Page 110 of Uprising

I roll my eyes before I can stop myself. I’m too tried now, too exhausted, and in truth, I’m sick of playing a part. I want to look Darius in the eyes and for him to know that he doesn’t scare me anymore. That nothing he can do will hurt me. I want him to see everything I feel for him, I want him to feel it, my contempt, my hate, my desire to pick up a knife and drive it into his beating heart.

“Even now we’re taking back control of the streets.” He continues. “This little protest will be over by lunchtime.”

“Sure it will.” I spit.

He tilts his head, his lips curling. “You think I’m that stupid? You think I haven’t planned for something like this?”

“I know you didn’t.” I say back. “You thought Roman was dead. You believed it all these months…”

He lets out a laugh that cuts right through me. “God you’re naïve.” He replies. “You think I didn’t know? You think I wasn’t more than aware that he was still out there? I had men hunting for him.”

I narrow my eyes. I can’t tell if he’s pretending or not.

“…We didn’t find his body after all, so what else could it mean?” He continues.

I gulp at those words. “You knew you weren’t burying him.”

“No.” He grins.

“But you said to me…”

“I lied Rose. I lied to make you understand how utterly pointless your fighting was.”

“Who did you bury instead?” I scream remembering what he’d done to me, how he’d violated me over what I believed were Roman’s remains. “Who did you stuff into his coffin?”

He laughs more then. “Just some random homeless man. Provided more use in death than he ever did in life.”

I fight the ties then. I physically jerking as I try to get free.

He watches with amusement until I stop. Until I give up realising that it’s just a pointless waste of my energy. I can’t get free. He’s ensured that.

“How about you come watch the rest of this play out Rose?” He taunts.

“How about you fuck off.” I spit back.

He smacks me and because of how I’m tied my whole body takes the full impact and the chair topples onto its side.

I spit blood as I realise he’s split my lip. Though I don’t that’s the last injury I’m going to suffer today.

He crouches down, cuts through the tape, and hauls me up. My feet slide in the blood pooled on the floor. He drags me out the room, out along the corridor to the main living space which right now feels like the command centre for a damned army.

He plonks me into a seat and I’ll admit I’m grateful to be out of his hold, to not have to depend upon him to not collapse onto the floor. Now that my wrists are free I can feel my blood flooding back to my fingers and they’re tingling unpleasantly with pins and needles.

“Watch the show.” Darius says.

I glare at him and he grabs my jaw wrenching my head around to where the massive TV is projecting what I imagine is the streets of Verona right now.

It looks like some sort of battle. I gulp as I watch it play out. People with scarfs tied around their faces hurl what look like Molotov cocktails at the Militia who stand behind their bulletproof shields before taking pot shots where they can. And along the bottom the news channel is streaming more and more alarming headlines.

That the Militia have opened fire in two different districts.

That ten people are confirmed dead and dozens more wounded.

“You have to stop this.” I whisper.

Darius shakes his head. “Not until I have Roman.”

“You’re killing people.” I hiss.