Blood Moon's Paroxysm

Chapter 3

!! Content warning: Torture, needles. !!

Casteel glanced at her who sits in the cell, both her arms bleeding from the needle wounds caused by the torture method he's using.

Even in this very moment, the girl was still stoically handling the pain she swore to never give a fuck to. Even in this damp dark place which stinks of blood, she was still sitting in that chair comfortingly.

She is still the Rebella he knew.

The girl was sitting in a torture chair, her face showed no reluctance at all when she was asked to be tied on that blood stained chair.

He'd been asking the same question since the beginning, and every time she didn't give him an answer of satisfaction, he pricks a needle through her flesh and lets it stay there till he gets what he wants.

The prince lifted her head up gently when she was trying to break her gaze away from him, "Come on," he said, "where is the main camp?"

It's been a while since the interrogation started. She'd been bleeding for more than an hour, and yet they're still stuck on the first question.

And she gives him the same exact response every single time, "Fuck you."

Usually, he would have the victim's fingers cut off by now, but he couldn't bring himself to do such things to her. He had done a colossal of interrogations with males and females, young and old. He'd been acquainted with all sorts of torture methods, but he felt like this was his first time ever conducting an interrogation session.

When she didn't respond, he took out another needle and plunged it into her arm beside the row of crimson trails.

The prince had tried to minimize the pain for her. The least he could do was use the needles, and stuck it in her arm to create a pattern.

The last time he ever used this torture method, he ended up piercing a needle through the prisoner's fingernails to retrieve the answer.

He glimpsed at the girl who was glaring at her wounds, wondering if they could still be training partners after this. He's concerned about her, since he didn't want the girl to hate him. His worst fear was having to fight against her in a real duel, and having the entire world know that there's someone better than him, better than the prince of Araya.

However much he hoped for her to remain neutral with him, he didn't want her escaping the cell, nor did he want her to get executed. He'll have to find a way to help her, but at the same time, he has to be aware of her unpredictable tricks.
At last, he sighed, "When are you going to tell me?"

"I'm loyal to my fellow companions." She responded, eyes turned away from him.

"How about this," he began, as he moved to take a seat on the prisoner's bench, trying to get her eyes on his, "I'll sneak you out, in return for the information."

She wore a face of hesitation for a moment but then shifted back into the dull expressionless face, seemingly showing no interest towards that deal.

"Normally, prisoners would get executed after we get the information," he added.

"You tell that to every prisoner," she locked her gaze into his.

"Well, no," the prince responded, then leaned closer to her with a grin he couldn't resist, "I let you go because you're a little bit special to me."

"You tell that-"

"Would I lie to you?" He asked her. The prince reached a hand out, hoping to lift her chin up.

The girl rocked back violently despite the risk of falling over. She tried to avoid his touch, and she would push him away if she wasn't tied in a torture chair.

At last, the prince smirked, his hand holding the tip of her chin, "I keep my promises," he murmured, eyes glaring into hers, "that being said, you won't get out of here without giving me the information."

When she didn't seem to be captivated by the deal, he offered another one, "No?" He said, "How about I offer you a place in the palace?"

"I'm a rebel, I don't need a place."

The prince shut his eyes and took a deep breath, "How about this?" He said, "I'll cut your fingers if you don't pass on the valuable information."

"That sounded more like a threat."

"Well, it is."

She stayed silent after the prince left her little time to consider, she didn't want any deal, she wanted to be free again.

Seeing how she's been reacting to all the deals he made, he finally gave her some time to breathe, "I'll be leaving you here for a while, and I'll be back soon," he told her as he plodded to the exit of the cell, "and you better have a decision made before I come back."

The prince unlocked the chains bounding her to the chair then bounding the chains on her wrist back to the wall. She stood up with her arm still bleeding, but she didn't glance at the wounds even once. She only moved back to the corner and sat quietly as the prince opened the cell.

For the entire time, the girl never once willingly looked at the prince. However, after the prince was outside of the cell, she watched him carefully and tracked every footstep of his.

Every thud of his footsteps echoed in her mind till it became distant behind the dungeon's gates.

When the girl was left in solitude, she smiled on her own, admiring how she'd handled all the pain. But the thing which made her smile brighter was the fact that the prince's lack of hesitation on the torture method had made her plan easier.

Rebella lifted a hand and reached the needles that's still stuck in her flesh horizontally. She hurled them out briskly despite the pain of her bleeding wound. She remained a straight face since she wanted to train herself to hide her true expression. It'd been something she'd done since she was young, she'd prefer to endure the pain silently rather than expressing it, as she'd always remarked that expressing pain is weak.

The blood stained needles were set aside, while two of them were selected by her to unlock the chains.

It took her a few twists of the needle to set herself free from both the chains and the cell.

Thanks to the needles provided by the prince, she wouldn't need to take out the lockpicks she'd hidden underneath her clothes.

She'd been waiting to be left alone, since she can only escape when no one was watching her. For the entire time she'd been here, there's always a guard staring at her, tracking every move and sound she makes. But after the prince arrived, he dismissed the guard.

She picked the gate's lock flourishingly and got out in no time. But before she leaves, she strolled to the wall of weapons that were used to torture people and picked the best sword she could find.

Before anyone noticed that the dungeon's gate had been opened, she sprinted out of that damp place with a stolen short sword, with hopes that the prince wouldn't find her before anyone else did.

At that very moment when she steps out of the dungeon, a figure standing down the hallway was staring at her.