Beneath Your Lies

“Please, you can’t do this to her, she’s just a child!”
The little girl with the biggest of dreams, slipped outside her room to hearken the sounds that troubled her sleep. The shadows were talking to her more than usual and the stars themselves seemed to hide behind the inky depths of the night.
“That girl is nothing but a disgrace! We have been punished by the Gods of the Above, punished no more…” her father stated, pacing the Persian rug she use to love.
“What are you going to do? What about--”
“What about what?! That thing that is living with us is not of our blood, she is a monster that must be kept away!”
The girl hid behind her pale golden hair and stuffed in a whimper. Her parents often fought within doors but never let it show on the surface. She chewed on a lock of hair and wished she could just go back to chasing the butterflies at the courtyard or steal the muffins from the town bakery shop again. Anything but this.
“This has to end now…” her father announced, walking towards the girl.
“Henri, don’t do this. Henri? Do you hear me? I swear to the Lords, I will not forgive you for this treacherous doing!” her mother shouted.
As each step grew louder and the shadows stopped their pleas of warning, the little girl with the biggest of dreams was no longer alone. Because fear and hope can cause the perfect darkness. And therefore, the stars exploded.

It was the blinding light that woke her up first. Then, the solid cold bench beneath her broken body and the drastic smell of sweat and men clogged her nose.
It felt like seconds ago that she was having the time of her life doing the things that made her a criminal, but of course with benefits.
She was put in one of the slum holding cells in one of the lowest secured stations ever. No one here cared and the Officials with the high equip gas seemed to have dispersed.
Her blood-red dress finally met its name, dry blood crusted at the ends with killer rips to match. Someone bandaged her left ankle from when she hung like a strung up doll and left the other injuries to fend by itself. It was fine anyways, she could still fight the same as before, effortlessly.
Her head was pounding and the slight blurriness in her vision was not helping but after a few moans here and there, a figure finally protruded into view.
She could make out the words “God” and “trouble, nonsense, always end up here” and a couple of curse words that even she didn’t know before she realized the man in front of her was worse than prison in the slums.
Her moans turned louder after the sight of her ‘benefits’ and she turned away to find a better escape.
“Hey...hey… hey! Lords, Isobel why do I keep getting Deja vu whenever I’m at this rotten place?” he asked, walking towards the bars, unlocking the door.
“I don’t… need your help, leave me alone. I… don’t need… another lecture… again,” Isobel huffed out, trying to walk past her savior/nemesis.
“Look, I don’t know how many drugs or drinks you had, but let’s get you home before I have to call another patch of Officials to find you,” he said, grabbing her arm roughly so she wouldn’t stalk away.
Isobel looked up at him with no mercy and kicked him hardly in the shins. She grabbed her silk red dress and positioned her wig until it was almost realistic looking and limped past him. “Let me get this settled Gabriel and I swear to the fire below I’m going to find whatever chip you planted on me this time and burn it with your balls.”
Gabriel chuckled, his aqua eyes burning in the light.
The two of them had been together for decades but never seemed to notice how one supported the other. It had started on a cursed-fault night, when Isobel had tried to rob one of the upper-class boys she would see everyday across the Ring. Little did she know, her skills were bad and the boy had training. After one black eye and a broken elbow, they finally agreed that violence was stupid and friendship was needed. History wrote itself after.
Of course, the heavenly Gabe was always the one who pulled the tragic Isobel out of prison cells in the most dangerous parts of the slums and she would help him by causing distractions so he wouldn’t have to attend the Royal’s ridiculous meetings. It was yin and yang and yet, only one of them could really tell.
As soon as the two of them were off the the magnetic field, Isobel immediately touched into her globes and tried to retrace the data of the hectic night. She cursed softly when she realized that someone had hacked into the booth man’s storage so she couldn’t find any information about the place at all. It was like it haven’t even existed.
“You know, one of these days, I’m not going to break you out again. If you keep doing illegal stuff, I’m afraid the Officials will have to decide this one,” Gabe said, brushing away a loose dark curl out of his eyes.
“You said that last time on central six,” Isobel replied, taking off her stilettos so her scarred feet could get some fresh air and a peaceful walk home.
They walked in silence, knowing the language well as they walked through different slum areas to crowded gang territory and finally to Downtown Sirensfret. It was one of the biggest areas of the kingdom that wasn’t underpopulated with druggies and drunk Royals.
But it still wasn’t safe either.
“You and your costumes, why can’t you just go on one of your ‘missions’ looking like yourself?” Gabe asked, studying her with scrumptious eyes.
“Because I don’t want anyone remembering who I am. I want them to see me as blood in water, stark in contrast, but ready to dilute the blood into the solute, knowing they could never remember that I was even there. I want to be a shadow to them or a thought that got forgotten just on the tip of their tongue, when the job is done,” she said, staring at the vibrant holograms across the skyscrapers that touched the clouds.
“Your life doesn’t have to always be like that, Isobel,” he said, looking at his ring that indicated his Royal house.
She smirked, then sighed. “When rights are freed, poverty is forbidden and equality is equity, call me then.” She winked at him, followed by a running heads up and scaled the first two stories of the nearest bakery shop and started to jump over the rooftops to reach her secluded home.
Gabe stood watching the red assassin move across the scene like a swift spider. His deductions made him want to puke but it was true, Isobel was a lost girl trying to find a place in his life of power against poor. But he knew one thing for sure, the girl had something sick deep beneath her, sick enough, that will get her killed one day. For Gabe, it had already happened.
He shrugged and walked in the opposite direction, the Upper Ring. He looked at his ring and knew that Isobel was changing him everyday. He looked at the winking stars, watching the late night train travel across the sky on a master of energy, running on air. And like the train, he too was running. But not on air and not to a destination, he was running out of time.
Something bad was going to happen to the place he was born and raised and he didn’t want Isobel dragged into it. This was his dragon to slay, but in this world of technology being humans and humans being shadows, it was only a matter of time that everyone would know. He was a murder to sin and he wanted to make sure no one knew about it. Gabe did something terrible a long time ago and it had finally caught up to him.
Gabriel chucked his family ring into the nearest trash bin and vanished into the foggy depths of the kingdom.