Chapter Three

"No!" I said, letting her words truly sink in. "That's impossible. She's dead."
"Is that what your parents told you?" Tori asked.
"Yes." I said. "Of course they told me. I needed to know the truth."
"They lied." Tori said, her words sounding cold. "I think it's because they were told to keep their mouths shut or else they would be killed."
"It's amazing how everyone is afraid of the Council." I said. "You think that they would be afraid of the King and Queen."
Tori snorted.
"Please." She said. "The King and Queen don't do shit. No offense to you but it's true. They basically sit on the their asses and let the Council do the ruling for them."
"Wow." I said. "I never thought of it that way."
"They're not to blame though." Tori said. "Who is to blame are the people who voted Ronald into the Council position. I've seen old videos where he speaks to our people. From the very first word that came out of his mouth, I knew that this is what he wanted to happen all along."
"Yeah. Liss showed me those." I said. "She's obsessed with finding every way to take the Council down because the other members are as bad as Ronald is."
"I agree." Tori said. "Now, back to what we were originally talking about. We got a little side-tracked."
"Right." I said. "You were telling me about how royals were being held hostage against their will."
"Ah yes." Tori said. "This is the part where I tell you ly theory. But first I must tell you about another horrible room that I found."
"What could possibly be worse than that room?" I asked.
"Believe me, it was much worse." Tori said. "Now, this other room was discovered by Cindy. I was just leaving the jailhouse when I heard her screaming my name. I ran to where she was and once I saw what she was seeing, I stopped dead in my tracks."
"What did you see?" I asked, once again being engrossed in the story.
"I saw this room with a bunch of needles and there were notebooks after notebooks labeled: 'Research'. And in parenthesis, there were names of supernatural creatures such as vampires and werewolves. There was even one that said it was research for ghosts."
"What does all of this mean?" I asked.
"It means that the Council is kidnapping royals and doing experiments on them to better the knowledge of these creatures." Tori said. "And who knows if these said creatures are out there? Maybe they're working for the Council against their own will. Don't you see, Abbey? Innocents are being turned into these monsters and we have to stop this."
"But can't we just kill them?" I asked. "Those creatures are dangerous and we can't risk them killing other people."
"But there might be a way to restore them back to their former selves!" Tori said. "I don't want to kill them knowing that they could have lived on."
"And if there's no way to bring them back?' I asked, wondering what she was going to say to that.
"Then we simply just kill them." She said. "There's no other way around it by then."
"Man, you're really into this idea of supernatural creatures actually existing." I said.
"Anything is possible." Tori said. "Come on, let's get back before someone notices that we're gone."
"Good idea." I said.

That night, I tossed and turned. That was probably due to the fact that I was accustomed to sleeping on a king size bed with tons of blankets keeping me warm. Here, I was sleeping on a stone cold cave floor with nothing but a sleeping bag keeping me warm. But hey, at least I have my sleep mask.

I dreamt of Alex. I dreamt that she was turned into a vampire and she didn't have any memories of me or the rest of the family. I was in the Courthouse and she was chasing me down long hallways, praying that I would hit a dead end and she could feast on my blood.
Turns out, the hallway that I went down turned out to be a dead end. I tried to turn around but by then Alex had already cornered me. It was over then and there.
I cowered on the ground and watched as she slowly approached me, her sharp fangs sticking out. She got down to my level once she was close enough to me and I watched in horror as her fangs got closer and closer to my neck....
"Abbey! Abbey! Wake up!"
I was thrusted out of my dream by whoever was shaking me. I took off my sleep mask and was greeted by the brown eyes of Henry Ibeson.
"God! Is it morning already?" I groaned as I slowly got up and fixed my sleeping bag, careful not to wake Daisy who lay next to my pillow curled up in a tiny ball.
"Wow. I've never seen anyone so unwilling to get up in the morning." Henry said. "It's time for you to go to school."
"How long does school last?" I asked.
"The standard eight hours." Henry said. "You'll take seven classes: math, science, history, english, a class depending on what job you want to do around here: which I've set you up for a fighting class, psychology, and a foreign language of your choice."
"Can I do Latin?" I begged. "I love Latin and it's my best class."
"Of course you can." Henry said. "After school, meet me by Dead Man's tree so we can do some combat training."
"Why's it called Dead Man's tree?" I asked.
"That is a story for later." Henry said. "Go on. You don't want to be tardy on the first day."

Math was my first class of the day and I saw many unfamiliar faces all around me.
"Oh. You're the new girl." A girl with nerd glasses said. She wore the same outfit that every girl wore and she was light-skinned and had tons of freckles. "Abbey right?"
"Yep." I said. "What's your name?"
"Kylie." she said. "But I'm not the ghost of the Kylie that died. I'm my own person."
"Oh." I said. Not that I believed in ghosts or anything like that. It's just the first response that came to my head.
"I'm Kylie Williamson." she said. "You probably know my brother."
"Yes I do." I said, trying not to think of everything creepy that Victor has ever done to me.
"Yeah. I know." she said. "He's creepy."
"You don't say..." I said.
"He's been interested in you since he was a little kid." Kylie said. "And I know it's hard to believe that not everyone in our family is creepy. I don't even know where the hell Victor got to be like that."
"I don't know and I don't want to know." I said.
She laughed. "Yeah." she agreed. "It's probably better for all of us that way."
"Agreed." I said. I wanted to change the subject aff of Victor. "So, what classes do you have?"
"Well, I'm a spy so I have that class and for my foreign language I took French."
"I took Latin." I said.
"Henry's really good at Latin." Kylie said. "Well, Henry's amazing at everything that he does."
"Is that so?" I said.
"Yeah." Kylie said. "Everyone around here admires him because he's done so much for us."
"I bet." I said.

I was about to say something else but that's when math started. Ugh, I hate math. I don't even know why I hate it so much. I just do, okay?

My other classes were okay but when I got to my fighting class, I got my ass whooped by every person there. In fact, I now was laying on the floor with my head pounding more than it has ever in my life.
"Wow." a boy with tons of piercings and green hair said. He also had tons of piercings on his face that half of his face looked like it was made of metal. "Henry wanted your weak ass to be a fighter? I find that impossible to believe."
"Chase, leave her alone." a girl with pink hair and almost as many piercings as Chase. "Sheesh. It's her first fucking day! You know, you got your ass whooped your first day here too."
"Shut the fuck up Layla." Chase said. "No one asked you to interfere."
"Get away from her Chase." she said. "You don't exactly need to get in trouble with the teacher or Henry."
"Henry?" he said. "I could beat his sorry ass any day."
"Watch it." Layla said. "Now, get away from her before the teacher sees that you're picking on the new kid."
"Whatever." Chase said, finally backing off. "You're such a coward, newbie. You'll never make it here."
When Chase finally walked away, Layla came over to me and offered me her hand.
"Here." she said, pulling me up off the ground. "Don't mind Chase. He does this to all the newbies."
"Do all the newbie fail as much as I did on the first day?" I asked.
"Yeah. " she said. "Believe it or not, Chase got beat up by me his first day here."
"Really?" I said.
"Yep." Layla said. "He's just ashamed that he got beat up by his sister."
"You're his sister?" I asked.
"Yeah." she said. "I'm sixteen and he's nineteen."
"Oh." I said. "You know, you look really familiar. Have we met?"
"Maybe." Layla said. "I was a part of a royal family."
"Really?" I asked. I was very much surprised to learn this. From her looks, he looked completely non-royal to me. "Which royal family are you from?"
"Perry." she said.
"Oh." I said. "I haven't heard much from them in a while."
"That's good." Layla said, "That means that the rest of my family is doing a good job keeping under the radar."
"What do you mean?" I asked, confused by this.
"Ever since Ronald came to lead the Council, my family refused to have anything to do with the royal line anymore. Ever since then, they've been living in their castle but they haven't left in forty years. We have some other non-royals bring them stuff that they need so that they don't have to worry about getting the stuff that they need."
"Interesting." I said.
"Yeah." she said. "It is."

The rest of class was spent by me getting my ass kicked even more. I was glad when it finally ended. But then I remembered that Henry wanted to train me after my last class.
Fuck.

Well, Latin was the highlight of my day. Everyone was worried that I wouldn't understand what the hell was going on but I caught on just fine. In fact, I knew some Latin phrases that the teacher didn't even know.
"I'm impressed." a voice said behind me when I exited after a long day.
"Damn it Henry!" I said when I saw that it was him. "Don't you have anything else to do besides stalk me everywhere?"
"I don't stalk you." he said.
"You kinda do." I said. "You remind me of Victor."
"Don't ever say that." he said.
"Then stop following me around everywhere!" I said.
"I don't follow you everywhere." Henry said. "You just happen to be there when I need you."
"Whatever." I said, not really wanting to argue with him anymore. "Let's just get this whole training thing over with."
"Did someone have a bad day?" he asked.
"It was great up until I got to that fucking fighting class that you signed me up for!" I snapped. "Why the hell can't I choose what I want to be? Why do you have to force me to do the fighting class? What if I wanted to be a spy?"
"I know where your skill lies, trust me." Henry said. "And that skill does not lie in spying or hunting. And certainly not cooking."
"I'm not even going to ask how you know that I suck at cooking because your little spies probably told you." I said.
"Saying that you suck at cooking is an understatement." Henry said. "You literally do not have the ability to do it whatsoever."
"Shut up." I said. "I only caused a small fire."
"Small fire?' Henry asked, giving me a "Are you fucking kidding me?" look. "Abbey. you almost burned down the damn castle."
"Just stop." I said. "So I can't be a cook. But that's the only thing to do around here. I could be a spy."
"In order to be a spy, you have to notice even the littlest of details." Henry said, "Which you don't do."
"Yes I do!" I said, getting really defensive. "I noticed that Dead Man's tree didn't fit in with the rest of the trees surrounding the forest."
"Anyone could see that." Henry said. "Did you notice the tiniest bloodstain in the Meeting Place?"
"There's a bloodstain?" I asked, trying to rack my memory to see if I remembered seeing it or not. To which I didn't. Damn it.
"My point exactly." Henry said. "You're not very observant. You let those things slip your mind when they could be very important."
"Okay." I said. I was going to convince him to let me being anything but a fighter, no matter what it took. "So I can't be a cook or a spy. What about a hunter?"
"You've never shot a gun a day in your life." Henry said.
"So what?" I asked.
"That's like the single most important thing to know how to do when you're a hunter!" he said. He was yelling at me now. Like, really yelling at me.
"Well, I can learn." I said. I wasn't yelling yet but I knew that I was going to if I didn't convince to let me be what I wanted to be. "Isn't that what the classes are for? To teach you how to be what you chose to be? Or, in my case, what I was forced to be."
"Abbey." he said. He wasn't yelling anymore. In fact, he sounded really irritated. "Why aren't you taking my advice? Being a fighter is what you're best at."
"But that's not what I want to do!" I said.
"You know what?" he said. He was yelling again. "Get out! I can't believe that I ever thought that it was a good idea to bring you here in the first place! You're useless!"
"Fine!" I said. Now I was yelling. "I will! Everyone at home will welcome me back anyway!"
"And how do you know that?" he asked.
"Because they love me!" I said.
"Whatever." Henry said. "Just get out. I don't care where you go. And don't take your stuff."
"Fine." I said, taking Daisy out of my pocket. "I'll be happy to go."

As I turned to leave, I saw Chase coming up to me. Boy, did he look pissed.
"Hey Red!" he said. Apparently, he was using my hair color against me. My hair was a bright red color that I achieved by dying it (Mother and Father were pissed when I showed them what I had done to it). It was extremely uncommon for royals to dye their hair but it wasn't completely unheard of. Liss had dyed her hair this bright blond color when it previously had been this dark brown hair. Honestly, she looked a million times better with the blond hair and this is coming from a former blondie.
"What the hell do you want Chase?" I asked, trying to hide my fear. I wasn't about to give this guy what he wanted. What he wanted was for me to start running the other direction but there's no way in hell that I'm going to back down from this. Also, no one else was around so no one was going to back me up in this. I was alone in this.
"I want you to fight me." he said. "Prove that you deserve to be around here."
Well, this was not at all what I was expecting. My second day here and I'm already getting challenged to a fight. I thought that it would take a little bit longer for this to even happen.
"Okay." I said, putting Daisy on the ground and shooing her away so that she wouldn't get hurt. "Bring it on."
"What the hell is that ugly thing that you just put on the ground?" he asked, pointing to Daisy who now stood near the Meeting Place.
"That" I said, giving him a disgusted look. "is the cat that my little brother gave to me as a going away present."
"Oh, how pathetic." he said. "A stupid ass little kitten! Also, I bet your brother's out right now fucking around with his stupid little friends! I swear, that kid's a complete dumbass. It's a miracle that he's even alive."
I couldn't believe that this douchebag was saying shit about my brother. Sure, it was true that Arn was an idiot but only Liss and I and the rest of our family was allowed to say that. No one else is allowed to say it because we never truly mean it when we say it but other people do.
"How dare you?" I spat. "I can't believe that Henry let an asshole like you join."
"No matter what you think of me, Henry loves me." Chase said. He was really starting to piss me off now. I had a feeling that he would become the second person that Abbey Peterson punched in her lifetime.
"And how the hell do you know that?" I asked.
"He says that he's going to elect me as Co-leader." he said. "So imagine the shit that I'm going to give you when that does happen."
"He would never elect you!" I said. "He would elect someone who is kind and cares for others. Like Tori, for instance."
"Don't even start with her." Chase said. "She's only like that to get brownie points with Henry."
"She is not!" I growled. "Don't talk about my friends like that asshole!"
"How do you know she's your friend?" Chase asked. "You've only known her since yesterday. She could stab you in the back."
"I thought that we were going to fight." I said. "I didn't think that you were going to run your damn mouth for this long!"
"Watch it Red!" he said. "You're going to regret saying that."
"Oh yeah?" I said, starting to feel confident in myself. Was I actually doing this? Was I actually standing up for myself? The answer: hell yeah I was. "How?"
That's when, to my complete shock and surprise, he went over to where Daisy was cowering and picked her up. Okay enough was enough. No one messes with an adorable kitten and gets away with it.
"Put her down!" I said, clenching both of my fists. "Now!"
"I'd rather not." Chase said. He was holding her by the scruff and even though it technically wasn't hurting her, I knew that something bad was about to happen if I didn't stop him. "This is how I'm going to teach you a lesson for back talking me."
Before I could go in for the punch, he did something that I would never forgive him for. He threw Daisy into the wall, causing her to meow in both pain and fear. To my surprise, she was still alive but the blow was pretty hard so she was trying her best to limp away from Chase but he found where she was and stepped on her with his boots until she stopped meowing.
"Yeah." Chase said, getting right in my face. "That'll teach you to keep your mouth shut."
Before I could make any remarks, he walked away with a smile on his face. I also heard him laughing before he disappeared from my sight.

Just then, the harsh reality of what had just happened came crashing down on me. Chase had killed the last thing that my brother had left me as a final goodbye. It was like losing him and the only pet that I've ever had in my life because my parents hated animals because they say that they're loud and make messes.
"Oh my God!" I whispered, kneeling down to the bloody and smashed little body of Daisy. "I'm sorry Daisy. I tried to protect you but that asshold Chase had to go and kill you."
That's when I started to cry. During her murder (Yes, I consider what Chase did a murder even though it wasn't a human), I had held back all my tears because I didn't want Chase to make any more comments towards me.
"Abbey?" I heard a voice say behind me. I also felt a hand touching my shoulder.
Not checking to see who it was, I said, "Go away."
"Listen, I know that you're hurting right now but let's just talk about this. You'll feel better if you do."
"I told you to go away." I said, getting up and running away from the person. Before I disappeared around the corner, I glanced over my shoulder to see who had gone to check up on me.
Henry. Of course. I should have known that it would be him.

I never once looked back (well, except for when I looked at Henry but that's beside the point). I exited the Base and ran all the way to Shining Lake, where rumors say that the lake shines because Angels are watching over it. I don't believe those rumors at all. In fact, I think that they're complete bullshit.
I took off my boots and set them near a rope that hung on a branch on a nearby tree. The tree, like Dead Man's tree, looked like it was dead. The only difference was that this tree didn't have a name.

After taking off my boots, I dipped my feet into the freezing cold water. I have no idea why I did this in the first place. Maybe because when I was a kid, I enjoyed cold water. Ice cold water was the only kind of water that I would drink and I even used to shower in cold water. I remember that I told Liss this one day and she thought that I was completely insane.
Oh Liss. How I miss you.

I tried to think of all the good memories that I had stored inside my brain but all I could think about was Daisy. Her death replayed a million times over in my head and each time the tears fell more and more.
Why did Chase hate me so much? What did I ever do to him?

Out of boredom and despair, I took the Crown Princess crown off my head and twirled it around in my hands. It was a very beautiful crown and it was centuries old. But yet it looked so young, probably because the crown polishers do such an amazing job of polishing it every single time that it's due for a polish.

I have no idea how long I sat with my feet dunked in the water but it was enough to where when I took them out of the water, they were bright red and I had the tingly feeling that you get whenever your hands or something get too cold. The tingly feeling was the only thing that made me take my feet out of the water. Otherwise, they would still be in there. Not kidding when I say that.
"I have never seen someone stick their feet in freezing cold water for so long."
I didn't even bother looking back to see who was here. I already knew that it was Henry.
"What the hell are you doing here?" I asked. "I told you to leave me alone." . "To which I followed, but you've been gone a pretty long time." He said.
"How long?" I asked, my voice cracking from all the crying that I did.
"I'd say about two or three hours." he said. "But who really knows? We don't really keep track of time like that around here. We just follow the sun and the moon. Also, nice voice crack by the way."
"Gee thanks." I said, not really in the mood for cracking jokes. "And you never answered my question so I'm going to ask it again: what the hell are you doing here?"
He sat down next to me and put an arm around me. "I was worried about you."
"Why would you be worried about me?" I asked. "Before all this shit went down, you were kicking me out."
"Yeah, about that." he said. "Listen, I'm really sorry that I did that. I should've never forced you to be a fighter. A part of me knew that Chase was going to give you shit but another part of me thought that you would tough it out but I guess that I was wrong."
"Speaking of Chase," I said. "What the hell happened to him?"
"I haven't set up a punishment for him yet." Henry said. "I was hoping that you would have some ideas. You know, since he hurt you after all."
"Oh, I have plenty of ideas." I said, feeling a smile creep up on my face.
"Let's hear these ideas of yours." he said.
"Well, first things first I want him to be kicked out." I said. "But keep his sister here. She seems pretty cool."
"That's it?" he asked. "He kills your fucking cat and all you want is to have him kicked out? Trust me when I say this Red, everyone wants his ass thrown out. I've got him currently holed up in the secret area."
"There's a secret area?" I asked. "What is it?"
"If I told you, it wouldn't be much of a secret." he said. "Anyway, the point is that I want him to suffer for hurting you. No one gets away with doing stuff like that."
"Why do you care so much?" I asked.
"Because you're one of us now." Henry said. "And I care about every single person that's on my side."
"Well, in that case," I said. "What's something that he really cares about?"
"You mean besides his ego?" he asked.
Okay, that actually made me laugh. Maybe a good laugh is what I needed all this time. No, scratch that. What I needed is for Chase to suffer for what he did.
"Very funny." I said. "But seriously, what's something that he really cares about besides his ego."
"His appearance." Henry said. "He's in love with every one of his piercings. Seriously, he has about one hundred piercings and half of them are on his face and the rest are either on his ears and arms."
"I think that I have a good idea for a punishment." I said.

Henry led me to the secret area that he talked about. It was a place below the Meeting Place and it was hidden in the very corner. This secret area had tons of torches illuminating the room. The room had tons of books in it as well that it wasn't even funny.
"Welcome to my little room." Henry said.
"Wow." I said. "You must really like to read."
"I mostly study things." he said. "Recently, I've been very interested in psychology for some reason. But I'm not here to show you around. I'm here so that you can give this Chase asshole a piece of your mind."
"Speaking of Chase, where is he?" I asked.
Henry led me to where Chase was chained against the wall with tape over his mouth. He proceeded to violently rip off the tape off of Chase's mouth.
"That fucking hurt!" Chase screamed.
"Good." Henry said. "It was meant to hurt you."
"What the hell is Red doing here?" he asked.
"Abbey is here to give you your punishment." Henry said.
"I thought that you were going to throw me out." Chase said.
"I am but that's a little too nice." Henry said. "I'm not even going to tell you what Abbey's going to do to you. I'm just going to let her do it."

What I was about to do might seem like it was taking things too far but this is how I'm going to avenge Daisy's death. She didn't deserve to die the way that she did.
"No!" Chase screamed. "You better tell me what the fuck she's going to do to me Henry!"
"I'd rather not." he said. "That means that you could try to mentally prepare yourself for what's about to happen and there's no way that I'm going to let that happen."
At that moment, I grabbed ahold of one of piercings and slowly ripped it out. And when I say that I ripped it out slowly, I mean that I ripped it out as slowly as I could in order to ensure that he would suffer as much pain as he could.
"Oh my God!" he screamed after I had ripped out five or six piercings. "Why the fuck are you doing this? This hurts like hell."
"So did watching you kill Daisy." I said. "You really think that you were just going to get away with this?"
"B-but Henry." he said to me, clenching his teeth as I continued to rip out more piercings. "You and I were meant to rule together. You and I were like brothers."
"That's bullshit." Henry said. "A part of me always knew that you hated me and you hated everyone else here more so I don't know why I didn't kick you out a long time ago."
"Please stop ripping out my piercings!" Chase pleaded to me like he actually thought that I would stop. "Do you know how much pain and suffering I had to go through in order to look as badass as I did before you started ripping them out?"
"Oh, if you put it that way," I said, trying to make it sound like I felt really bad for him even though I was enjoying every single second of this. "Then I guess I'll stop."
"Really?" he asked, a smile growing on his face. I can't believe that this dumbass actually thought that I would stop doing this. I don't think that he could have been even more wrong in his entire life.
"Fuck no." I said. "Are you really getting your hopes up like that?"
"Well, you seem like a gentle girl." he said. "Like you've barely packed a punch on anyone in your entire life."
"While it's true that I've only ever punched one person, I still get pretty pissed." I said. "You better watch out."
"Yeah." Henry said. "One thing that you don't want to see is Abbey Peterson pissed off. Trust me. It ain't too pretty."
"Wait, why on earth are we even talking to you?" I asked. "I'm still really pissed at you."
"Listen, is it too late for me to apologize for what I did?" Chase asked.
"Is it possible for you to bring Daisy back from the dead?" I asked.
"No." he said. "Why the fuck are you even asking that?"
"Because by you answering my question, you answered your own question." I said.
"So, I'm still going to be thrown out of here and you're going to continue to painfully rip out every single one of my piercings?" he asked.
"You better believe that we are!" Henry said. "And we've got one last thing. Just to make sure that you really learned your lesson."
"We do?" I asked. "I don't remember telling you anything beyond ripping out the piercings."
He elbowed me in the arm, which I took as a sign to go along with this whole thing.
"What I meant to say was," I said. "Henry was kind enough to lend in an extra idea for a punishment that will most definitely be your favorite part of this hell that you're going through."
"I'm not that much of a dumbass Red." he said. "You just now found out about this."
"Don't call her Red." Henry said, getting hostile. "That was what I came up with and only I'm allowed to call her that."
"Wait, you're the one that started this?" I asked. "I thought that you called me that just to piss me off."
"I did." Chase said. "Though Henry over there called you that as an endearing thing because he's in love with you."
"Shut your fucking mouth!" he snapped. I swear, I thought that he was going to beat the shit out of him right then and there. "I am not and I repeat not in love with her! I've only really known her since yesterday! Love at first sight is not a real thing and only exists in fairy tales, just in case you were need of a reality check. And, last time I checked, fairy tales are just stories and they didn't actually happen. And, let me give you another reality check. Life is anything but a fairy tale. If life was a fairy tale, everyone would find their special someone fairly quickly and love will blossom like a flower and everyone will get their happily ever after. Well, here I am, I'm the last member of my family and I'm trying to take down a Council that, for some odd reason, exists in a monarchy! Why the fuck was it even created in the first place? Have you ever stopped to question that? Why elect members of a Council if you already got a King and Queen ruling? Think about that."
It took a little bit for everything that Henry said to sink in. While I agreed one-hundred percent with what he said about life, I can't believe that I never stopped and wondered why the Council was even needed in the first place.
"Henry," I said. "Why does the Council exist in the first place?"
"Well, the Council was created when the Perry family came to rule the throne." Henry said. "Now, if I'm correct, Chase's grandparents held the throne for eighty years each. His grandmother died of natural causes but his grandfather had an unknown disease that caused him to always get sick and when he would get sick, he would almost die every single time. So his grandmother decided, since she was the one who took care of him whenever he got sick, that it would be a good idea to create the Council so that they could rule the kingdom during the time that she would be busy taking care of her husband."
"Interesting." I said as I continued to rip out piercings. I was close to being halfway there (surprisingly). "So, the Perry family is the one who started this whole ordeal with the Council bullshit?"
"Hey, my grandmother only did what she thought was best for the kingdom." Chase snapped. "Besides, at that time, Ronald wasn't the leader of the Council. I can't even remember who the hell it was but I know that it was someone who ruled with equality and fairness."
"What he says is true, you know." Henry said. "The name of the original leader was never revealed but they were a great ruler until their death a year before Ronald was elected to the Council."
"Very interesting to think that there was a time before the people of Anima were being fed the propaganda or, as I like to call it, the bullshit that spewed out of the Council's mouths. God. I can't believe people were actually stupid enough to believe that cowshit."
"Wanna know how they made people believe that cowshit?" Henry asked. "They threatened to kill everyone. And when people didn't listen, they were killed, just like my family was."
"Wait, your family was against the Council?" I asked.
"Very much so." Henry said. "I could have been the Crown Prince if they didn't rebel."
"Dude, being the Crown Prince would have been so cool!" Chase said. "I don't even understand why R-er, Abbey ever gave it up in the first place."
"Because I wanted the next generation to live in a kingdom where everyone's opinion matters and every voice matters." I said. "Besides, if I became Crown Princess, my husband would have been Victor Williamson."
Chase made a face. "Yeah. That sucks man." He then screamed because I ripped out the very last piercing very slowly and painfully. "Ow! Well, great! How the hell am I going to get all those piercings back in?"
"Oh, you're not getting them back in." Henry said. He held every single one of them in his hands because the entire time I had been pulling out the piercings and handing them to him. "Hell, you're not even going to get them back."
"What?!" he said. "What the hell are you going to do with them then?"
"You'll see later." Henry said. "Now, are you ready to get a makeover?"
"Wha-?"

Chase's "makeover" involved dying his hair bright pink. I couldn't contain my laughter while Henry was dying it.

"Pink?!" Chase said once we had given him a mirror to show him his new look of bright pink hair and holes were piercings used to be. "Are you fucking kidding me?!"
"Do penguins fly?" Henry asked.
"What the hell is it with you two asking questions in order to get the answer to a yes or no question?!" Chase asked. "Why can't you just answer the damn question like normal people?"
"Because we aren't normal people." I said. "Now, I think it's time for you to get the fuck out of here and to never show your face around here ever again."

Turns out, Henry's idea for the final part of Chase's punishment was to throw all of his piercings into the lake that was freezing cold and was over one hundred feet deep. Yeah. Complete and utter genius.
"Why the fuck did you do that?!" he asked. "Do you know much all of those cost?!"
"That'll teach you to murder an innocent kitten." Henry said. "Now, get out of here and have a nice life."
"Fuckers." I heard him mutter before he walked away from us.
"Well, glad the asshole is out of here." Henry said once Chase had disappeared from our vision.
"Me too." I said.

He put his arm around me like he did earlier when we were at Shining Lake.
"Did doing all that makes you feel better?" he asked.
"A lot." I admitted. "I just hope that I never see him again."
"Me neither." Henry said. "And that's only because I would probably beat the shit out of him."
"Probably." I said.
"What are you trying to say about me Red?" he asked.
"Nothing." I said, smiling.
"I don't believe you." he said. "But I don't have any time to get you to tell the truth because we've got to call everyone to the Meeting Place to not only tell that that asshole Chase is gone but to announce the tattoo idea."