ACT III  SCENE LV
PROMETHEUS BOUND

   DEVASTATION. That was the most acute feeling that Cassandra could decipher from the colossal ball of emotions lodged in her chest. She stared back at him in shock, unable to process the meaning behind his words. She could feel her entire body tremble as she fought to keep her breathing even but that was the least of her worries. Helenus frowned at her silence, green eyes darting around her face searchingly.

"Are you okay?" he asked.

"Me?" She shook her head while swallowing thickly. "Helenus, you're...but it's been years since they brought you away. What do you mean you're a Crank?"

He paused for a moment, seemingly trying to find the right words to explain it to her. Cassandra wasn't sure whether she was ready to know the truth, but she did need to know. What has WICKED been hiding from them?

"The both of us, we're half-immune," he started. "That means that the virus is still spreading in our brains. Though at a slower rate than everyone else. Because of this, we get side effects."

She remembered learning about that from her memories. "Mine are pre-cognitive episodes..."

"No." He shook his head. "We both have that. Your side effect is that you get moments of insanity."

Cassandra's brows scrunched together as realisation dawned on her. All those times she had suffered in the Scorch; they were simply side-effects of the virus. "And yours?" she asked with bated breath.

"I have moments of lucidity."

Helenus watched her carefully as the gravity of his words sunk into her mind. She felt like she had just been stabbed in the gut. WICKED had named them after the prophetic Greek siblings for a reason. They were one of the same coin, opposing forces that shared a core aspect. Cassandra felt like she wanted to cry again from the weight of hopelessness that pressed down on her. Were their fates already predestined from the very beginning?

"So you..." Her voice shook and died in the cold air.

"I'm a special Crank," he told her with a sardonic smirk. "Sometimes, like now, I have moments of lucidity. I can think, I can see, I can feel. Then it goes away and I'm a Crank again."

"There must be something that we can do." She looked at him desperately. "What about the chip in our brains?"

"The chip already prolongs the time I spend lucid," he said. "But it's not a cure. There isn't a cure. They keep telling us that they're close to making one but it's not true. They can't fix this, it's impossible."

"They're just deluded," she stated with finality.

Helenus nodded sombrely. "It's a shame. I know a lot of people were hoping that this would be the answer, but you and I are the only ones who can actually see that it's not."

She averted her gaze and shook her head. "I never believed WICKED anyway..."

"Then you're lucky..." he mumbled. "Ten years...fifty...a hundred...nothing will change."

She thought that Helenus was far more adept at predicting the future than she was. Then again, he did spend most of his days in a stupor of insanity; which was usually the price of foresight. Cassandra looked back at him with a sharp intake of breath. There was another thing that she had to tell him before it was too late.

"Your brother—" She grabbed his arm. "I think I figured out who it is."

His eyes lit up and he leaned forwards eagerly. "You did?" he whispered, barely able to contain his excitement.

Cassandra felt her heart fall into a deep chasm, more tears starting to prick her eyes as she bit her lip. "It was Nick. I'm sorry but...he didn't make it out of the Maze."

She could see Helenus visibly deflate, his narrow shoulders slumping downwards as his eyes flickered to the ground. Just as quickly as hope had been ignited, it was quickly extinguished once again. He reminded her so much of Nick that it hurt to think that both brothers would suffer similar fates by the hand of WICKED.

"It was my fault," she blurted. "I made a prediction but he misinterpreted it. He got the wrong hole we were supposed to escape through, they—they cut him in half...there wasn't anything..."

"Hey, it's not your fault." Helenus reached out to comfort her as the floodgates reopened once more. Despair had never been a more intimate friend to her than at that very moment.

"It is my fault." She sobbed once more. "Poor helpless Cassandra who could never control her visions. When they were experimenting on us, you tried to protect me and they punished you. And Minho—they punished him too because of me. I'm always the cause, it's always me!"

"You remember that much?" he asked gently with compassion in his voice. "It's not because you're weak, Cassandra. You would do the exact same for us. We care about you too."

She sniffed and wiped away the tears with the back of her hand. It was true. She would swim through the rivers of Hades for them and deep down, she knew they would do it for her too. Minho wouldn't even think twice.

"Come with us," she said. "Whatever happens, come with us."

"I can't..." he responded. "It's impossible."

"We'll make it work," she said firmly. "We'll find a way to—"

"I said I can't!" he snapped loudly.

Cassandra took a step back in surprise, eyes widening as her heart skipped a beat. Helenus' face had contorted into a mask of fury, lines etching his face with malice. His green eyes glared straight at her with bloodlust, unseeing and hollow. It reminded her of Ben and she staggered away from him.

"How many times do I have to tell you that it won't work?" he roared, causing her to wince. "I'm a Crank, don't you understand that?!"

He lunged forwards at her and Cassandra yelled out when he managed to grab hold of her arm. The room wasn't big enough to allow her to even keep him at arm's length. She struggled against his iron grip, nails digging into her skin as he growled like a feral animal.

"Helenus, let go!" she cried. "Stop it! You're still in there, I know you are! Stop hurting me!"

"Hurt you? All they ever did was hurt you," he started to ramble and she recognised the wild look in his eyes. "And they'll never stop, not until you're dead and gone. Until we're all dead and gone. They'll continue to haunt you, to chase you, to remind you of what you are."

Cassandra could hear her own breath quickening as she tried in vain to twist her way out of his grasp. In the blink of an eye, Helenus had changed into a different creature altogether. He was no longer the soft-spoken boy that she knew. She lashed out harshly at him, managing to push him away so that she could free herself.

"Help!" Cassandra yelled as she ran to the door, beating her fists against its surface. In her horror, she had forgotten that the person outside was Clark.

"There is no escape!" Helenus howled, grabbing hold of her once again and sending the both of them crashing to the floor. The cold tiles sent shivers rocking through her body as Cassandra slapped Helenus' hands from her face.

"Helenus, stop it!" she cried in vain.

"We are lost children looking for lost gods," he went on. "We look for heaven but are greeted with ruin, we seek safe harbour with malice. To save one, you must sacrifice the other!"

"Okay," Cassandra breathed out. "I'm sorry!"

She brought her leg up and rammed her knee as hard as she could into his diaphragm. Immediately, Helenus let out a grunt as the wind was knocked out of him completely. It gave Cassandra a chance to kick him away and she lunged forwards to grab the computer tablet lying close by. She whirled around and smashed the device into the side of Helenus' head. He finally crumpled to the side, unconscious.

Cassandra winced, dropping to her knees whilst breathing heavily from her exertions. Her stomach heaved but she forced herself to swallow down the discomfort. Helenus didn't deserve any of this and it made her want to cry again.

"I'll get you out of here," she whispered as another tear slipped down her cheek. "I promise."

Suddenly, the wall beside her shifted like a roiling sea under a thunderstorm. It glimmered and undulated under the light, before dissipating before her very eyes. On the other side, another room opened up that looked completely identical to hers. She realised that they had been kept right next to each other all those years but still felt completely isolated the entire time.

And, knelt on the ground in front of her was Minho. His face was pinched with pain, fear and anger. He was like a pot overflowing with a different range of emotions, eyes darting between her and the unconscious boy.

"Cassie?" he gasped out. "What the shuck just happened?"

WICKED had made him watch everything.