sanctuary | on hold indefinitely

fourteen | lie

There was no bonfire tonight; only the Locator that Shar had found, kneeling with his hands tied behind his back in the middle of the woods as blood gushed from a fresh wound on his forehead. Farah's knuckles were peppered with bruises from where she had beaten him, but she barely felt the pain beneath the thrill of inflicting it. His clothes were muddied and tattered, his face drained of its colour. He shrunk further in on himself as Farah entered the clearing and she eyed him with a satisfied smirk, her heels sinking into the damp soil.

Only a few others had cared enough to join them, but even they seemed uninterested in anything other than their drinks as they sat and chattered in low whispers on the tree stumps. They barely looked up as she nudged the Locator with her boot and he whimpered. 

Filix poured a bottle of vodka onto the cowering man, but not before taking a gulp of it. The Locator was barely conscious, his face pressed into the ground as he squeezed his eyes shut against the liquid. He had long since stopped begging for his life.

"Sorry, love," he muttered, throwing the now empty bottle onto the floor beside him, "but I'm bored of you now."

"I think we all are," Farah responded with a smirk. "Let's get this over with, shall we?"

Filix nodded, unblinking as his eyes shifted to Farah. His angular face was shrouded in shadows and void of any emotion. "Let's," he agreed.

Without warning, his fist collided with Farah's jaw, knocking the wind out of her as she fell to the ground beside the Locator. She looked up at Filix, unable to hide her shock. Blood welled in her mouth, her cheek prickling from the impact and her face heating with embarrassment as she realised that the others were watching now. Most of them were still sat, but Zoe stood behind Filix with cautious eyes.

"What the fuck, Filix?" Farah spat out the bitterly metallic taste on her tongue, pulling herself upright. Her hands clawed through the soil, dirt gathering beneath her fingernails and smearing across her face as she swiped the hair from her eyes.

Filix, for once, didn't appear to be taking any joy in his assault, not even as he pulled out his obsidian-bladed dagger. He crouched to her level and pressed the cold metal into her throat forcefully enough that Farah could feel a bead of blood trickling down her neck. "Where is your sister, Farah?"

"If a Locator can't find her, how do you expect me to?" she asked through gritted teeth, anger flashing in her eyes as she finally composed herself.

"Don't," the blade pressed further into her neck and she let out a strained gasp, "lie to me. No more lies. Where is she?"

"I don't know." She said each word slowly for emphasis.

Filix's eyes darkened. He stood up, picking up another bottle of vodka from the crate and unscrewing the cap. Each movement was drawn out as though in slow motion. Despite her anger, Farah couldn't help but feel dread rise inside of her. Filix had never hurt her this way before. She knew what he was capable of.

He poured the spirit on her as he had with the Locator. Her damp hair stuck to her face, the acrid scent of the alcohol stinging her nostrils and filling her mouth, though she tried her best to keep it clamped shut.

"What are you going to do, darling?" she questioned when the bottle was empty. "Are you going to burn me alive, too?"

"Do you think I won't?" His voice was monotone. 

"I'm sure you will, but then what will you tell my mother?"

Amusement twitched at the corner of his mouth as he reached into his pocket and pulled out a lighter. "I'll tell her that both of her daughters were traitors corrupted by their Healing scum of a father and they were better off dead. I'm sure she'd understand. Your mother and I ... we often understand each other on such matters."

"Is this necessary, Filix?" It was Zoe who had spoken. She was still stood behind Filix, a hand on his upper arm—a brave gesture considering his mood. She was the only person Farah found tolerable, and her respect for her had grown in an instant. "Farah is one of us."

"Is she?" Filix retorted, pulling his arm from Zoe's grasp. "Or is she going to run away to find her sister? Can we really trust anyone who is Split? How can we know their loyalties are not set to change at any given moment?"

"I am not my sister." Farah's words were laced with bitterness. She realised as she said it that she despised him thinking of them as alike. Devan was weak and would never belong. "I am Dark. I have never been anything but Dark."

"Then stop treating me like a fool and tell me what you know about Devan." His tone was low, threatening, his white teeth glinting like those of a predator's as he spoke. His skin was a powdery grey in the moonlight. "I won't ask again."

"I told you I don't know anything."

"Sorry, love." Filix sighed in disappointment, his thumb triggering the lighter with a click so that he was illuminated by the orange glow of the flame. "But I don't believe you."

He knelt again, his eyes steady above the wavering flame. The lighter inched towards her slowly but she kept her eyes on his, looking for any sign of hesitation, any sign that this was just a test and he wasn't really going to kill her. There was none: only a hollowness that for the first time felt foreign and without mercy, that for the first time Farah did not feel she shared with him. He was going to kill her. Any moment the flame would catch her vodka-soaked clothes, hair, skin.

"Oh, for heaven's sake. We're really going to do this?" she huffed finally. Filix stopped, though he kept the lighter in front of her. "Fine. I saw my sister a couple of days ago. She was in Chester, on her way to the train station. I told her she was acting the fool, that you would find her soon enough, but I couldn't get her to come back with me. I don't know where she went. All I know is that if Chester was the last place she was able to be found, it's probably also the place where she found a Protector to do her little hiding spell. Can you put the bloody lighter away now? I'd like to keep my eyebrows."

"You'll lose a lot more than your eyebrows if you ever lie to me again, Miss Lee," he warned, changing the direction of the lighter and dropping it into the Locator's lap without so much as a glance. In an instant, the man was set alight, his shouts muffled as they echoed through the woods. Farah shuffled away from the burning body, her clothes damp and uncomfortable as they stuck to her skin. Zoe cast her a sympathetic look as the rest of them dispersed again. The show was over. She was glad to no longer have them watching her.

"I'm terrified, darling." She rolled her eyes and pulled herself up, wiping down her muddied clothes. Her face still throbbed from the impact it had made with Filix's fist. "Promise."

"Don't worry, I'll make it up to you." He was grinning now, his charm returning as though he hadn't been threatening to kill her a moment ago. "I quite fancy a trip to Chester, just you and me, love. What do you think?"

Farah narrowed her eyes at him coldly. "Funnily enough, I'm not in the mood to go anywhere with you."

"That's a shame."

Farah cast him a withering look and turned to leave.

He waited until she had almost disappeared into the shadows of the woods before his voice brought her back. "I can't imagine how upset your mother will be when she finds out you've been keeping us from finding your sister."

Farah turned around. The others were still watching the interaction, illuminated by the Locator's burning body.

"Be ready bright and early tomorrow, love," Filix ordered across the flames. "We're going to Chester."