ravaged hearts

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE,

RAVAGED HEARTS | CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  FIORA MUTTERED BESIDES her, "It's been a few days."

  "They've probably gotten to Saria by now," Lillia guessed. "If they were still in Valencia they'd be here every day, trying to pry answers out of us. They're just as desperate as we are, they're running out of time to find the kids. They want them out of danger as soon as possible."

  "Why did Bassanio do it?"

  "He used to be at the bottom of the pack," Lillia said softly, unable to hide the sadness creeping into her voice, "like me. He's been given a chance to climb up, he's not going to waste it. He'll try his best to bring us back into our former glory, no matter who he has to hurt on his way."

  Fiora replied, "He's going to destroy you all."

  "Maybe," Lillia agreed. "Maybe he'll rip us all into pieces. Maybe he'll be our ruination instead of our salvation. But I know how he thinks, I'd known him for years. Let me tell you what's going on in his mind right now: how would he know what he could do if he never tries? If he fails we'll all die and it doesn't matter any more. If he succeeds Melique gains a chance of returning. He loses nothing."

  "The others have something to lose, though. You have something to lose. Half of you don't want this. You. Mali. The others all have secret thoughts they never shared, because let's be real, the Falcons were less of a family than a nest of snakes who'd kill each other in a heartbeat for some power and affection."

  "That was what they used to control us." Lillia shrugged. "We were all orphans, Chevalier. And there Contreras was, this father figure who promised us a family of people just like us, who'd care and watch out for one another. It didn't matter to us then the people we had to kill or hurt. We were selfish."

  "We are selfish," Fiora said softly. "We never grew out of it."

  "Some of us did," Lillia said.

  "None of us did," Fiora replied with a wry smile as she lowered her head, a lock of blonde hair falling down her eye. "We're still the same hungry children underneath, don't you see?"

  Lillia let her eyelids droop. Fiora was like this sometimes, cryptic, mysterious. Lillia could never quite fully grasp the woman and understand her point. She talked in circles, beating around the bush. It took no small amount of brain cells to successfully talk to this woman.

  When she was younger, she'd chosen to avoid Chevalier for the most part, only interacting when professionally needed, when she could actually figure out what the woman wanted to say. She'd realised the genius of Chevalier as time went on, of course, but appreciation did not mean being able to tolerate it at close quarters all the time.

  "Even now," Fiora kept on murmuring, "our past controls us."

  "We can never escape it. No one can ever truly start over from a clean slate." Lillia knew this. Chevalier knew this. They'd both tried and failed to varying extents. After all, they were both locked in the same cell.

  Chevalier lowered her face until she faced the ground. "I wish we could."

  She whispered,  "We all do. We can't, can we?"

  Chevalier said, "We can. But we better hope they find the others and retrieve the kids first. That's our only chance out of this." She glanced at Lillia's, whose expression had gone slack. "I know it upsets you. But it's our only way out. If the Falcons are destroyed. Forever."

  Lillia whispered, "Decades of alliance and teamwork."

  Chevalier shook her head. "It was all fake, have you still not realised? I know close to nothing about you personally, and you are the same with me. Half of us hated each other's guts and would have killed each other within a heartbeat if given the order to. There was no attachment formed between us. Contreras made sure of it."

  "Attachments and friendships were weakness."

  Chevalier said, "Attachments and alliances, factions between us, that gave us power. He couldn't afford that, don't you see? He gave us a roof, gave us food, gave us a purpose. But power could not turn from his hand to ours. Very simple, really, very simple. I think most of us realised it as time went on. It was just all of us were too attached to him to do anything about it."

  Lillia's head drooped. They all knew they were just puppets on a string. The thing was, none of them had cared. Because what was working for someone who gave them everything they craved and needed?

  And even now, with Contreras dead and their former forces scattered to the wind, here they were: half-fighting for the same cause because of some damned, ingrained loyalty. Because their gratefulness to Melique exceeded their will to survive, to live.

  Their life was a tragedy, she realised then. They'd already lived past their peak.

  Now, the only way to go was down.