Chapter 577-She Looks Good Behind The Bars
Clementine:
"I am unable to get in contact with her mother," Haiden told me, trying to whisper so that fauna doesn’t hear it.
I knew they were trying to contact her parents. That was when Haiden came to speak with me.
"What do you mean? Does she not have her own number?" I asked Haiden, trying to understand why she was not responding.
"She does, but she usually does not use it. The phone stays with Fauna’s father, and he decides whether she can attend a call or not."
The way he described the household dynamic felt suffocating.
"Oh my God, please tell me someone has objected to this," I said, and I noticed Haiden shake his head.
"Our pack members are scared of my uncle." he sighed at his own words.
"Anyway, the point is, she is not picking up the call," Haiden added, his eyes moving to Fauna, who was standing in the corner.
Leysa and Troy were trying to engage her in conversation to cheer her up.
"Did you try calling your uncle?" I asked, watching anger take over Haiden’s face.
Just the thought of his uncle made him angry, and rightfully so.
"I have not called him," he muttered under his breath.
"But now I am thinking about it. Not for him, but for Fauna’s mother, my aunt," he added, speaking with a maturity that made me feel proud of him.
"Then do it. Let’s see what he says," I told Haiden.
The two of us started walking toward the exit so we could handle this alone.
Once we stood outside the academy hall, he began to call his uncle.
The phone rang for a few minutes before his uncle finally answered.
"Oh, Patrick, I am here in the mainland now..." Haiden began in a bitter tone, clearly not calling to check on his uncle, but his aunt.
"And why are you calling me?" his uncle hissed from the other side.
"Are you calling me to gloat about the fact that you have killed the monsters?"
The animosity in his voice explained why they never got along. It seemed as if Patrick believed he was the rightful owner of the throne, and that whatever he had done to Haiden should never be questioned, as if it were his birthright.
"I am not calling you to gloat or for any other reason. The only reason I have called is because..."
Haiden paused and closed his eyes. I could see his jaw clench as he forced the words out.
He was trying to be civil to someone who deserved nothing.
"I just wanted to know...is my aunt okay?" Haiden finally mentioned her.
"Well, I guess you will never find out."
With that, Patrick ended the call.
We both realized that we had to go and check on them ourselves.
After that, I asked Haiden not to tell Fauna anything, while Ian and I had other plans.
All those people who were once our leaders, and those who were once our guardians, had let us down.
Had we not stopped it all, they would have continued the brutality.
Many would have lost their lives.
With time, the monsters would have come out of the North too.
This was not just the complaint of one child. Everyone was upset with their parents, I mean most of them.
Those who had directly taken part had to be punished. The one who was going to receive the harshest punishment was Lady Sylvia, who was arrested while running off the stage.
When all the chaos finally ended, people raised the same question. Where was that Lady Sylvia who used to shout that she was doing all of this for the people? When the time came, she turned her back and ran.
"This way, please," a warrior said to me, inviting me inside.
Ian and I decided to come straight to the prison after changing our clothes. We wanted to speak to Lady Sylvia first.
There was still a lot of chaos. Nothing had been decided yet about what would be done. For now, everyone was trying to forget the torture they had endured.
Haiden, Troy, Leysa, and Fauna were helping people and convincing them to return to their homes. Many people had lost their children in the crowd, and they were busy searching for them.
As for us, we were ready to face Lady Sylvia.
She had been placed in a separate confinement. When we arrived there, we saw her standing near bars, holding them tightly.
"Get me out of here," she screamed at the top of her lungs until her eyes landed on me. I watched an angry look spread across her face.
"I should have known you would come," she hissed bitterly.
The moment I saw her eyes, I could tell that realization had slowly begun to sink in.
The monsters she had created through her own actions had killed her brother, and the look on her face was worth seeing.
"So I see you’re still bitter," I commented, folding my arms across my chest.
Seeing me stand outside her prison so comfortably was enough to make her lose her mind. I knew that much.
"You seem cocky, Clementine, but don’t forget I’m the leader," she screamed, shaking her head and body.
"For someone behind bars, you have quite the courage," I replied, smiling.
"You know, I’m not the one who put you behind bars, although I would have loved to. It was the people, the pack members who saw you show your true colors when they were in trouble. They demanded that the warriors and the other council members put you behind bars. So yes, it was the same people you claimed you were doing all that for."
I said that in quotation marks, making fake air quotes with my fingers, and watched her face turn pale.
"Well, you cannot keep me here for too long. I have not committed a crime. All I did was say that I did not want to die. You cannot put me behind bars for such a small mistake," she began to scream again.
Ian stepped forward and slammed his hand against the bars. Her forehead hit the metal, and she quickly pulled away.
"You think that is it?" Ian hissed, stretching his hand through the bars to point at her, and she retreated, trying to put distance between them.
"Well, this is the Academy’s prison, where the Crusaders were kept before they were transferred to their dorm rooms," Sylvia hissed at Ian.
"Where do you think they are going to put me? In the dorm rooms? Because there is no prison system for criminals ever. They used to be sent to the North. And there is no North, so what are you going to do to me, huh? Are you going to kill me?" she asked in a taunting tone.
"Oh, do not worry about it," Ian replied.
"We are creating prisons."
As soon as he said that, her fake grin faded away.
"Your house is under investigation, so you better believe that every detail is coming out," he began to explain.
"It was your suggestion, yours and your brother’s, that the lurkers and the orphans should be treated as if they were nothing. You were the one giving orders for those experiments to create monsters. You even said you needed another monster, that you were dreaming of a flying one. And you better believe, this time, you’re not coming out."
Once Ian stopped speaking, Lady Sylvia dropped to her knees and started to cry.
"Don’t do this. It was just a mistake. I beg you, please."
Finally, she was scared. She was behind bars, and there was no one outside to cover her tracks.
"I was just an emotional fool, tricked by my brother and the Alphas," she began, spinning another lie, trying to shift the blame onto those who were not here to defend themselves.
I shook my head at her audacity. Did she really think we would believe her?
The way she immediately began to beg, her hands tied together in front of us, made it clear that she had done far worse things than she was afraid of being exposed for.
"Look, now that my brother is dead and people have seen you fight a monster, we can all work together," she began again, trying to suggest a plan to save herself.
She and I exchanged a glance, both in disbelief and barely holding back laughter.
Now she wanted to work with us so she could be free enough to attack us again when we were not looking.
I knew she was vindictive. All the Alphas who had taken part in this cruelty were vindictive.
"You want to work with us?" Ian asked, clearly preparing to mock her.
"Yes! I will be someone you can trust. And together, we can make the mainland better again," she replied confidently.
We finally broke into laughter.
That is when she probably understood that we were making fun of her because her face turned pale.