Chapter 499: Terms Of Damnation
The sun had barely crested over the horizon, spilling a soft gold haze across the scorched grass, but the Devil’s Playground didn’t wake slow. No. If I had to be awake for all this, everyone else did.
As if feeling my intentions, the world around me seemed to hold its breath. Every house, every jungle outpost, every flooded city and smoking ruin—the people inside felt it, and I felt them. Even the air had a certain stillness to it, like every living thing was bracing for a command.
And then the command came.
I stood at the edge of the stone path in front of Hallow, dressed in the way I wanted to dress. I was sure that others might have had an opinion about how a Queen should look, but I wasn’t one of those Queens. I didn’t give a damn what others thought about me, or my sense of style.
My dress was absolutely perfect, if I did say so myself. It was the same style as the rest of my wardrobe: a cute Lolita dress that flared out around my hips, ending just at my knees. It was black and white, with pinstripes on the bodice and skirt, as if I were just one of the inmates...
Or like I should have bright green hair.
My thigh-high white socks were offset by the black Mary Janes I refused to go without, and I wore black gloves on my hands that stopped at my wrists with a little white bow. I even had the black and red chocker/collar that Daddy had given me in Camp Hell... just as a remind of who I was and where I came from.
My blueish-silver hair was up in pig-tails, with the right bow black and the left bow white. I didn’t look my age at all, but I loved how the dress made me feel. And at the end of the day, that was all that mattered.
The men had suggested that I wear a crown or tiara, something that would make people understand I was their queen, but I really thought it would ruin my look. Besides, a crown did not make a queen, and if the people tied to me couldn’t understand who stood at the top of the hierarchy, then they really were too stupid to live.