Royal Blood

Chapter Twenty Two

For what feels like an eternity, the whole station stands still. Suddenly I am unable to hear or see anything in my surroundings. I know that people are shouting and screaming, some with tears pouring down their cheeks, some with blood staining their clothes but I can't focus on any of that right now. All I can do is stare at Jasper who is laid in front of me, bleeding and unable to move with a bullet wound in his leg.

Max rushes past me, brushing against my shoulder as he does, waking me up out of my trance. The two of us rush towards Jasper, who is currently trying to drag himself away with his one good leg. Looking around, I try and find the person who has done this but by now he must have moved onto his next victim. He must have thought that one shot would have been enough to kill him.

"Drop to the floor." I whisper to Max when we are closer to Jasper.

He raises an eyebrow at me, looking very confused. "Why? How is that going to help?"

"Just do it, I'll explain later." I reply as I drop down to the floor. "You, stop moving and pretend you are dead. They will leave us alone then." I tell Jasper with my head resting against the cold floor.

Max seems to catch on to what I am saying and the three of us lay there, barely moving. Jasper winces in pain every now and then but he keeps it under control when the rebels are near us.

Time is working differently in this situation. I can no longer tell how long has passed, whether that be seconds, minutes or hours. All I know is that it feels like days we have been lying on the cold floor, with Jasper's leg getting considerably worse. Then a booming voice echoes all around the station.

"Citizens of Strongway, we told you that we would not give in to the queens demands. We will retaliate further until she gives us, the people of this country a voice at last. The queen was warned that our attacks would continue and so they have. Today in this very ordinary train station, blood has been spilled. This could be your sons, your daughters, sisters, brothers, it could anyone you care about and if you don't join us then the queen will never listen and we will never have a reason to stop.

Either we let her kill us by letting the disease spread or we kill ourselves then she will have no country left to run. What kind of ruler would she be then?

Join us to save your own lives while we hunt for the princesses'. We find her, we win, otherwise the attacks will keep happening and will one day affect the queen. Either way, I promise you, royal blood will be spilled."

The voice stops and people begin to leave the station. One by one we hear the sound of boots leaving. Crying begins to stop and slowly I lift my head up to see people doing the exact same thing.

The rebels have left after making their point and a mess.

"Are you able to stand up at all?" I ask Jasper although I can already guess the answer.

He shakes his head at me slowly, obviously in a lot of pain. His face is pure white, there is not a spec of colour found in it. Grabbing him by his arm and hand, I try and support him so he is in a comfortable position. His whole body is shaking badly though and sweat is dripping from his forehead.

Looking over at Max, I ask "What shall we do?" and I see that he is just as worried as I am. His face is almost as white and he keeps biting his lips as if that is going to help anything.

"It's not like we can take him to a hospital. They will only alert the guards and then he will be arrested. And that is the best case scenario." Max says and I know that he is right.

If we took Jasper to the hospital then the palace guards would definitely be alerted. If we are lucky then the palace will treat his leg wound and give him some sort of fair trial. What is more likely to happen though is they will put him in a cell to rot. With his leg, I'm sure it would be a painful death as well. Even if I handed myself back to the palace, it would not help that much. My mother has more power than me and therefore her orders mean more than mine do and she would definitely not listen to me. I need to wait until there is a time for me to bargain with her.