Chapter 24: Ashes and Embers
Callum helped me down from the table, his hands firm beneath my arms, but his gaze already held that familiar disappointment.
"I told you," he said quietly. "It wasn’t going to work."
I didn’t answer. Couldn’t. My throat was dry, and not just from shouting.
"It’s not that they don’t care," he added, glancing over the room as the others began to shuffle away, heads down, shoulders sagging. "It’s that they’ve stopped believing their voices matter. Changing someone’s mind after they’ve spent their whole life being trampled on.... that’s not something that happens with just a speech."
Elise nodded beside him, her voice softer but no less crushing. "You were brave, Lorraine. But this place doesn’t leave room for hope. It’s been drained from everyone of of us, one death at a time."
Felix, now clutching on to a mop, scoffed bitterly. "Or maybe everyone here’s just a coward. Scared little sheep pretending they’re wolves. Letting people wipe their boots on our backs like we’re dirt. I don’t get it, why live if you’re not going to fight?"
His words echoed, harsh but not untrue.
Disappointment pressed heavy on my chest, but not just in them, in myself.
Still, we picked up the cleaning supplies and got to work. The protest had failed, and the mess remained.
Garbage bags. Broken bottles. Rotting food smeared across the floor. The nobles had gone all out.
The stench was unbearable.
No one spoke much. The silence was only broken by the scrape of brushes, the slosh of water, the occasional cough or sigh. It was like we were cleaning more than trash, we were scrubbing our shame, our fear, our worthlessness.