i, do-gooder (hafen & october)

They would not take off the handcuffs. Not after the train ride, not when I was alone in my room last night, not even when I was talking to Harlan Godfrey with the singular limelight staring down at me. They painted a picture of a wild animal using the silver chains in front of me. At the beginning I tried to wear them with pride, a symbol of the danger I was…it was almost an award.

They dug deep into my skin, causing pain when everything was already hurting. Dried blood on the bottom of my chin from when it split open as the peacekeeper took me down. My ribs aching with every movement, bruised no doubt. The injuries from the handcuffs just piled on top of everything else, almost unnoticeable in the grand picture.

Even if every movement had caused pain, I fought against the restraints.

My foot on the chain, my leg straightened out as applied pressure hoping it would snap. With the clocks ticking I was willing to try just about anything to get them off, knowing if I couldn’t get out of the cage then I needed to at least get out of the restraints in order to have a fighting chance. Drea’s las look burnt into my mind; her pleading face so lost of hope. Her voice screaming for me to stop, stop fighting, do not let them beat me up more than they already have.

Do not let them see you as weak. The cuffs could be misleading, or my wild thrashing could be seen as insanity. Helpless.

That is how the girl from one evidently had seen me. The way she waltzed up with an attitude all to familiar. She was just like the little blond girls on the pier with their parents. When work was scarce, Drea would have us swallow our pride. Groups of us together singing the songs of the old stories. A little sign asking for a donation as we poured our heart out, exploiting what little culture we had. The girl from one was just like the little girls whose parents would give them a little change and with all the pride in the world they would drop it in our collection cans.

I had enough of girls like her.

My gaze met hers, hurt and anger looking back into her eyes. Along the pier I would have to smile and say thank you, allow them to believe they were saving my wretched soul. Nothing would allow to ever let anyone think of me like that again, but I still did need her assistance.

Quickly I had stood up, the older girl still taller than me, and wrapped the metal chain of the cuffs around her neck. All the forces of broken spirits and siren vengeance cursed through me. The ancestors of the ocean who had always been deemed untamable by the mindless occupants of the land. I pulled her backwards until my mouth was next to her ear.

"Hi October." I snarled. "I'm Hafen and you're right, you are going to help me. If you don’t do exactly what I say, just maybe I will kill you right here, right in front of all the cameras. I’m sure this is not how you would want to die, am I right? Nod if you understand and I’ll let go.”

I had the upper hand, now October would no longer be doing me a favor. I would have rather keep the restraints till the day I died before I was in debt to land creature.