Chapter 17: Corrosion
I'M SORRY THIS TOOK LIKE 5 MONTHS!!! Tbh this was probably the hardest chapter I've had to write thus far and it was just not working with me. But honestly combined with the new Warwick trailer, and the amount of people flooding into my account and mass-reading my stuff lately??? Thank you so much for the motivation y'all, it really means a lot <3
So without further ago, have this 3k word chapter!
Masterlist
It had taken nearly an hour just to settle the crowds once the officers had left. An entire mob of people, suddenly panicked and in need of a level head to tell them what to do and how to feel. So, by the time Benzo was actually able to walk into the backroom of the arena, the anger that coursed through his veins had (somewhat) been able to cool down, no longer quite boiling over. Now replaced by anxiety that fought with his typically cool-headed mind that was trying to remind him to be rational. The pain in his side wasn’t helping none, of course. His lungs were already shite, but that Enforcer slamming the butt of his gun into his ribs hurt like a bitch… He took a deep, calming breath, ignoring the burning protest of his lungs.
Emotions are never good for business.
“They’ve gone too far this time.” Silco spat, slamming the door as he entered the room behind Benzo. “I mean, storming in here like they own the place, waving their guns around? That’s a new low, even for them.”
“And Min?” Benzo asked, sliding a hand through his thin brown hair, urging his breathing to remain even. Silco nodded, waving his hand as if she were an additional afterthought. Benzo thought about Min getting arrested, the way they threw her to the ground like she was nothing, and suddenly he felt the need to slap Silco upside the head. Bigger fish, he reminded himself. “They’ve never made this much of a show for an arrest before. Grayson knows we’re important down here, and now she’s aiming to take us out of commission.”
“Min’s been arrested just as many times as the rest of us.” Silco argued. “She's strong, she can handle it. Standard protocol; get some bail money together, we run down to the station at first light-” “Are you seriously that petty?” Benzo stepped forward, facing Silco face-on. His tone was careful but carried a weight to it. “This was a godsdamn army, for what? Arresting one lass? This goes beyond your fucking ‘protocol’!”
Silco stepped up, meeting Benzo eye-to-eye. Benzo could see the anger in his eyes, flames of passion, he knew the look well amongst his fellow Zaunite revolutionaries. He only wished that he could believe that any of those flames burned for their missing sister-in-arms, but that would be expecting him to put his own anger aside for the good of the cause, for the good of others. And Benzo knew that wasn’t about to happen.
Taking a deep, attempting-to-be-calming breath, Benzo disengages from Silco’s fury, centring back his focus to address both of them. Noting Vander was still silent, glaring the same hole into the ground.
For fuck’s sake, he thought to himself.
“You two are the fucking leaders here, aye?” Benzo barked. “So where’s yer fucking plan of attack? What do we do? We’re gonna break her out, right?”
Silco’s the one to speak up, of course, shaking his head aggressively. “Are you kidding me? If we’re caught anywhere near top-side, we’re landing ourselves in a cell right next to her. We’re too conspicuous, too high-profile, and Grayson obviously has her eye on us.” Benzo made a move to fight against Silco, but Vander finally chooses to speak up.
“He’s right. We go running in after her, even all the cogs in the world won’t be able to pay her way out. Odds are, we get clinked too. Then what good are we?”
“Oh give your head a shake!” Benzo exclaims. “We could fucking try!”
Vander’s jaw tenses. “This isn’t a ‘run in half-cocked’ sort of deal.” Bento scoffs, eyes practically rolling out of his head.
“So…what? We can do…nothing, then? Is that right?”
Vander takes a deep breath, closing his eyes as if he’s focussing on his breath. “Nope. But I think I know who can.”
***
It’s rather unfortunate that, out of all the things you could have inherited from your mother, the recurring habit of getting arrested was one of the more notable.
Also unfortunate that cops are capable of learning.
“Minerva!” Grayson’s voice, practically spitting out your name, had caught you off guard. Your eyes glazed over, looking off to the side. From your spot, seated on the ground with your captured hands sticking out awkwardly in front of you, most of her face hidden by shadows. All the light filtered in through the barred window on the door to your cell, a torch light. The cell was completely lightless, almost a pit of darkness. Dank, dark, and too quiet to be peaceful. But what you could make out from her appearance, you could see wrinkles formed between her eyebrows and a deep sneer.
“Sorry Commander, I must have dozed off there for a moment.” You finally responded. “Welcome to my humble abode! I’d offer you a drink, but I’m a little…tied up, at the moment.” You lifted your hands, ignoring the cramped feelings in your muscles and joints. The thick metal that encased your hands wore you down, like holding a weight you had no consent in holding, and no ability to put down.
She didn’t respond to your jest, simply continuing to stare down at you, face like stone but the underlying disgust ever-present. Tough crowd.
“The counsel has been sent the details of your case and are currently discussing further actions.” She explains. “But it’s customary that someone speak with you directly before any major decisions are made.”
“Gonna be a short conversation,” you note, “y’know, on account of the fact that I’ve done nothing wrong. But I suppose everytime something bad happens, us ‘fissure folk’ are to blame, huh?”
She moves on, as if she doesn’t even hear you. “Your nose looks like it hurts.” She notes. Her shoulders are less square than you’ve seen them before, she’s more comfortable here than when you’ve seen her in the Underground. Although you’ve seen her without her helmet before, notably at the apartment when she first introduced herself, seeing her whole face here felt…oddly personal.
You twitch your nose, feeling the dull pain spike between your eyes. “Pretty, ain’t it?”
“Wanna tell me about the girl who did it? Looked to be a girl by the name of…” she looks down at a file you hadn’t realized she was holding. “Sevika, right?”
Your eyes glance down at the file. Just how many names did they have? “I don’t know, it’s all a little…fuzzy to me. Pretty sure it could have been one of your guys, you know, when they forced me onto the ground and locked up my hands without probable cause.”
She looks back down at you, eyes cold and unamused. “Are we really going to do this?”
“Do what?” She closes the file and reaches into her pocket. Pulling something out, she shows it off to you with an extended arm.
“Look familiar?” It’s hard to make out what she’s showing you at first, but slowly you work out the details. A piece of fabric, red cotton. It was wrinkled and stained beyond saving, but there was a darker, fresher stain around most of it that hadn’t been there last you had it. Of course it was familiar, you’d been wearing it-or ones like it-most of your time in the lanes. The bandana that used to be a staple of your wardrobe, now bloody and in the hands of the Chief of Enforcers.
Your mind flashes to the job just a couple weeks ago, when you’d left the fabric tied around the thigh of that Enforcer you’d attacked. You can feel your heartbeat raise ever so slightly. There’s no way they could have actually linked you to the crime with just your bandana.
“Nope.”
“Really? Cause in all of your mugshots, you’re wearing one just like it in your hair.” She pockets the fabric again. “I notice you’re not wearing one now. Lose it recently?”
You shrug, tilting your head back. “Is changing hairstyles a crime now? I’ll have to let my salon know.”
“Can you account for your whereabouts from three nights ago?”
“You’ll have to ask your mother, I believe I was at her house.”
She rolls her eyes and takes a long, deep sigh. “Minerva,” her tone is calm, but irritable. Like she was scolding a small child.
You mimic her, rolling your eyes as well, but significantly more dramatic. “Grayson.”
“I am aware that you and your…compatriots may be used to certain lax standards. But I can assure you that physically assaulting one of my officers is not something I intend to easily brush under the rug.” Your hands attempt to fidget within their constraints, your bones buzzing with the need to move them. “I know the man you hurt, he's a good officer. He has a family, a wife and child. Are you really going to allow your anger to blind you so much that you’re willing to take away a child’s father?”
You lean forward, the chains rattling with your movements. “Several of the people your officers pointed a gun at tonight have families too. Those ‘good officers’ you have, they attack and aim firearms at women and children on a daily basis.” Gone was your mocking tone, your light-hearted facade. “You attack our people in our streets, in our businesses, in our homes. But hey, it’s different right? We’re all just fissure-folk trash to you.”
“And that justifies you nearly killing one of my men?”
You kill hundreds of ours.
Your jaw tightens, biting your tongue. She’s not going to goat you into a confession that easily.
“I didn’t touch ‘your man’.” You finally respond, sitting back against the wall. “And if all you brought me in for was some half-baked story built around a piece of red cloth…well, it’s good to see you’re just as incompetent as your predecessor.”
The room falls silent, both of you glaring daggers at each other. You swear the room grows colder, the cold stone walls looming over you more and more with every passing, silent moment. You tried so hard to focus on the woman in front of you. Maybe if you were more aware, better able to scan her and read her body language, you could find something on her. Find something that you could use against her. But all you could focus on was your bones burning with the urge to use your powers, fanned on by the anger that’s coursing through you. You needed to get out of these damn constraints!
The door to your cell opened again, and another officer poked his head in. This one was much younger, and clearly very nervous. Twitchy eyes looked over from you, to his superior, just as Grayson’s head snapped back to glare at him.
“I gave orders that we weren’t to be disturbed.” Grayson snarled, and you could see the officer practically jump out of his skin in fear.
“Um…I’m sorry Ma’am. But uhh, you see…there’s someone demanding your presence outside.”
“What?” She dug into her pocket, fishing out a silver pocket watch. “It’s not even dawn yet. The doors to the station don’t open for another hour.”
“There were, um,” his eyes dart over to yours, and the obvious anxiety in his gaze makes you smirk. “Very insistent.”
They? God, please tell me the guys didn’t decide to come…
Grayson lets out a long, heavy sigh of frustration. Stuffing the pocket watch angrily back into her jacket and snapping her folder shut, she begins to storm off out of the room. Just as she grabs onto the heavy metal door, however, her head whips back to stare directly at you. Her eyes, furious.
“We’re not done here, you understand.” It wasn’t a question.
Lifting your shackled hands to your forehead, you give a mocking-serious face and a curt nod. “Aye aye, cap’n.”
The door slams behind her, and immediately your mind begins to spiral. The guys can’t have come here, they wouldn’t. Sure, it was basic protocol that all of them would immediately jump to bust the others out of prison whenever one of you got pinched, but this wasn’t your typical riot-crashing or pickpocketing charge. Closing your eyes, you try not to linger on the blurry images of the raid. The white hot shock of fear upon seeing a gun pointed at Narco, Skye, and little baby Vi. The way the frequency of the Enforcer’s guns seemed to scream at you in such large quantities. The fear, all but palpable within the arena as people either were pulled into the fight or ran for their lives. The thought of Benzo being clubbed down, Silco with a knife against his throat and hands raised in surrender, the rage in Vander’s face as they placed you in cuffs.
This wasn’t like any other run-in with the cops that you’d experienced. This was a whole other level, and you knew that if the guys tried to fight you out or pay anyone off; they’d wind up in cells just like yours.
You tried not to let your mind linger on that image for too long, either.
Your throat started to burn with the tears you wouldn’t let yourself shed, your thoughts spinning in and out of control, and you pulled your legs up to your chest, resting your head on your knees. Trying ever so hard to calm your breathing. Please let it not be them out there…
Loud shouting filtered in through the cracks below your cell’s door. You couldn’t make it out, even if you tried, or even how many voices there were, but you could tell it was definitely heated. Were those the guys, fighting tooth-and-nail for your release, only to get shackles placed on them as well? Forced to the ground, kicking and screaming, and arrested in front of a huge crowd with your rage-filled family, forced to watch?
You could only anxiously listen in, your ears straining to hear the muffled sounds as you sat, uselessly, in your stupid little cell. This continues on for what felt like an eternity, but most likely what would have been only half an hour. Until, finally, the door to your cell swings open. On the other side, a very pissed-off Grayson. The flames of her rage practically emanated across the room, getting warmer and warmer as she stormed over to you, keys in hand.
“You got lucky again, Minerva.” She grunts out as she leans down, grabbing your shackles with probably more force than necessary. As she begins to unlock your restraints, your hands slowly begin to regain movement ability, you can feel the energy of your magic slowly flood back into your fingertips. The vibrations of all the metal around you, singing to you like a beautiful orchestra. You could only shut your eyes, the flood of emotions that came with your powers almost overwhelming to your already anxious body. You didn’t even realize that Grayson was still speaking. “-won’t be the last time you’ll be in one of my cells, I can promise you that.”
“What’s going on?” You couldn’t help but ask. You know you sounded pathetic, but this was honestly not how you pictured this going down.
Grayson laughed, but it sounded more like a scoff. “All you Underground folk, all you do is play dirty. Lying and cheating, it comes to you like breathing.”
That didn’t answer your question, but as Grayson slapped a normal pair of handcuffs on you, using them to force you up to your feet, you felt it was better not to ask followup questions. She dragged you by your arm out of your cell and into the all-too familiar main chamber of the Enforcer’s main station. On the other end, however, much to your surprised wasn’t the boys. Rather, two female figures.
“Minerva!” Not even your mother’s cry was enough to shake you fully out of your shock as she surged forward, throwing her arms around you in a tight embrace. Out of habit, you tried to return your embrace, only to quickly remember your shackles.
“Mom, what are you doing here?” You asked, quickly pulling away to look down at her with furrowed brows. “You shouldn’t-”
“The boys phoned me!” Her salt-and-pepper hair wasn’t in its usual braid, still down in flowing waves, showing that she had come straight here from bed. Her thick winter coat had been thrown on overtop of her wool nightgown, and her boots were unlaced.
“They phoned both of us.” The second figure spoke up, Niya’s tone was stern, moreso than you think you’d ever heard from her. Her citrus-coloured hair was messier than how it had been at the arena, and there was a new cut along her lip that she must have gotten during the raid. She looked tired, but more than that, she looked mad. “Are you okay?”
“Yeah, I’m fine…” You looked back down at your mom. “But, why-”
“Your mother and Ms. Niya have negotiated for your release.” Grayson’s words were heavy, and she wasn’t doing a very good job at hiding her snarling face. With begrudging movements, she reached down, unlocking your handcuffs. “You’re free to go.”
Before you really even have a moment to wrap your head around what’s happening, your mother is pulling you away from the captain, all but dragging you towards the door. “Come on,” she whispers to you, “we need to get out of here.” But your eyes are still stuck on Grayson’s, the rage flowing off of her body in waves.
“I’m sure I’ll be seeing you again soon, Minerva.” She spits.
With all the confusion swimming around in your mind, you try to think of something to say; one last quip to gain the extra hand. You’ve held your ground for so long here, and yet, the only thing you can really think to say is, “looking forward to it.”
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