The implication stabbed at Cassian’s chest. Soft? Her wits were as sharp as knives.
Sometimes she wasn’t sure her father really saw the things she did, the relationships she sacrificed for this regime.
How dare he assume she’d gone soft.
Her fist tightened around the stem of her wine glass, she decided there and then that he’d chosen to insult her. She shot up out of her chair, glugging the remains of the wine and slamming the glass back onto the table.
“You know I ain’t fuckin’ mushy,” she muttered, her world beginning to spin.
“Then hopefully I shan’t need to endure you begging for my assistance on the battlefield again, hm?” Darius glowered, she could see the black veins crawling around his neck like worms, disgusting to look at.
Perhaps almost as disgusting as what was about to happen next.
In hindsight she could’ve contemplated her following words more carefully, but she’d recently developed a reputation for being impulsive, and that trend certainly wasn’t about to stop after a glass and a half of wine.
“I guess that depends on how badly your Purples are gonna get in my way,” she grimaced, watching how her father’s face contorted from slightly angry to astronomically pissed off. He stood there visibly shaking in rage, his mouth quivered as though he were about to say something, but was unsure what to say.
She noticed how a single wire began to illuminate beneath the skin of his neck, trailing down from his ear to his shoulder, multitudes of glowing purple wires rapidly bared themselves all over his hand. A set of illuminated violet claws appeared at his fingertips, buzzing with energy. She’d seen them before, but never turned upon her. She stepped backwards cautiously.
“Y-You…” He stuttered, raising his clawed hand rigidly, “YOU UNGRATEFUL CHILD!”
Before she could react in time to stop it, he swiped downwards with his claws and several purple bolts of light slashed across her upper leg and knee. She wailed in agony, collapsing to the ground before her father and clutching her knee closely.
“My Purples are picking up your slack, Cassian,” Darius took a step back, gazing down at her pitifully and retracting his claws, “our vision would be nothing without them.”
“YOUR FUCKIN’ VISION!” Cassian screamed, her left eye flaring up amber and piercing up at him viciously.
Darius’ grand vision for the Purples meant nothing to her. She wasn’t sure it meant anything to him initially. This hadn’t been what the Xytonetwork was meant for, but as soon as Doloriak got involved with his affairs, everything changed. Now the Purples had become his obsession, his way of proving his worth to the regime, and it was an obsession she’d been forced to endorse. For that she resented them, those braindead Purple-eyed creeps.
“Perhaps it is my vision,” Darius turned and walked away, “But when the paycheck’s right, you certainly don’t take issue with playing along.”
She knew he was right, but she wasn’t about to admit it. Slowly wobbling up onto both feet again, she grabbed the bottle of wine from the table and left the glass where it was.
“You’re my Dad,” she said, her voice wavering, “Of course I have your back.” She turned and began to walk down the corridor towards her bedroom, “Not that you’d understand that. When have you ever had mine?”
“Cassian, where are you going?” He lowered his voice in a last ditch effort to intimidate, “We weren’t done with the numbers.”
“DO THE FUCKIN’ NUMBERS YOURSELF, DARIUS!” She almost shrieked, gripping the neck of her bottle tighter and quickening her stride.
“By all means, keep showing those Outsiders hospitality,” he called after her, ignoring her unwillingness to talk, “but know if you do attempt to combat the regime in any way, I will ensure that The Minister is the one overseeing your punishment.”
Cassian stopped still, eyes wide.
No. Anything but that.
Her palm grew clammy, she began to lose her grip on the wine. She wasn’t about to let such news spoil the remains of her night.
At last, she stormed into her room, not wishing to entertain his cruelty, and slammed the door shut.
She left the light off and walked to the bed, throwing aside the chiffon curtain that ran round the frame and flopping backwards upon the covers. Staring up at the ceiling, she brought the wine bottle to her mouth and glugged it down. It wasn’t good for her, but at least she’d have a good night’s sleep.
Dropping the bottle to the floor, she next reached for the electronic cigarette sat on her bedside table and laid there chain-smoking it for what felt like hours, trying to make sense of what the hell just happened.
How dare he attack his own daughter? Her mind rattled at the ungratefulness of it all: it certainly wasn’t him who was doing the Doloriak’s dirtiest work. Without her, they’d be years off their charted course for success.
The room spun around her, her head felt fuzzy, she tried hard to enjoy it. At some point she must’ve instructed her speakers to start playing Sweet Tooth because the bubblegum tones of “Technological Love” seemed to whirr around the room, fading in and out of focus. Occasionally she laughed aloud, initially at nothing but then her thoughts quickly spiralled and suddenly she was laughing at the audacity he had to tell her what the fuck to do…
She couldn’t rid of it, she was still seething with fury.
In her drunken daze she turned her head and glanced across the room at her dresser, sat upon it was a collection of framed photographs. Taking front and centre was a real relic, a photo taken only days after her birth. And there holding the curious blonde infant in their arms was her younger, kinder father and her angelic mother; alive and well, but only within that frame.
Tears welled in her eyes as she kept staring, but she couldn’t seem to pull her gaze away. Her thoughts swirled with the usual “what ifs” and “I wish that”s, but she knew none of that would bring her back, it only worsened the girl’s sense that perhaps there really wasn’t anyone out there who truly loved her anymore.
Against her body’s will she sat back up and stumbled onto her feet, the purple static at her knee buzzed again and sent her plummeting to the ground. Her drunkenness would save the agony of that mishap for the morning.
She caught sight of herself in the full length mirror nearby, laid pathetically on her stomach, makeup streaming down her face. A guttural grunt left her lungs and she crawled on her belly towards this weak vision of herself.
Propping her body up against the wall she rose to her feet and locked eyes with her mirror image, wiping the spit from her chin, “You need to show him.”
She sloppily raised the prosthetic arm and threw a weak punch at the mirror which clanged against the metal, but didn’t make a dent.
“If nobody’s got your back…” She began, the words gradually slurring into one another, “Then there’s nobody to lose.”
Yes, she was on her own, but who said that had to be a drawback?
“You’re the fuckin’ saboteur,” she growled.
She drew her arm back and punched the mirror again. This time the glass cracked aggressively and shards flew out of the frame, cascading to the ground. Glittering dust danced around her legs as it fell, reacting with the static. Her knee buckled once more.
The floor hit her so hard she fell unconscious in the mirror shards.
A good night’s sleep it would be indeed.
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