INDIGO

Nydia skipped ahead as we made our way to the top floor, the guards walking on either side barely giving room for me to breathe. I caught a glimpse of the world beyond the dusty window and squinted at the sudden outburst of sunlight. I hadn't seen the light in... days?

"Nydia," I called.

She whirled around so suddenly that I almost crashed into her.

"Yes?" she asked with her trademark smile.

"How long was I in the cell?"

Nydia thought for a moment. "I don't know. Days are weird. I can't remember what I ate for lunch today, but I can remember what I ate for lunch yesterday. Or was it the day before that? I don't remember."

"Three days," one of my guards answered. "Now move."

We continued down the hall and up one last flight of stairs before stopping in front of a bare door. Nydia knocked three times.

"We're here and awaiting the free cookies!"

Cree answered the door and nodded at the guards, strands of blonde hair falling into his face. The guards nodded back and left.

Cree stepped aside. "Come in."

I stepped into the room, Nydia on my tail. It was wide, with numerous chairs spread around the room to form a semi-circle. Laine sat in the center of the semi-circle with Wolf on his right. Cree settled down in the armchair to Wolf's right, the three of them watching me.

To Laine's left was a woman I normally saw with him, though I knew little to nothing about her. She looked around the same age as him, so I assumed she was his wife. To her left sat Brianna, a girl who looked to be in her early twenties.

As far as I knew, she was an orphan who joined the Rebels years ago when Laine first started the movement. She was quite loyal to the cause, so loyal that when she was sixteen years old, her group, who had been trying to meet possible recruits, were ambushed by assassins. She stayed back to let her friends and the recruits escape, and while she managed to flee eventually, she lost an eye and a hand in the process.

I wasn't sure if her hand was indeed a prosthetic or not since it looked so real, but the black patch over her left eye and the scar running out from under it and down her cheek was proof that at least part of the story was real.

Nydia made herself at home by one of the tables in the corner, munching on what little sweets were left. Though she wasn't a part of the official head council, no one questioned her presence here.

There was a hanging silence as I felt the weight of all their eyes pressing me down. Only Nydia's gaze was welcoming and familiar.

"I thought my trial was to happen in front of everyone," I remarked, holding my chin up. "What happened to 'everyone has a say'?"

"Due to the controversy surrounding your situation and the complicated nature of the investigation, we concluded that your life might be in danger if we were to hold your trial in public," Wolf explained, his piercing eyes giving away no emotion.

"So you were trying to keep me safe," I snarled, sending my response in Laine's direction. "How nice. I feel very welcome."

"Despite what you may think, we're doing our best to give you a fair trial," Laine said.

"By locking me up with no clause?"

"By locking you up under the clause of facing a trial to prove your innocence and protect the people living under our roof." Laine looked at the others. "Shall we begin?"

"No," the unknown woman replied. "We're here to stare at her for the rest of the day."

"I wouldn't mind that," Nydia offered from the corner. "It would give me time to eat all of the cookies and properly savor them."

Laine sighed. "Raphaella, if you wish to stay, I suggest you keep quiet."

Nydia pouted but didn't say a word.

"Indigo Fluor, you are here today as being a suspect for the murder of a Rebel. Are you guilty?"

"No."

"So you plead innocent?"

"Yes."

"How did you join the Rebels?"

"Nydia and Wolf approached me with the offer. After thinking it through, I accepted."

"Is it true that you thought of the offer for weeks before accepting?"

"Yes."

"And what did you do in that time?"

"I was hiding."

"From who?"

"The assassins. The Crown Heirs."

"Why?"

I hesitated. "I made myself their enemy."

"How?"

I didn't answer.

"Ms. Fluor," Laine repeated. "How did you become an enemy of the state?"

I took a deep breath. "I believed they killed my friend, Echo Alderidge, during our fourth year at Evandor Prep. During my fifth year, I worked to reach the Alpha team to get close to the Crowns and learn their intentions for killing my friend. I wanted to know their secrets and prove they killed her without fair trial or clause."

"And you failed," the woman pointed out.

She was right. I failed. Not because I couldn't bring the Crowns' secrets to light or because justice for Echo's death wasn't served. I failed because I couldn't see what was right in front of me. I couldn't tell my friend from foe, nor could I cherish what little I had left. I had Axe. He was gone. All because I demanded retribution for Echo.

I almost wanted to laugh at myself. I let him die thinking I hated him for his father's death. He didn't know that the only reason I ran back to him when I realized Chance was the killer wasn't that I wanted him to know about his friend but rather because I needed him. I was scared that maybe he was right, that maybe I was choosing to believe in all the wrong people, and that I wanted so desperately for him to be the right one. And I did. He died before I could realize that I was wrong for blaming him, I made a mistake, and I should've apologized for being so insensitive.

I looked down at my handcuffed wrists. I failed in more ways than they could ever know.

"How did you fail?" she asked.

Nydia shifted, her loud chewing coming to a stop.

"I underestimated the Crowns' skills."

"In what exactly?"

I looked up and met her eye. "Why do you need to know?"

"You're resisting," she remarked. "Maybe you're trying to hide how you became their friends and let them get away with everything. And maybe, during the time you took to accept your invitation to the Rebels, you contacted them so that you could join us and report our movements to them. And then you decided to start killing us, one by one, like the incidents at your school to turn us against each other."

"I'm not working with the Crowns," I hissed. "I would never work with the Crowns."

"No? Then what are you doing here? How did the Crowns get the best of you? Why did you join us, a group of barely organized or cohesive zealots instead of staying in your pretty, floating city?"

"They killed a friend!" I shouted. "They killed my friend."

"Yes, you already mentioned that."

"No," I whispered. "They killed another. Axe Cormac. He was also friends with Echo and trying to help me take him down. He died trying to save his best friend, Chance Dayholt, but they killed him anyway."

There was a hanging silence. Laine had the decency to look away, but the woman kept glaring holes at me. Wolf looked over his shoulder at Nydia, who, after a moment, broke the silence by munching down on the last cookie.

"Chance Dayholt and his family were accused of being traitors and killed," Brianna said. "Besides his older sister Trysha who escaped. You were working with Chance?"

I shook my head. "I wasn't working with Chance and Trysha. We were just friends. And we shared-"

I cut myself off before I uttered the words which would've been the certain end of my time with the Rebels.

We shared blood. Fortier blood.

Cree leaned forward, more out of curiosity than malicious intent. "What did you share?"

I scrambled for an answer.

"We shared a common hatred for the Crowns," I lied. I only realized he hated the Crowns in the cavern. "But I never worked with him and Trysha. They were killing people at Evandor and slowly working their way up. I only wanted justice for Echo. I had no intentions of destroying the Concordian government."

"Then why are you here now?" the woman asked.

"Because after they killed two more of my friends in front of my own eyes and showed no remorse for it, I decided that I was wrong. I want to see them fall. I want the ground to tumble from beneath their legs as they realize the walls and cities they've built with the blood of others will crumble and trap them beneath it. I want them destroyed."

Laine paused for a moment before saying, "This still doesn't prove your innocence."

"Or why we should risk keeping you around," the woman added. "You pose a serious and obvious threat to us, and in exchange, you don't offer much else?"

"What do you mean?"

She rose from her seat and pranced around me in a slow circle. "Ever since you've come here, you haven't done much besides mope in one of our rooms, eat our food, use our resources, and run around Raphaella's tail like a lapdog. We recruited you for your skills as an assassin, but perhaps you aren't as skilled as we thought. Maybe you've been so used to fighting Assassins your whole life that you never learned what real fighting is. Maybe you don't know how to fight us. So why should we keep you around?"

"You think I can't fight Streeters?" I hissed. My patience was starting to wear thin. "I can. Ask the people rolling in their graves because of me."

"Does that include a man with two children who you dropped in the middle of our base?"

I shook my head, biting my tongue. "No."

"But you just admitted that you could kill Streeters with no qualms and are even wearing it as a badge of honor."

"Nisa," Laine called the woman. "I think that's enough for now."

"But she just said-"

"I know what she just said."

"Then why stop me? To spare her feelings? What about the feelings of the fatherless children?"

"This isn't-"

"You know what?" I interrupted. "You're right. I could kill all of you in the blink of an eye and I wouldn't hesitate to do so, even with these stupid handcuffs on, so I suggest you take a step back."

The woman, Nisa, blinked. "Are you threatening me?"

"Yes. Yes, I am, because that's what I do. I threaten you to your face and follow through. I don't make stupid plans to turn you against each other. I erase you. I would slit all of your throats and watch you bleed death as the stupid fools who led their people into a massacre."

The room seemed to hold its breath and I cursed myself, regretting the words as soon as they slipped from my lips. Nisa took a few steps back and looked to Laine, who remained silent.

"What are you doing? She threatened to kill all of us and you're just sitting there?"

"She grew up an assassin," Wolf interrupted, speaking for the first time since the questioning began. "It can be hard to leave such habits behind."

He glanced at Laine and the two shared an indecipherable look. From her corner, Nydia spoke up.

"He's right. Sometimes I feel like killing people by shoving donuts down their throat, but then I realize that it would be a waste of delicious donuts."

"Raphaella. Do you want to leave?"

"No."

"Then be quiet."

Nydia mumbled something under her breath and started stacking the unopened water bottles in a tower.

He looked back at me. "We don't have anything proving your innocence."

"We don't have any evidence of her guilt either," Wolf countered. "And, if we truly are following the laws of the Old Days, she's innocent until proven guilty."

Laine bit the inside of his lip as everyone waited for an answer. I held my breath. The sound of Nydia's water bottle tower falling, followed by her rapid, creative curses did nothing to diffuse the tension. Finally, Laine spoke.

"She's innocent. For now. Uncuff her."

Nisa threw up her hands. "So that she can kill more people?"

"Wolf's right. There's no real proof that she was the murderer," he looked to Cree. "Uncuff her."

Cree stood and produced a key. He unlocked the handcuffs and they fell away, my bare and reddened wrists finally free. Nisa shook her head.

"When the next victim is you," she told Laine in a low voice, "I hope you look back in the afterlife and regret your decision."

With that, she stormed out of the room, startling the guards outside.

"She was right about one thing," Brianna said. "You haven't done anything since you got here."

"As you mention it," Wolf said, getting to his feet, "we have plans for her very soon. But for now, it's time to rest."

He looked at me. "I'll escort you to your new room."

I blinked. "My new room?"

"Before the trial, we decided that if you were to be released, we would move you somewhere we could still keep an eye on you."

I felt a sting in my chest, but I still nodded. Wolf walked out the door and I followed, Nydia skipping to my side while she attempted to carry all of the water bottles in her arms for reasons I didn't bother asking.

For now, I was free. Or as free as I'll ever be.