Caine gave me a skeptical look but then shrugged and indicated I follow him. I was already dressed, so I stepped out of the apartment and closed the door behind me. There was no lock—of course—so I just left it and walked beside my escort in the direction of the main entrance.
"So, what are we starting with?" I asked him, maintaining my false cheer. Catching more flies with honey and all that crap. "Bladed weapons practice? Hand-to-hand combat? Meditation?" I groaned a bit on that last suggestion. I hated meditation, but Uriel insisted it was the key to a clear mind and supreme control over our emotions.
"Uh..." My somewhat handsome guide gave me a side-eyed look. "No. The leaders thought it might be best to start you in a history seminar. It's understandable, given your situation, that you might have some lingering sympathy for the monarchies."
I frowned slightly, not following the connection between subjects. What was a history seminar going to do to change my opinions?
We walked in silence for a few minutes, then my guide started pointing things out, like we were on a tour. The communal dining hall, the fitness centre, theswimming pool—for fucks sake—and various other things that I had no intention of ever using.
“What?” I asked, forcing a joking tone as we crossed a lawn, “No prison for naughty Society soldiers?”
He jerked to a stop, frowning, but not before I caught his eyes flick across the street to a concrete building with heavily reinforced doors and windows.
“I’m not going to help you break your friend out,” he muttered, offended. “My loyalty is to the Society.”
“Of course,” I replied with a tight smile. “I was just making conversation.”
And working out where they might be holding Jordan… and Rafe? I didn’t think they’d been at Red East camp with me, and Uriel would want to keep his leverage close.
Caine led me into a building then stopped beside a door marked with just a number—twelve—and knocked sharply. A stern-faced woman of Asian heritage opened the door and eyed me like I was a piece of gum stuck to her boot. Behind her, a single chair sat in the middle of an otherwise vacant room, and in front of it was a massive projector screen.
Leather straps dangled from the chair, and a chill ran down my spine. Somehow, I didn't think this would be anything like the history classes taught at Arbon.
The woman didn't greet me and certainly didn't introduce herself. She just grunted a noise and stepped aside, indicating that I enter the room with her.
Sucking in a deep, grounding breath, I did exactly that and forced myself not to flinch when the door closed behind me. Caine had abandoned me with the grouchy woman.
"Sit," she barked at me, nodding to the chair.
I moved over to it, eyeing the leather straps with suspicion. "I'm here willingly," I pointed out. "Are these antiquated torture techniques really necessary?"
The woman sneered at me, her wrinkled face screwed up with disgust. "You tell me, girl. If we brought the New American prince in here right now and put a gun in your hand, would you shoot him?"
My jaw dropped before I could catch it. "I would—what? No. Why should he die over who his parents are?"
It was the wrong thing to say. Of course it was. I knew it even as the words passed my lips, but goddamn, Icouldn'ttell them I'd shoot Jordan. They'd know I was lying and then probably force me to do it anyway as a punishment.
The woman gave me a disgusted look. "Sit in the fucking chair. We have a lot of work to do."
Swallowing heavily, I did as I was told. She was less than gentle as she strapped my arms and legs in, and dread pooled in my stomach. What was she going to show me that required such measures?
The screen flickered to life, and I braced myself.
I was about to find out exactly why this faction had become so radicalized. I could only hope that my mind was strong enough to remain impartial.
Chapter 6
The next three days continued in an identical manner. Every day Caine collected me from my room and escorted me to the "history class" where I was strapped to a chair for ten hours straight and forced to watch the most horrifying, gut-churning images.
It seemed like somehow the Society had gathered footage of all the most obscene, cruel, and inhumane acts ever committed by monarchies, dating way back prior to the Monarch War, even.
Watching the countless grizzly executions, torture sessions, public whippings, and electrocutions was bad enough, but it was the covert footage that left me weeping and sickened to the point of vomiting each day. The body camera recordings depicting children from poor areas rounded up and mass executed. The deliberate sterilization of both men and women in overcrowded cities. And the images of breeding farms where women were kept in medical comas while being impregnated and carrying children for the aristocratic elites.
After the fourth full session, I returned to my room trembling. My face was slick with tears and my sinuses hurt from sobbing and I could safely say that Iunderstood. I understood why the radical faction of the Society hated monarchies so much. If all their members underwent the same "training" as I was being subjected to, it was no wonder they'd become so blind to reason.
But while I understood where they were coming from and how Uriel and his supporters—because that type of training held his mark all over it—had built such a loyal following, I hadn't bought into it.
It was only one side to the story. One very biased, heavily edited and influenced side, tailored to fit their own narrative. Yet every minute I was forced to watch those atrocities committed by the leaders of our world, the more I sensed myself breaking.
