Glint (The Plated Prisoner 2)

or makes a groan under the strength of them, and in the next second, my ribbons tear it clear off its hinges, snapping the iron like splinters. With a flick, they toss the useless door directly into Midas, hitting him in the chest and knocking him to the ground on his back.

My ribbons go limp, back screaming from the effort and strength that just took. My momentum nearly sends me careening forward, but I manage to lift a hand and catch myself on the bars of the cage before I fall flat on my face.

But that’s when it sinks in.

The burn.

My head snaps up, gaze landing on the bar, on my hand that’s grasping it. My bare hand.

Sometime during my struggle, my glove came off.

I quickly snatch my hand away and start to back away, but it’s too late, of course.

Gold streamed from my palm the moment I touched it, like blood pouring from a wound. I was too frenzied to control it, too panicked to direct it.

The gold leaks down the bar and then puddles at my feet. It moves, spreading across the cage floor like it has a mind of its own, crawling up every bar, reaching toward the domed ceiling of the ironwork, coating every inch of the iron cage.

I whirl around with a warning poised on my tongue, but instead, it becomes a strangled cry.

No.

No, no, no.

Running forward, I trip over my ribbons as I go, but getting closer doesn’t do anything to confirm what I already know. My palm burned when I shoved her, but I was too distracted to pay attention to it.

I stare in horror at the woman’s solid gold body, her mouth still open in a soundless scream. Her body is at an odd angle, stuck in the same position from when I shoved her into the bars, her neck snapped forward with whiplash.

But her eyes—her eyes are squeezed shut, like she felt every agonizing inch as the gold consumed her.

“No...”

My legs give out, and I fall to my knees, a desperate sound bursting from my throat.

“Look what you did, Auren!”

I flinch at his angry accusation as I look behind me, finding Midas shoving off the heavy door from his chest and rolling up to his feet. He looks from me to the woman with a bitterly disappointed look on his face—one that’s laced with condescension.

He shakes his head. “Do you see?” he demands, pointing at her. “Do you see why you need to stay in your cage?”

Sobs crush themselves in my chest, pummel up my throat, pinch at the back of my tongue.

I killed another innocent. This poor woman did nothing except be forced to act as my stand-in, and I murdered her.

Horrible guilt rings through my hollowed chest, rattles my entire body until I’m trembling with the resonance of agonized regret.

“I didn’t mean to...” My pathetic response makes me hate myself even more.

Why did I push her aside? Why didn’t I notice my glove had fallen off?

I hear the sound of Midas’s shoes as he walks forward to stand over me, the lantern light causing a long shadow to cast from him.

He clicks his tongue in reprimand, shaking his head as his eyes skim over the woman’s statue. “Do you see, Auren? This is why you need the cage,” he says again, his voice grating against my ears like metal against stone. “Not just to protect you, but to protect everyone from you.”

My tears drip.

My spine aches.

I called Rip a monster, but really, I am.