Page 103 of The Monster You Made
The video loops it twice. Three times. Four. His voice breaks until it’s no longer a command, just a shatter of sound.
I slam my fist against the table. The rebels stir in their sleep, muttering. None wake. None see. This is mine alone.
The feed continues. Cassian’s head lolls. His eyes flick once toward the camera, and I swear there is something in them, recognition, or a plea. Then black.
***
I don’t remember standing. I don’t remember the console sparking under my fist. I only know Vera’s voice cuts into me like light. “What happened?”
She’s awake, moving across the floor, her hair loose, eyes sharp even in half-sleep. She reaches for my wrist. I push her hand away before I know what I’m doing. The look in her eyes makes me wish I hadn’t.
“They sent another video,” I manage.
Her breath hitches. She doesn’t ask who. She knows. “Cassian.”
I nod once, jaw tight.
She wants to see it. I can tell by the way her gaze flicks toward the console. But she doesn’t ask. Instead, she presses her palm flat against my chest, grounding me. “It’s meant to break you.”
“It already has.” My voice is raw. “They’ve made him a mask. He speaks their lines. He calls me the one who left him.”
“You didn’t leave him. They stole him.”
The words should matter. They don’t. The Crown doesn’t just chain bodies; they chain memory, identity, and blood. They have Cassian, and through him, they have me.
***
Morning brings no relief. The rebels rise, groggy, unaware of what pulsed through the night. Elira sharpens her breaching axe. Rourke curses at a jammed rifle. Abigail hums a tune as she ties her doll to her back. Life stirs, raw and ordinary. And over it all, the weight of the second video crushes my chest.
I catch Vera watching me across the hall. She sees the tremor in my hand when I lift a canteen. She sees the shadow under my eyes. She doesn’t speak of it. That silence is worse than any word.
***
Later, when the council gathers, I speak little. Elira demands we move on a convoy rumored to be carrying prisoners. Rourke warns it’s a trap. Maps sprawl across the table. I barely see them. I hear only Cassian’s voice:You left me. Eight years alone in the dark.
The others argue. My silence presses them harder than any order. Finally, Vera lays a hand on the map, her voice level. “We move. We free who we can. Every chain we break is one they can’t use against us.”
Her words echo Marta’s. They steady the room. But not me. In the back of my skull, the loop plays still.
I wonder how many more packets they’ll send. How many more fragments of my brother they’ll carve and stitch and fling at me until nothing of him remains. Until nothing of me remains.
***
The council disperses at dusk, their arguments still sharp in the air. I linger, alone in the hall, staring at the maps they left behind. Red pins, black lines, circles of ink. It should mean strategy, paths forward, answers. To me, it looks like a snare drawn tight, every thread leading back to the same place: my brother’s face on a screen.
The walls close in. I step outside into the open yard. The air is sharp, winter-tinged, and smoke rises from fires where rebels warm their hands. They laugh, trade stories, sharpen blades. Hope lingers here, thin but real. And I stand apart, poisoned by the sound still rattling in my skull.Remember the brook.
I cross the yard, pass into the shadows near the gate, and brace my hands against cold stone. I try to breathe, but the breath comes ragged. I want to tell someone, to let the weight slide off me. But what would they hear? That the great Lucian, the Wolf, the Breaker of Chains, can’t silence the Crown’s tricks? That every order he gives now is spoken under the shadow of a brother he buried once already? No. Better they see steel, even if inside, I’m all rust.
***
Vera finds me anyway. She always does. Her boots crunch softly in the frost. She doesn’t speak at first, just stands close enough that her shoulder brushes mine. The warmth is steady, solid. I almost lean into it.
“You’re bleeding,” she says finally.
I glance down. My knuckles are torn raw, blood smeared where I’d struck the console earlier. I hadn’t noticed. I flex my fist; the pain is a gift. It anchors me.
“They’ll keep sending them,” I murmur. “Until I break. Or until there’s nothing left of him to send.”
