I felt Charlie’s devastation through our bond— the way tears stung his eyes as he heard them destroy the piano. I stared up at him, and I no longer saw my husband. He was no longer a fully-grown man, but a little boy who was having his instrument smashed in front of him. Piano had been his way of escaping from abusive situations as a child, and in that moment, he was back in the brothel he’d been raised in, losing his way of disappearing from places he couldn’t leave.
Just like the Institute.
Ava, I’m begging you.
This was one of the most difficult choices I’d ever made. Choosing the world over Charlie’s suffering. But we’d come too far to turn back now.
Please… don’t.
Warbright whimpered, but his pleading did no good. A broken violin hung limply by its strings as a guard threw it into a pile of busted trumpets. The heads of microphones were smashed. The stereo at the front of the room was crushed to pieces.
I observed the heap of wood lying on the floor where the piano had been and started to cry.
We’d spent hours here, playing that piano. I’d let Charlie touch me for the first time on that piece of art. It’d been one of the ways we’d reconnected after we’d broken up, and it had been an escape from prison life after what had happened in the Underground.
I reached up to grab Charlie’s hand, which had gone cold. His whole body was stiff. He was in disbelief this could really be happening. I remembered all the amazing songs we’d created and the good times we’d shared with that piano.
It would never make music again.
Opal sobbed so loudly that we could hear it over the sound of the guards tearing things apart. Through it all, they made us watch, being deliberately cruel. By the time they were done, all that was left was one big, giant mess.
I didn’t think I had much of a heart left to break, but even still… I wasdevastated.
When the guards had broken everything in the room, they pointed their guns at us. “The chapel. Now!”
Marcus fumbled to get my capsized wheelchair upright. Charlie’s arms quivered so badly he almost dropped me as he tried to lift me back into it. Oberi caught me, and her neck lifted me up. Somehow, I was able to roll myself forward as the guards marched us out of the music room and into the chapel beside it.
They made us line up underneath the balcony, then grabbed Charlie by the front of his shirt. “You! Come with us!”
My throat seized up in terror. Why had they singled outCharlie? I tried to force myself to say something, but couldn’t find the words. They’d gotten caught up inside of me, until I was gasping for air. A panic attack, shock, I wasn’t surewhatwas happening to me. I felt powerless to protect him, and by far, that was the worst feeling I’d ever experienced.
They hauled him up the staircase. Although she hadn’t been summoned, Oberi trailed behind with a worried nicker, her hooves clopping up the wooden steps.
We looked up to observe whatever horrifying thing was about to take place on the balcony. The guard shoved him forward, and Charlie fell against the organ. The instrument screamed in protest as he pushed himself off of it.
“Destroy it,” the guard said, and nothing more.
“What?” Charlie’s tone was full of astonishment.
“You heard me,boy! Destroy the organ!” the guard screamed.
“I’m not fucking doing anything!” Charlie bellowed.
“You don’t take apart that organ, there will be hell to pay,” the guard threatened.
Charlie’s chest heaved in rage as he replied, “You’re going to have to kill me, you bastards.”
He wouldn’t let this happen. He wouldn’t allow the guards to rip apart our dreams and treat us like this.
I adored his bravery. But more than that, I wanted him to comply. I knew these guards would go to unimaginable lengths to force Charlie to submit, and nobody in this prison would stop them.
Just do as they say, I begged, but a fierce resistance rose up inside of him, threatening to spill over.
He wasn’t going to give in. Not even if they killed him. He was done watching us suffer at this prison, and was going to make a stand.
If he did, the rest of us would, too. Nothing mattered anymore, not if we could be abused like this. Charlie would go down… we’d all go down. If this was an acceptable way to treat us, and we couldn’t escape it, we might as well die.
The guard smacked him across the face so hard that he fell to the floor. “Destroy it!”
