Another One (Book 3 of selection fanfics)

Chapter 35

The darkness ebbed slowly as I felt my eyelids flutter. A voice that was once distant was now loud and clear, harshly bringing me back to reality.

"Wake up, Erika," Rowan's tone was sharp, so different from her usually soft voice.

My eyelids opened and I began to groggily pull myself up before a sharp pain in my side stopped. I let out a yelp, whimpering as the pain took over everything. I looked down to see a sea of red coating the bodice of my dress and pooling onto the floor beneath me.

"You-you shot me," I stumbled over the words, still in shock.

"Oh, relax, it won't kill you," Rowan brushed my words aside before a crooked grin spread across her face. "Yet."

"B-but why?"

"Why did I shoot you? So you wouldn't get in my way," she shrugged, her pistol hanging off one finger as she paced in front of me. "I wanted to tell you everything that I've done to you, to your family, while the rest of this palace is massacred."

I gulped at her choice of words. Massacred? Did that mean there was an attack going on right now? In the great hall, where the rest of the palace enjoyed the Charity Gala?

I made an attempt to stand up but it seemed like my arms couldn't do anything. Couldn't move. "What did you do to me?"

"Drugged you, of course. I wouldn't have been able to convince you to leave the Gala without doing so. That cupcake? I slipped a little something in there that would make you perceptible to suggestion," she smiled, as if it was the best thing she'd ever heard. "It'll wear off, don't worry. But that bullet will kill you before it can."

I must have looked confused because she scoffed, as if I was annoying her.

"I'm a rebel, Erika. Do I have to spell everything out to you?"

"A rebel?" I sputtered.

"Yes, a rebel. I was sent here to infiltrate the Selection, to get close to the prince and give my organization access to the palace," she walked closer towards me, her jade green dress trailing across the floor. "But I was also tasked with getting you eliminated from the Selection. Or getting you to leave. By your brother."

"You know my brother?"

"Of course I do. Well, at least I thought I did. He asked me to manipulate you into leaving or to get you eliminated. The glue in your conditioner? The ruined dresses? That was all me. But you wouldn't fall for it," she frowned. "And then your idiotic brother failed at his mission. He had Prince Derek in the palm of his hands but he murdered your sister instead."

I balked at her blunt tone. "If you've been a rebel this whole time, why didn't you kill Derek yourself? You would have had plenty of opportunities."

"Killing him wasn't our priority. We wanted to stoke fear in the wealthy before we struck. And New Years Eve was the perfect time to do it," she paused before crouching in front of me. "After Aidan killed your sister, he wasn't the same. Wasn't driven like the rest of us. He lost sight of our goal."

"Your goal? Which is what," I spat in her face. "Murder innocent people?"

She answered with a swift kick to my other side and as I screamed in pain she smiled. "We take what they have been taking for years. The wealthy have ruined the lives of the poor for too long. The King and Queen thought that they fixed everything by removing the caste system; removing a label doesn't help the people permanently stuck in poverty."