Ruin and Revival

Chapter 63: Who Else

ARIKA

Axel plops my dad onto the cot closest to us in the facility. Up close, I notice the bleeding gash on his forehead, the multiple bandages wrapping around his arms and legs, the haggard stare of his eyes. Rhea approaches him first. I choose to keep my distance, the painful tension between us like an ever-present hole in my chest.

    "Welcome back Imperator. How was your journey?" Rhea and Axel exchange a few unintelligible words, even my heightened hearing unable to detect their conversation. I glance at my dad anxiously on the table. His face is completely slack, along with the rest of his body. Then I recall what my dad did, whose side he was on when Calvin died. But he was your father nonetheless. He raised you, loved you dearly.

    "Arika, come with us. We have important matters to discuss." Rhea gestures for me to follow her and Axel, who doesn't even turn back to acknowledge my presence. I tentatively walk behind her as she pushes the cot with my dad laying on it.

    We enter the same tent I had laid in minutes before, noticing the sheets are still wrinkled as we file in one by one, me last after Rhea.

    "I have bad news. Frieda has brainwashed all of the men. They do whatever they say. She tells them to kill their own kin and they do, without any hesitation. She has created a mindless army that does whatever she wants them to. I managed to capture one of them from the barracks. Some of my own men are in there. They don't even recognize me." Axel says quietly, his voice thick with exhaustion and anguish.

    "How did you know he was my dad?" I whisper, tears blurring my vision. Rhea snaps her head toward me, her wide eyes full of disbelief.

    "I didn't." Even as those words leave his mouth, I know he is lying. Axel meets my gaze at last and his eyes are a perfect reflection of mine. He turns away, clearing his throat.

    "I want you to search his Life Force, find the thing that is making him brainwashed. And take it out of him." Rhea nods grimly at Axel's order.

    "Imperator?" Rhea mumbles. He lifts a brow.

    "Did you happen to see my sister?" Rhea's voice is strangled, the grief so stark and clear in the hush of the tent.

    "The women, the women-" Axel is unable to finish his sentence, gripping onto the sides of the cot until his knuckles crack and bleed.

    "Tell me Imperator!"

    "The women are being kept in birthing homes. They are brainwashed as well, but their only role is to birth children. Hundreds a day. The birthing homes are too well protected. I cannot save them." Rhea presses her hand to her mouth, trying so hard to stifle that sob, to be the strong and tenacious healer she always is.

    "I'm sorry." We all sit in silence, Rhea crying quietly into her hand. Neither of us knows how to comfort her, we just avoid one another's eyes and twiddle our useless thumbs. At last, Rhea's ceases her sobbing.

    "We shall begin soon. Arika, you cannot be in here. Those with personal attachments to patients may not associate with them from a professional standpoint. Wait outside. Perhaps you will see your father again very soon." Rhea smiles tightly. I swallow hard, nodding, steeling my nerves.

    "He'll be okay." Axel manages, still unable to meet my gaze, but at least his tone is kinder, less harsh. I approach my father's unconscious form.

    "I'll see you soon dad." Squeezing his unresponsive fingers, I exit the tent, praying Axel and Rhea can retrieve the man I had called my father from whatever hell Frieda forced upon him.