pushed against the seat infront of me as they pulled off my backpack and threw it onto the ground beside me, until they yanked my arms back again to handcuff them behind me tightly. No amount of swearing at them does anything, it only makes them hit me across the face.
I'd been hit enough, I needed to think clearer and smarter than that and so I stopped saying anything at all.
My chest heaving for breaths and my arms ached in the odd position they were in behind me. The only thing they let me do is twist around every few moments to make sure that Ella is still in the car.
And she stayed there the entire time, her head down for what felt like hours but was probably only a few minutes of driving.
She leans forward too, allowing them to secure her arms behind her. I don't get to see much more as they force me to sit back down, my glare and cursing only making them roll their eyes.
I felt honestly pathetic, useless.
Why couldn't I have helped her?
Why couldn't I help myself?
But also, at this point, I just didn't know what to do.
We're so outnumbered there just doesn't seem a way around it.
"Pull around the back, we'll take them through that way." I look around, it's hard to see exactly where we are but I know we're pulling into an underground car park.
The light immediately lost from around us, encasing the entire car in darkness. They don't say anything to me and I try not to either. If only to keep them from hitting me again.
It means when I turn my head back, I can't see her in the car, it unnerves me to no end.
"Alright, get out." The car now at a stop, and before long the door is open and I'm dragged out. A tight fisted hand in my hair as they push me forward to the double doors.
Where were we?
"Come on, Elbina. Don't be shy." She snickers to herself,
"Shut up" I mutter, earning me a nail digging into the back of my neck.
My eyes tilt up, seeing her stepping out of the car, any fight from her before obliterated. Gone from the minute she fired that empty.
She follows Arden stoically, the soldier holding the link of the chain between the handcuffs. As they guide her in front of me, the doors pulled open I can see how tight the cuffs really are on her. I burn holes into the soldiers head that's pushing her forwards, knowing that he was the one to decide that.
The metal digs into her skin, puckering at the metal lining because of the tension.
I wanted to say something then, but again. It wouldn't make any difference.
She still wouldn't answer me.
And I'd only get hit again, something I don't think I could take much more of.
My left eyelids swollen enough from the repetitive blows that it's difficult to see through it. 
It isn't until some way into the building that anyone speaks, and it's Arden in front of me.
"Lucas, can I ask you a question?" Her back remains on me, walking ahead so I see her long and confident strides. I don't respond, and I don't think she expected me to speak anyway. It's not like I had a choice in the matter, she'd ask whatever I'd said.
"What did it feel like?" I almost paused in my step, knowing exactly what she was asking. I don't falter much in my step because whoever was behind kept me moving.
I realise though, that she's playing games with me, a master manipulator if there way any.
I knew this because that's what she'd just done to Ella too, she didn't want us fighting back anymore. She wanted to break us before she killed us, and what better way to do it then to convince ourselves we deserved to be killed, force us into believing we weren't decent human beings anymore.
"Don't say another word." My words come out as a deep growl from my throat, my fists clenching as she speaks.
"It's because you enjoyed it, didn't you?"
I feign innocence in hopes she might drop it, "You don't know what you're talking about."
Her head shakes, we're out of the staircase having climbed multiple stories up into the building. It was clearly an office, empty now on the weekend as we pass rooms filled with desks and computers all neatly arranged into aisles.
I keep telling myself to not listen, she's manipulating me.
I know that.
But god she's good at it, she knows all the right buttons to push.
"I think I know very well what I'm talking about. After all, I had a first time too... A long time ago now, but I still remember it vividly." We keep walking along the empty dead office space until we pass into the smaller corridor at the opposite end.
The light flooding through the windows dissipates behind us leaving us with a duller pathway until Arden stops at a door on the right just before the end of the hallway.
"You don't know shit about what I was feeling!"
Her eyebrow raises, a knowing smile on her face as she pushes open the door and continues to stare at me.
"So you didn't feel relief then?"
I paused, gulping heavily as she looked back at me and suddenly I saw Ella looking too.
"No."
"Yes, you did. And believe me Lucas, that's what I thought when I got my first kill. So much relief, you wouldn't believe it!" She grins at me, my nostrils flare in fury seeing it. "And then do you know what happened? I remembered that relief and I realised that... It didn't matter." She nods her head at the soldiers, who push us both into the room.
A wide open spaced room with a desk and chairs at one end, the big thing was the huge floor to ceiling window that spanned the entire room. So we could see the surrounding buildings around us.
I'm pushed to the ground, along with Ella behind me. Her back flush against mine, but again, she's still silent.
"That's a bit of a jump," I snip back.
"Oh, but you'd of made that jump. Because then you realise that if that one was a relief, then it was something that had to be done... It was inevitable and they deserved it. And then when you start making excuses and justifications for killing someone, then you're already a killer whether you like it or not." She leans down in front of me, I try to lean forward to her but I'm pushed back against Ella again.
"I'm not a killer!" I shout.
"Then tell me, Lucas. Tell me you don't want to kill me right now." She leans an elbow on her knee watching me with an inquisitive smile, she already knows she has me.
I wanted to.
I really fucking wanted her to die with everything in me.
For what she'd done to innocent people, to Ella and to me.
I wanted her gone from the face of the earth.
"I don't." I say instead because there was no way I was letting her win on that front.
They connect mine and Ella's cuff links together, briefly undoing Ella's to hook it through mine but still, she doesn't do anything.
It's awful, it feels like she's not even there and I'm here alone in this.
Her shoulders feel slack against mine, barely moving and her breathing is all even which is the absolute opposite to mine right now.
"You're lying," She says with a pointed finger in my direction, as if she were a teacher telling off a student. "That's okay. It's difficult to admit it." She leans a little further forward now, my breathing hitches at her closeness.
"But remember this before you die. You are no better than any of us here." Her tone turns dark, a pinch in her brows and a glare in her eyes. "You may think you're a hero, but the both of you have still killed people, you still hurt people. That's something you can't change... and that's how you'll be remembered."
I can't help myself, she's so close and I hate everything she says too much.
The spit ball lands thick on her cheek and I watch her recoil with satisfaction. 
Before I can do anything though, she pulls out her gun and hits me so hard across the face that I bring Ella to the floor with me.
Blood spilled onto the carpet around me in a spray of red, soaking my face and I choked on the build up of it in my mouth.
Arden swipes a hand over her cheek in disgust, swiftly standing up away from me.
"Your escapade is over and whatever you think you could have done to stop anything more isn't going to happen. Just think, in a couple of years. I'll still be here, still able to do what I need to do. I have a business to run Lucas too, and now that the last of the Mildersons will be dead... I can do that in peace."
I cough up more blood, barely able to look up at her. Until finally, I manage to drag myself up which allows Ella to sit up properly too.
"What are we doing here?"
She looks down at me, before glancing around the room. "Myself and some high paying friends of mine aren't a fan about what this building is being used for, long story short we want it gone. Now, the easiest way for me to do that without too much further investigation is a good old gas explosion."
"I didn't think you cared about them investigating, didn't seem like the other explosion was under the radar was it."
"That's different. I needed people to be afraid, I needed to strike terror in every single one of those people protesting against the very thing that I work to provide for."
The feeling of the blood trickling from my nose itches from the slow nature of the flow. She stops by the door, the rest of them have filed out by that point so it's just her looking back at us with crossed arms.
"The gas will probably get to you first, if you're lucky. But I'll enjoy the idea that the both of you will be sitting here just waiting for it to go, knowing that you can't do anything or better yet, thinking you can get out and then failing. I could shoot you right now and get it over with instantly, but I'll enjoy this much more." A deep thud in my chest gets louder and harder, till it bounds in my chest and it feels as if it's going to jump right out of my throat.
She's smiling, sighing in relief to herself and then, as if she hadn't just sentenced us to death, she closes the door behind her and the footsteps on the other side of it are receding until there's no sound left but mine and Ella's breathing.
I drop my head back, resting on the back of Ella. Even in the silence, she doesn't say anything.
"Ells, I know you can hear me. Please... just say anything." I beg her, I beg her to wake up and get that fire back in her from before.
But I don't get that, what I get is a slow and painful sigh until she's whispering back to me. My fists clench from the pain of hearing her speak and knowing that Arden had done what she'd set out to do. And that's destroy the last bit of Ella, till she'd given up.
I'd hoped it wasn't true, but that's hard to dispute with her words that seem to echo in my head on repeat.
"It doesn't matter anymore, Lucas. I'm exhausted... I'm just - I'm done."