School of the Crown Assassins

21

Alistair remained completely silent, only casting a worried glance every once in a while, as he escorted me back to my room. I kept my steady pace, but I could feel the sting in the back of my eyes. When I finally reached my room, my hands were shaking so hard I nearly dropped the key card as I tried to open my door. Finally, I pushed through and my body fell back against the door.

My throat constricted as I looked up at the ceiling. It looked so far away and yet so close as if it could fall on top of me at any moment. My mother's words were ringing in my ears, pulsing down my spine, vibrating up my bones making me shiver.

The words she said were exactly what I wanted all these years. They were the evidence that I needed to know that I was not at fault for her behavior, that I wasn't such an abomination that the protective mother who loved me started to despise me to the core. She never loved me in the first place. Her mind was so wretched that she couldn't love me since the moment I was born. She never even tried. She was never my mother, not at heart. She was just another person who hated me, who wanted to see me fail. I had a long list of those and I didn't care about a single person on it.

So why did I still want to cry?

I pushed myself off the door and walked into the main lobby room. I needed to stop this. All of this. Everything telling me to be sad, to cry, to be in pain needed to leave. I couldn't take it. I didn't need them, not anymore. I was the girl who would bring down the cold-hearted Crown Assassins, and the only way to do that was if I was cold-hearted myself. I didn't have time for this, any of it.

My fingers tangled in my hair, pulling at the strands with a reverent force as if I could pull the emotions out of myself and throw them away. I spun in circles just trying to find something that would help me, anything that would help me. My head began to pound and I loosened my grip on my hair, still spinning, still trying to find a solution.

I needed stop everything, needed to find something else to do, needed some consolation but I also didn't want any and so I was left just staring at the empty space around me, wondering how to stop it but not finding a single solution and my head kept pounding, and my heart beating forcefully as if it would fail at any minute, and my fingers curling and uncurling at my sides not sure what to do, finding tears that I never wanted appear on my face, until finally, I couldn't take it and my fingers wrapped around a vase and threw it with no aim.

I watched it shatter against the wall, the shards falling like glittering drops of rain, gathering in a broken mess on the floor, just like me. It was a companion to my crushed soul, one that had appeared when all others had left it alone in the dark. The thought satisfied me. I did it again.

Vases slid to the floor, appliances ripped out of their sockets, plates destroyed, glasses shattered, gold-gilded paintings thrown to the floor. Every action of destruction that had overtaken this room was gratifying. Each time I wanted more.

A knock sounded on the door, but I ignored it and focused on the kitchen cabinet doors flying open and the pans clanging against the marble ground. The knock was more forceful, and this time I kicked a countertop.

"Leave me alone!" I roared and another pan clattered to the folder.

I heard a sigh on the other side of the door and a few clicking sounds before the door swung open. Axe stepped through and mumbled, "I should not have to hack through a door at five in the morning to tell my neighbor to be quiet."

Then he looked up, his eyes roved the carnage I was standing in the middle of. At last, his eyes met mine and he whispered, "Is there a reason you're destroying your room and kindly ruining my sleep?"

"No," I snapped. "I just love destroying everything in sight. It's my favorite past time."

I slid to the ground, leaning against the couch and staring at the opposite wall. Axe walked further into the room, pulling out a trash can and broom that I had kept in tact behind the counter. He started to sweep a few things into the trash can in silence. My heart stopped pounding so hard, slowly fading away into a low thrum in my ears, the pounding in my head replaced with the soreness from the torture I had put my hair through. I stretched my fingers and inspected the new cuts from various objects dotting them.