Crimson Red, Cerulean Blue
Chapter 5

(Violet)

I woke up, and the first thing I thought was,

Where am I?

Blinking grit and dust out of my eyes, I sat up and was slammed with a pounding headache so bad I instantly doubled over, whimpering.

Oh, cake. What did they do to me?

I squeezed my eyes shut, tears threatening to spill out of them, both from the pain and the worry.

No. Lucas told me not to cry anymore. Don’t cry. Don’t cry!

Oh no. Lucas. Where’s Lucas?!

My eyes shot open at this sudden realization, and I looked wildly around at what I now recognized to be a jail cell. There was no one except me in the tiny place. Tears welled up in my eyes again, against all of my efforts to keep myself from crying.

“Lucas… Are you there? Lucas?” I called, hoping against all the odds that he might be in the next cell or so. No such luck. That isn’t the way Argot does things.

I trembled, pulling the hood of my cloak over my head and burying my face in my knees. This was too much. It was bad enough when I got caught the first time, but then I had Lucas, and the promise of getting free again. Now, there was no hope.

“The prisoner’s awake, and it’s crying,” I heard someone, probably a guard, say. “Want me to shut it up?”

I bit my lip to keep from screaming at him. I’m not an it!

“Nah, leave it alone. Argot wants it intact,” another guard replied.

“What about the other prisoner? Lucas.” The guard spoke the name like a proper lady saying the word fart. “Traitor. He seemed perfectly ordinary too, didn’t he? I freaking invited the scum to dinner.”

He spat on the ground. “He deserves everything he gets.”

It killed me to hear them talking this way about Lucas, who’d taken care of me and kept me alive and hoping in this awful prison. But it wasn’t as if I could just smash all the iron bars that barricaded the exit and kick him where no man should ever be kicked. I was a prisoner again, and that meant my hands were tied. All I could do was try and get some info out of the guards.

I squeezed my eyes shut as my headache intensified. Alright, maybe I couldn’t at the present moment. My head hurt too much for me to even try reading his current thoughts, much less dig into his memory. I curled up in a ball, wishing that someone would just come save me already. Preferably Lucas, though any one of the Seven would be welcome as well.

“Whoa, really? At this rate we’ll have all the scum in jail by the end of the year!”

I blinked, suddenly paying attention to the guards’ conversation. What? Is he talking about the others?!

“Yeah, it was amazing. Apparently, Red and Blue weren’t very careful about not leaving behind any tracks. Argot hunted them down. It won’t be long now. And since we just got Indigo and Violet as well, this probably calls for some kind of celebration, huh? Maybe we’ll get a party!”

His partner laughed. “Yeah, right. I’d like to see the day. When was the last time Argot decided to throw a party?”

I froze, my blood turning to ice. He’s found Red and Blue? And Indigo as well? Oh, no, no, no…

Capturing Indigo and me was bad enough, but if they got a hold of Red and Blue as well, there’d only be a few more of the Seven left. Our odds were already awful, with just us Seven against Mask, Argot, and all their minions. I couldn’t let that happen.

But how was I supposed to stop it? There was no way, not from where I was. I bit my lip hard, racking my brain for any ideas there could possibly be, trying to ignore the growing intensity of my headache.

“If you two are done gossiping,” a new voice broke in, “Argot wants the prisoner. Take it out.”

Apparently the new person was higher-ranked than the guards, who instantly stammered,

“Yes, sir! It’ll be out in a second, sir!”

“Get it done,” the voice snapped, and suddenly, instinctively, his thoughts flowed into my head:

Ugh, I can’t believe I’m on retrieval duty. Seriously. I mean, I’m one of the Opposites, I should be way better treated than this. But nooo, Argot and Mask are putting us ‘on hold’ while they’re finishing their stupid little project. It’s so lame!

The Opposites? What the heck was an Opposite?

“Get up, prisoner,” one of the guards snapped, breaking into my thoughts. “Hurry it up, we haven’t got all day.”

I didn’t say anything, but climbed to my feet – then instantly crumpled to my knees again, the headache too intense to remain standing.

“Oh, for the love of little green tomatoes! Get up!”

A rough hand grabbed the hood of my cloak, jerking me to my feet. I stumbled, and a sharp kick met my shin, tearing a cry from my throat.

That really hurt! I thought, trying not to scream as the tears pooled in my eyes again. I was tossed like a bundle of rags in the direction of the Opposite, whoever he was.

“It’s a chick,” the guy said in surprise, his voice no longer so cold. “Well, no wonder she wasn’t hard to capture.”

“Oh, come on. Argot dragged in Indigo just as easily, and you know how good he was. You saw him train, didn’t you?” a guard asked. “I mean, Fallon is one of you, and he was Indigo’s trainer.”

“Yeah, ol’ Fallon’s got a ton of explaining to do because of that mess. Mask is just a little curious as to why he didn’t notice that tiny bit of info. After all, Fallon was responsible for him.” The guy’s fingers gripped my wrist, so tightly it hurt. “Well, I’ll be off now, taking the cargo to Argot. Hey, that rhymes. Seeya, boys. Mask is best.”

“Mask is best,” they echoed, and I fought the sudden, random urge to giggle at how lame the statement was. Apparently these guys weren’t very creative.

“All right, kid,” the guy said, leading me away, and the urge vanished as fast as it had come. I looked up, into his cold, cold gray eyes, the smirk on his face chilling me to the bone.

“We’re gonna pay a little visit to your dear friend Indigo,” he told me. “And you, Violet, are going to help us…convince him to cooperate. Doesn’t that sound like fun?”

No. No, it didn’t. My blood ran cold at the thought of hurting the other captured member of the Seven, of hurting any other member of the Seven. I squeezed the hem of my cloak so hard, my knuckles turned white, knowing that these guys weren’t going to take no for an answer.

But I’ll never hurt one of us. Never, never, never.

I glared at him, fear almost making me collapse, but still refusing to back down.

Over my dead body.

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