บท 15: Chapter 15: The Price of Power
Margot Blackthorn lay sprawled across the floor, her once meticulously arranged hair now a disheveled mess. She was a woman of forty-something years, though she desperately clung to the fading remnants of her youth. Her skin, caked in layers of powder and rouge, was stretched thin across her sharp cheekbones. The bright red lipstick, smudged at the corners, gave her the appearance of a harlequin. Her eyes, dark and heavy with mascara, widened in shock as they settled on her face. She wore a silk gown, embroidered with delicate patterns meant to scream wealth and power, but to me, it was little more than an illusion.
The moment she saw me, her body stiffened, her breath catching in her throat. It was as though she had seen a ghost—and in some ways, she had. I wasn't supposed to be here. I was supposed to be rotting in a ditch, just as she had planned.
But that shock quickly morphed into something uglier. Anger. The kind of anger that bubbles up from a place of fear, when the world doesn't bend to your will. Her face twisted, lines creasing her makeup, and she moved with a sudden burst of energy, launching herself at me like a cornered animal.
She was a fool to think she could overpower me. The Eliot she remembered, the weak boy she had thrown away, was long gone. In his place stood someone else—me. A tyrant in the skin of the boy she had once manipulated.
I caught her arm mid-swing, my fingers tightening around her wrist with a strength that took her by surprise. Her eyes went wide as the pressure of my grip began to crush her bones. She hadn't expected this. The Eliot she knew could never do something like this. I could see it in her gaze—the disbelief, the fear. She was quickly realizing that I wasn't the helpless child she remembered.
With a sharp tug, I flung her to the ground, her body hitting the cold floor with a satisfying thud. I knelt down, gripping her by the chin, pulling her face up to meet mine. Her trembling lips were smeared with lipstick, her once carefully applied makeup now a streaked mess of tears and powder. She looked pitiful.
"I'm not the boy you remember," I whispered, my voice a low, nonchalant murmur. The kind of tone that made people feel small, insignificant. "That boy died in that ditch. Whatever hope you had of controlling me died with him."
I watched her closely, every twitch of her muscles, the flicker of terror in her eyes. I could see the gears turning in her mind as she tried to figure out a way to escape this. Her mouth opened in an attempt to scream, but the damage I had done to her vocal cords ensured that no sound came out. She was trapped, and she knew it.
She tried to fight back again, her hands scrabbling for purchase, but I slammed her head against the floor with a simple press of my palm. Her body went limp beneath my hand, her breath coming in ragged gasps as she realized how utterly powerless she was.
"You'll help me," I said, my voice soft but firm. "I'm going to take back everything you stole from this body. The inheritance, the status, all of it. And you're going to help me. Because if you don't…" I let the threat hang in the air, watching as the realization settled deep into her bones.
She gazed up at me, and in that moment, I saw it in her eyes. The dawning horror that the boy she once knew had been replaced by something far worse. To her, I wasn't human. I was a monster, something that had crawled out of the abyss to claim what was owed.
Satisfied, I released my grip on her face, standing up and brushing off my ragged clothes. The fabric clung to me, tattered and worn from the month I had spent wandering, but I straightened it anyway. Appearances mattered, even now. I hated looking disheveled, even though I probably stank from wearing the same outfit for weeks. It was a passing thought, one that seemed more important than the woman sobbing quietly on the floor.
As I adjusted my sleeves, I spared a glance at Margot. Her tears had smeared her makeup into a grotesque mask, streaks of black and red running down her face. She was pitiful, clutching at her throat, struggling to make a sound, but nothing came out. The only noise in the room was the sound of her gasping breaths.
I looked at her, amused. She had no choice but to comply now.
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