Teresa had agreed to help the young guard, and after seeing the bruises covering his body, she felt a faint trace of pity, though her mind constantly reminded her that he was still part of the Settlement’s cruel force.
Nonetheless, she followed him with the intention of helping, only to be met with yet another sudden ambush the moment he led her into a hallway.
As frustrating as the situation was, what disgusted her most was the fact that it had to be him.
He had betrayed her in the worst possible way...
***
Flashback.
Teresa walked a few paces behind the young guard.
His shoulders were hunched forward as though he were attempting to collapse into himself.
The hallway he guided her through was narrow and poorly illuminated. Torches mounted along the walls had long since burned down to dying embers that cast weak orange light across the cold stone.
To be honest, she did not feel at ease.
Out of nowhere, he stopped walking.
Teresa halted behind him.
Her hand instinctively drifted toward the hilt of her sword before conscious thought could even catch up.
"What is it?" she asked flatly.
The guard turned around slowly. His face was pale and drenched in sweat, his eyes darting toward something behind her before snapping back to meet her gaze. He opened his mouth as if to speak, yet nothing escaped except a shaky breath.
Then she saw him pull out an iron rod.
Teresa spun on her heel and raised her arm just as the iron rod came crashing down toward her skull. The impact against her forearm was brutal.
She groaned sharply.
’Damn it! I should have known.’
Pain erupted through her wrist and surged into her shoulder, and she felt something in her hand go numb and distant, as though the nerves themselves had been stunned into silence.
The rod slammed against the wall beside her, and she caught sight of the guard’s other hand, the one she had failed to monitor, trembling violently as he staggered backward with wide eyes and his mouth hanging open in the same pathetic, silent gasp.
Teresa’s anger ignited instantly.
"What are you doing!?"
He hurriedly shook his head again like a cornered coward.
"I’m sorry. I have to kill you if I want to survive."
The young girl glanced at her left hand. It was useless for the moment, numb and lifeless. She could feel it hanging at her side like dead weight, her fingers refusing to curl no matter how much she willed them to move.
But her right hand was already in motion, and her sword slid free from its sheath.
"You better start talking... Now."
The guard scrambled backward as though preparing to flee, but Teresa never gave him the opportunity.
She closed the distance in two swift strides and swung her blade toward the baton he was desperately trying to retrieve after dropping it in panic.
The flat side of her sword struck the iron rod and sent it spinning across the floor into the darkness. In the very same motion, she twisted her wrist and brought the blade around in a tight arc that sliced through his outstretched arm just below the elbow, severing it completely.
He screamed.
"Arghhhhhhh! You wretched bitch!"
His arm separated from his body in a violent spray of crimson that splattered across the wall, the floor, and the hem of Teresa’s clothes. He collapsed backward onto the stone, his remaining hand desperately clutching the stump as though he could somehow force the blood back inside.
Teresa stood above him with a disappointed expression as she spoke calmly:
"Honestly, I never trusted you. But I didn’t expect you to stoop this low. I’ll ask one final time. Who sent you? Are you people the same ones who ambushed Kaden?"
Before she could continue pressing him, something struck her again.
One moment, she was standing over the guard, and the next, she was hurled sideways, her shoulder slamming into the cold stone wall with enough force to knock the air from her lungs.
Her sword flew from her grasp and skidded several feet away, while she rolled onto her back just in time to witness the iron baton rising from the darkness of the corridor as though lifted by an invisible hand.
It lingered there for a single heartbeat, suspended in the air at chest level, before hurtling toward her face with terrifying speed, like a projectile launched by someone she could not see.
Teresa threw herself to the side, and the baton smashed against the stone where her head had been moments earlier, fragments of rock scattering across her cheek. She scrambled back to her feet instinctively and lunged for her sword with her functioning hand just as the baton tore itself free from the floor and rushed toward her once more.
This time, she was prepared.
She raised her blade in a wide, desperate arc toward the empty air, striking at whatever had ambushed her despite being unable to see it with her own eyes.
Then her sword connected with something solid.
The blade cut through something unseen, followed immediately by a sharp gasp, unmistakably human, and blood suddenly materialized in the air itself. A thin crimson line hung suspended within the empty corridor before dripping onto the stone floor at her feet.
’Oh. That’s quite clever... An invisible one...’
Unbeknownst to her, madness had already begun creeping into her mind.
The baton hovered unsteadily once more, wavering in midair as though whoever controlled it was no longer confident in their grip.
Teresa pierced toward it just before it lunged toward her again.
She sidestepped and brought her sword down in a vicious chopping motion, not aiming for the weapon itself, but for the space behind it, the exact place where a wrist would have been if there were a wrist to sever, of course. The blade sank into flesh she could not see, and another streak of crimson split open in the air, wider than the first, and this time, the baton clattered onto the ground and did not rise again.
However, the fight was far from over...
Something heavy slammed into her midsection, forcing her backward by a step, and she immediately realized the invisible attacker was still advancing even without a weapon. Teresa caught the faintest flicker of movement from the corner of her eye.
There was a subtle distortion within the fading torchlight, so she pivoted sharply on her heel and reached out with her injured hand, ignoring the violent surge of pain that tore through her arm as her fingers closed around fabric and flesh.
The invisibility faltered.
She caught a glimpse of dark hair, pale skin, and a pair of widened eyes filled with frustration and disbelief, as though Teresa had somehow broken the rules of a game they had been playing.
Teresa did not hesitate.
"I caught you now."
She drove the figure forward and smashed their head against the stone wall with every ounce of strength she could muster.
The crack reverberated throughout the hallway. The invisibility shattered like glass, and a girl collapsed at her feet, short, dark haired, and bleeding from a deep gash across her scalp that had already matted her hair against her forehead.
Her arm had been torn open and was still dripping blood, the wound Teresa inflicted earlier continuing to spill crimson across the floor.
The young girl stood above her, breathing heavily, her sword hanging loosely in her good hand while her injured one pressed tightly against her stomach, where the pain was beginning to settle into something far deeper than adrenaline could conceal.
The other dark haired girl lying on the ground looked up at her with a frown that appeared almost petulant.
Teresa lowered the tip of her blade until it rested lightly against the girl’s throat. The girl did not flinch.
Instead, she glared at Teresa with open defiance burning within her eyes.
Teresa leaned closer to her face as her expression twisted into something brutal and unhinged before asking coldly:
"Who are you?"
One thing stood out.
The girl eerily resembled Marilyn...
***
...And that was what led to the brutal massacre of two people burdened by a spilled secret.
Teresa began walking back toward the basement without sheathing her sword.
’Oliver... I don’t know what you are or why I’m like this toward you, but I will protect you. Protect Oliver. Protect.’
The young girl’s thoughts spiraled madly as a wide, sinister smile stretched across her face.