He'd never turned away from the ugliness he'd seen inside her, and because of that, she hadn't shied away from the ugliness of him.[break][break]

That first night of freedom had tasted black with nightmares, tangled in sheets and shadows as they unleashed dark desires long suppressed in their isolation. She dreamed of terrible things she didn't want to name -- masked horrors, smothering sweetness, and a screaming futility that met a wall of cruel indifference.[break][break]

She awakened to bruises she half-remembered enduring, a hand delicately reaching for her collarbone to trace the angry memory of the previous night. A robe wrapped around her shoulders, erasing the evidence of how violently they'd celebrated the end of their imprisonment, and it ghosted around her body as she searched for the man who'd left her.[break][break]

He'd never cooked for her before.[break][break]

"You look well, mon oiseau," she murmured, meeting his gaze with a curiosity she left unvoiced.[break][break]

Perhaps she'd imagined the severity of his wounds; she hadn't thought so, but her mind had played tricks on her before. Agonizing moments of silence fell, and the fork dangled from her hand, uncertain, before she began to eat.[break][break]

Her body should have been starving after all it had suffered, but her appetite had dwindled to nothing. It was as if she'd forgotten what it was to need to eat.[break][break]

"I didn't know you could cook." The attempt at conversation came out stilted and awkward, painful in its sincerity. "I hadn't expected a man of your station to be so skilled in it."[break][break]

A weak smile tried to return the mood to something familiar--something gentle and warm. She'd ached for that the most, during all those days lost to misery.

[attr="class","ooc"] BARNABY FINCH

[attr="class","pkmn"]

Her smile vanished. This place wasn't a prison, but in a matter of seconds, it ceased to be anything remotely like a home.[break][break]

Dread crept up on her as Barnaby recited her own promises aloud. Stripped of their devotion, he levied them as indictments against her character, each an empty and childish platitude. Even the smallest shadows writhed as he spoke, alive with an emotion she recognized all too well as spite.[break][break]

Panic surged up inside her, paralyzed like a Deerling in headlights as she tensed in anticipation of punishment.[break][break]

She had done something. Of course she had. It was always her that disappointed the ones she loved, somehow, in some way. Her mind replayed the endless possibilities over and over, frantic, as she tried to recall the sin she'd committed.[break][break]

Was it FERNANDO SILPH? Did Barnaby know what Tapu Fini had done to him and continued to do to him, even now?[break][break]

Her throat constricted with shame at her secrecy, desperate to confess and make things right again between them.[break][break]

"Bee..." she began to say, but stopped. The audacity of speaking only inflamed the shadows further.[break][break]

"Why does MATIAS SILPH know of my existence?"[break][break]

Had she ever noticed how truly cold his eyes were--how they cut like ice, piercing in their cobalt glare? She didn't recognize this man, or maybe she simply didn't want to.[break][break]

"You don't understand," she tried again, but no, she already knew the problem wasn't that. It was that he'd decided he understood. He'd already condemned her, and nothing she said would change his mind.[break][break]

That didn't stop her from trying.[break][break]

"Matias had me followed, Barnaby. The man was obsessive and wild with jealousy, convinced I wasn't faithful to him." The desperation of her plea had nothing to do with the Elite Four, and everything to do with the chilly reception of the man opposite her. "He doesn't know your face. That I swear to you."[break][break]

Her fear amplified suddenly, ignited by an unexpected source as the second half of what he'd said dawned on her.[break][break]

"That fucker, Bee."[break][break]

"Did... did he hurt you because of me?" she whispered, face stricken with concern as a hand tenderly reached for him. "He promised me he wouldn't--"[break][break]

Her slip of the tongue went unnoticed, until it was too late to be unsaid.

[attr="class","ooc"] BARNABY FINCH

[attr="class","pkmn"]

The cruel laughter stunned her briefly silent, even as a thousand protests rose to the fore. Her hand retracted from him as fingers curled into a fist. Nails dug into her shaking palm, threatening to break skin.[break][break]

"I don't recall you having any complaints when it was my life on the line."[break][break]

Far from it. BARNABY FINCH had goaded her into making the most of the Elite Four's attention, seeming almost gleeful at its implications. He'd delighted in her reluctance to speak of those encounters, finding it amusing to hear of how Groudon's Avatar threw himself at an underboss who'd never love him.[break][break]

Had he ever understood the real and present danger he'd encouraged her to face? Hadn't he realized that declan walsh's knowledge ensured she had no choice but to reenter the Pyroar's den and subject herself to that insanity?[break][break]

"You underestimated the 'buffoon' as much as I did," she snapped, eyes narrowing. "When your identity was discovered, there was no unopening that Pandora's Box. So I said I'd spare his precious Champion if he likewise abandoned his pursuit of you."[break][break]

She closed her eyes, inhaling deeply as despair settled in her bones. What use was that promise now, though? kyle lopez was dead, and it was her fault. Matias could kill BARNABY FINCH without remorse, if he truly wished to.[break][break]

"The Red Shard was meant to kill him," she said finally, emerald eyes blinking open as her voice broke. "MATIAS SILPH was supposed to die, and you were supposed to be safe."[break][break]

A sharp, bitter laugh jumped out from her throat as she shook her head, tousled blonde curls shifting with the movement. Her lips twisted into a smile that was nothing but teeth.[break][break]

"Don't fret, though. I'm sure he's more interested in killing the woman who betrayed him and caused the death of the person he cherished most in the world."[break][break]

Sleeping with a man like that didn't make him docile. It made her an object of his obsession, one that he was liable to harm at any moment in time.[break][break]

She'd never had the luxury of evading his interest.

[attr="class","ooc"] BARNABY FINCH

[attr="class","pkmn"]

"Why bother defending myself? You're already playing my judge, jury, and executioner."[break][break]

The sound of his fist slamming against the table only heightened her fury, doing little to silence her petulant outburst. An angry red flush suffused her features as she stood in turn, her robe swirling around her as she stood to face him.[break][break]

The shadows encroached on her like inky fingers that sought to stain the white fabric of her chemise black.[break][break]

"Do you want me to grovel? Is that it?" she demanded, her voice rising to a shrill decibel. In the distance, Pepin shivered and quaked before their darkening quarrel. "If you wish me to shoulder all the blame, fine, so be it. What then, Admin Bee?"[break][break]

"He holds no gratitude for what we've done for him," an insidious thought hissed inside her mind. "We surrendered unto HIM all our undying loyalty, and yet he DENIES US in a moment."[break][break]

A wordless despondency took hold of her, unvoiced but nonetheless palpable as her crestfallen face turned to meet him. He'd never seemed so beautiful and terrible as he did now, looming before her like an angel of divine judgment.[break][break]

Mere hours before, she'd been cradled in his arms, safe and tucked away from all the horrors of the waking world. Had he lied to her, then?[break][break]

Had he been lying to her all this time, as Édouard had?[break][break]

Her anger froze, its tumult of surging emotion quelled into a panicked stasis. No. No, that was an unhelpful thought. One she couldn't bear to entertain a moment longer.[break][break]

BARNABY FINCH was different. Those two men were different. She knew better now.[break][break]

She lifted her chin, straining to hold onto whatever remained of her dignity as she choked back a sob. The invisible thorns that surrounded her heart sharpened, tightening their hold as she strangled her guilt.[break][break]

"I tire of this holier-than-thou drivel. If you wish to punish me, then simply do so."

[attr="class","ooc"] BARNABY FINCH

[attr="class","pkmn"]

"Leave."[break][break]

There was that uneasy feeling again -- the one she'd known when Celebi pulled her away from this reality to witness another.[break][break]

This same scene had played out so many times before. In dim rooms, sometimes. Behind closed doors, always. Often she had found herself kneeling on the ground, begging to the point of tears and clutching at a rosy-tinged youth that faded more with each passing day.[break][break]

Echoes of old conversations carried back to her, shameful in their desperation and their unabashed longing:[break][break]

"Please, please don't do this."[break][break]

"I didn't mean it. I never meant to hurt you."

[break]

"What can I do? Tell me, I beg of you. I'll do anything."[break][break]

"Please, won't you at least speak with me?"

[break]

"Édouard, stop, you're hurting me--!"[break][break]

The darkness abruptly receded, like curtains drawn back to deny the shadows of the past. She blinked, startled by the influx of light in the room, and released a breath she'd scarcely known she'd been holding. Belatedly she noticed her hands trembling at the hollow of her throat, lingering there for reasons she didn't comprehend herself.[break][break]

It was so easy to be erased. For all people spoke of loyalty, it was nothing unusual to be discarded and forgotten.[break][break]

The sting of it never stopped hurting, though, no matter how you tried to numb yourself to it. Loneliness haunted you whether you wanted it to or not.[break][break]

"This is exactly the outcome Matias wanted." The truth tasted bitter and sharp on her tongue. Tears threatened at the corners of her eyes, but she fought them back. It was a fight she wasn't certain she'd win. "No, I didn't intend to tell you. I thought I could protect you on my own. I thought I..."[break][break]

Her voice trailed off, lost to his indifference. It didn't matter what she'd thought, did it?[break][break]

Shame, not pride, had kept her quiet. That cowardice filled her now with disgust and self-loathing, making her body and mind a prison worse than that penitentiary ever had been.[break][break]

"Leave," he'd demanded. It'd be wisest to do as he asked.[break][break]

Listlessly, she shambled away from him towards the door. This, too, was familiar. Those early days of sobbing and hysterics had eventually ebbed and faded, dulling to a numbness that left her hollow and doll-like.[break][break]

The scorned rage would come later, unearthed from the rot of its suppression. For now, it was buried beneath too much sorrow to dig it out.[break][break]

She should have known better than to look back.[break][break]

She should have known better than to turn around and speak.[break][break]

"I love you," she whispered, for the first and what might be the last time. "Whatever you believe, Barnaby, I... have always loved you."

[attr="class","ooc"] BARNABY FINCH

[attr="class","pkmn"]

Nothing. Her confession meant nothing to him.[break][break]

All this time, she'd been nothing to him.[break][break]

Last night returned to her in a hazy collage of entwined bodies. Her eyes dimmed, fingers tracing the vicious bite marks on her skin. She'd been just a body to him, something to be enjoyed and exploited until it was ultimately discarded.[break][break]

It explained things, didn't it? It explained why he'd been so willing to enjoy her warmth that night, only to cast her out coldly in the light of day. If he'd been truly wounded by her actions, wouldn't he never have--?[break][break]

"And yet, isn't that something we'd do to punish the one we love?"[break][break]

"Are we not both the Scorned and the Vindictive?"

[break]

If he had loved her how she loved him, then he might seek revenge by the same means as her, too.[break][break]

Was that a fitting punishment, then? To be rejected the way she'd rejected others in her desperation to avoid the pain of it herself? Had she not done the same to FERNANDO SILPH, to GIDEON GRAVES, and even MATIAS SILPH?[break][break]

She glanced over to her coat by the doorway, thrown there the previous night in their haste to the bedroom. Shrugging off the gossamer robe, she abandoned it to the floor -- one more casualty of this romance gone wrong -- and wrapped her jacket around herself. A hand reached for a Pokeball, retrieving a Butterfree that had helped her escape many misfortunes like this one.[break][break]

Several seconds passed as she hesitated in his foyer. It occurred to her that she'd been waiting for him to change his mind. Some part of her, some stupid loyal dumb animal chained inside of her, expected him to descend those stairs and apologize for all he'd said.[break][break]

How childish. Of course he wouldn't.[break][break]

Men never did.[break][break]

Disgusted with her own naivete, she closed her eyes and bid the Butterfree's TELEPORT to whisk her away. In moments she returned to a small, cramped apartment that was claustrophobic with its own loneliness. It was a cell in its own right.[break][break]

At least it was a prison she had learned to call a home.

[attr="class","ooc"] BARNABY FINCH

[attr="class","pkmn"]