This is a very long chapter...

It's been one week since I've spoken a word to Luka.

I turned to him once. Opened my mouth just before Agreste interrupted me. "You are not allowed to speak to the soldiers. If you have questions, you can find me. I'm the only person you should concern yourself with while you're here."

Possessive is not a strong enough word for him.

He escorts me everywhere. Talks to me too much.

My schedule consists of meetings with Agreste, eating with Agreste, and listening to Agreste.

If he's busy, I'm sent to my room.

If he's free, he finds me.

He tells me about the books they've destroyed. The artifacts they're preparing  to burn. The ideas he has for a new world and how I'll be a great help to him just as soon as I'm ready.. Just as soon as I realize how much I want this.

How much I want him.

I want this new, glorious powerful life. He is waiting for me to harness my potential

He tells me how grateful I should be for his patience. His kindness. His willingness to understand that this transition must be difficult.

I can't look at Luka. I can't speak to him.

He sleeps in my room but I never see him.

He breathes close to my body but does not even open his mouth in my direction.

He doesn't follow me to the bathroom.

He doesn't leave secret messages in my notebook.

I'm beginning to wonder if I imagine everything he said to me.

I need to know if I'm crazy for holding on to this hope blossoming in my heart. I need to know what Luka's note meant.

But everyday he treats me like a stranger, which is just another day I begin to doubt myself.

I need to talk to him but I can't.

Because now Agreste is watching me.

The cameras are watching everything...

*Time Skip*

"I want you to take the cameras out of my room."

Agreste stops chewing on the food in his mouth. He swallows carefully before leaning back and looking at me in my eyes. "Absolutely not."

"If you treat me like a prisoner I'm going to act like one. I don't like being watched."

"You can't be trusted on your own." He says as he picks up his fork.

"Every breath I take is monitored. There are guards stationed everywhere I step. I don't even have access to my own room. Cameras aren't even going to make a difference."

A smile dances on his lips. "You're not exactly stable, you know? You're most likely going to kill someone."

"No." I grip the edge of the table. "No- I wouldn't- I didn't kill Jenkins-"

"I'm not talking about Jenkins."

He won't stop looking at me. Smiling at me. Torturing me with his eyes.

And I'm sitting here, silently screaming into my fist.

"That was an accident." The words tumble out of my mouth so quietly that I'm not sure if I actually said them.

I instantly dive into a pool of memories.

I can't forget...

*flashback*

I saw her at the grocery store.

Her legs were standing crossed at the ankles. She had her child on one of those backpack leashes. She thought he thought it was a backpack.

She thought he was too dumb/too young/too immature to understand that the rope tying him to her wrist was in fact a way for her to hold him accountable.

She looks too young to have a kid.

Like she still has a life ahead of her, she just simply chose to hang with the wrong crowd.

So now she's letting her anger out on her child. Thinking he's unaware of her doings.

Children are not stupid, is what I wanted to tell her.

I wanted to tell her that his seventh scream didn't mean he was trying to be obnoxious.

And that she shouldn't be saying such rude words to him.

"You're such a brat."

"You're embarrassing me you little brat."

"Don't make me tell Daddy you were being a little brat."

All of that was uncalled for.

I didn't mean to watch but I couldn't help myself.

His 3-year-old face puckered in pain, his little hands tried to undo the straps she'd tightened across his chest.

She tugged the leash so hard that he fell down and cried.

She told him he deserved it.

I wanted to ask her why she would do that.

I wanted to ask her so many questions.

He was on the ground struggling to get back up until I dropped everything in my hands to help him.

I never got a chance to apologize to her son.

I thought my hands were helping.

I thought my heart was helping.

I thought so many things.

I never

never

never

never

never thought

"You just killed a little boy!"

*Flashback ended*

I gasp back to reality.

I am unwanted for a good reason. My hands can kill people. My hands can destroy everything.

I shouldn't be allowed to live.

"I want... I want you to get rid of the cameras. Get rid of them or I will die fighting you for the right."

"Finally." Agreste stands up and claps his hand as if he's congratulating himself. "I was wondering when you'd wake up. I've been waiting for the fire that I'm pretty sure has been eating you alive every single day. You're buried in hatred, aren't you? Anger? Frustration? Itching to do something? To become someone?"

"No."

"Of course you are, you're just like me."

"I hate you more than you will ever understand."

"We're going to make an excellent team."

"We are nothing. You are nothing to me-"

"I know what you want." He leans in and lowers his voice. "I know what your little heart has always longed for. I can give you the acceptance you seek. I can be your friend."

I freeze.

"I know everything about you, princess." He grins. "I've waited forever for you to be ready. I'm not going to let you go so easily."

"I don't want to be a monster." I say, maybe more for my sake than his.

"Don't fight what you're born to be." He grabs my shoulders. "Stop letting everyone else tell you what's wrong and right. Stake a claim! You cower when you could conquer. You have so much more power than you're aware of and quite frankly I'm-" He shakes his head. "...fascinated."

"I am not your freak! I will perform for you!"

"I'm not afraid of you, m'lady." He says softly. "I'm absolutely enchanted."

"Either you get rid of the cameras or I will find and break every single one of them." I'm a liar. I'm lying through my teeth but I'm angry and desperate and horrified.

Agreste wants me to turn into an animal who preys on the weak.

On the innocent.

If he wants me to fight for him, he's going to have to fight me first.

A slow smile spreads across his face. He touches his gloved fingers to my cheek and tilts my head up, catching my chin in his grip when I flinch away. "You're absolutely delicious when you're angry."

"Too bad my taste is poisonous for your plate." I'm vibrating in disgust from head to toe.

"That detail makes this game so much more appealing."

"You're sick, you're so sick-"

He lets go of my chin and laughs. He lazily looks me up and down. "If I get rid of your cameras, what will you do for me?" His eyes are wicked.

"Nothing."

He shakes his head. "That won't do. I might agree to your proposition if you agree to a condition.."

I clench my jaw. "What do you want?"

His smile is bigger than before. "That's a dangerous question."

AHHHH WHO TF IS THIS MAN AND WHY TF HE AINT IN MY DRAWLS YET-  NAH CUZ I JUST KNOW IT'S BIG-

"What is your condition" I ask in an impatient manner.

"Touch me."

I gasp. "What?"

"I know what exactly you're capable of." He says slowly.

"I won't do it again!" I explode. "You saw what you made me do to Jenkins-"

"Screw Jenkins." He spits. "I want you to touch me. I want to feel it myself."

"No." I shake my head so hard it makes me dizzy. "No. Never. You're crazy- I won't-"

"You will have to... work... at one point or another. Even if you forgo my decision, you are here for a reason, Marinette. I convinced my father that you would be a big help to The Akuma. That you'd be able to restrain any rebels we-"

"You mean torture-"

"Yes." He smiles. "Forgive me, I mean torture. You will be able to help us torture anyone we capture." A pause. "Inflicting pain, you see, is an incredibly efficient method of getting formation out of anyone. And with you?" He glances at my hands. "Well, it's cheap. Fast. Effective."

He smiles wider. "And as long as we keep you alive, you'll be good at least a few decades. It's a sad thing you're not battery-operated."

"You- you-"

"You should be thanking me. I saved you from that sick hole of an asylum. I brought you into a position of power. I've given you everything you could possibly need to be comfortable." He looks at me. "Now I need you to focus. I need you to give up on hoping that you'll ever have a chance at living life like everyone else. You are not normal. You never have been, and you never will be. Embrace who you are."

"I am not- I'm not- I'm-"

"A murderer?"

"NO-"

"An instrument of torture?"

"STOP-"

"You're lying to yourself."

I'm ready to destroy this man.

He cocks his head. "You've been on the edge of insanity your entire life, haven't you? So many people called you crazy and you actually started to believe it. You wondered if they were right. You wondered if you could fix it. You thought if you could just try a little harder, be a little better, smarter, nicer- you thought the world would change its mind about you. You blamed yourself for everything."

My hands start to shake.

I don't want to tell him he's right.

"You've suppressed all your rage and resentment because you wanted to be loved." He says, he's no longer smiling. "Maybe I understand you, Marinette. Maybe you should trust me. Maybe you should accept the fact that you've tried to be someone you're not for so long and no matter what you did, those bastards were never happy. They were never satisfied. They never gave a damn, did they?"

He looks at me and for a moment he seems almost human. For a moment I want to believe him. For a moment I want to sit on the floor and cry out the ocean that's lodged in my throat.

"It's time you stopped pretending," he says in a soft voice.

"Marinette-" He takes my face in his gloves hands. They're so unexpectedly gentle. "You don't have to be nice anymore. You can destroy all of them. You can take them down and own this whole world-"

"But I don't want to destroy anyone. I don't want to hurt people-"

"They deserve it!" He turns away, frustrated. "How could you not want to retaliate? How could you not want to fight back-"

I stand up slowly, shaking with anger. "You don't think I have a heart? You think I don't have feelings? You think because I can inflict pain, that I should? You're just like everyone else. You don't understand me at all-"

"Marinette-"

"No."

I don't want this. I don't want his life.

I don't want to be anything for anyone but myself. I want to make my own choices and I've never wanted to be a monster.

My words are slow and steady when I speak. "I value human life a lot more than you do, Agreste."

Agreste opens his mouth to sleep before he stops. Chuckles to himself and shakes his head.

He smiles at me.

"What?" I ask before I can stop myself.

"You just said my name." He grins even wider. "You've never said my name out loud before. At least not to my face, which means I'm making progress with you."

"I just told you I don't-"

He cuts me off. "I'm not worried about your moral dilemmas. You're just stalling for time because you're in denial. Don't worry, you'll get over it."

"I'm not in denial-"

"Of course you are. You don't know it yet, Marinette, but you're a very bad girl." He places his left hand over his heart and the back of his right hand on his forehead as he sighs. "Ahh, just my type."

Dear, Lord. This conversation is impossible.

"There is a soldier living in my room. If you want me to be here, you need to get rid of the cameras."

His eyes darken for a second. "Where is your soldier, anyway?"

"I wouldn't know." I hope I'm not blushing. "You assigned him to me."

"Yes." He looks thoughtful. "I like watching you squirm. He makes you uncomfortable, doesn't he?"

Squirm? What's that supposed to mean aGrEsTE

I think about Luka's hands on my body and his lips so close to mine and the scent of his skin and suddenly my heart is pounding. "Yes." God. "Yes. He makes me very . . . uncomfortable."

"Do you know why I chose him?"

Luka was chosen.

Of course he was. He wasn't just any soldier sent to my cell. Agreste doesn't do anything without a reason. He must know Luka and I have history. He is more cruel and calculative than I gave him credit for.

"No." Inhale. "I don't know why." Exhale. I can't forget to breathe.

"He volunteered," Agreste says simply, and I'm dumbstruck. "He said he'd gone to school with you so many years ago. He said you probably wouldn't remember him, that he looks a lot different than he did back then. He put together a very convincing case. He was thrilled to hear you'd been locked up." Agreste finally looks at me,

"I'm curious," He says, tilting his head as he speaks. "Do you remember him?"

"No." I lie.

Luka knew me when he walked into that cell.

He knew exactly who I was.

He already knew my name...

This was all a trap.

"Does this information make you . . . angry?" He's still smiling.

I say nothing and somehow that just makes things worse.

Agreste is literally beaming. "I never told him, of course, why you were locked up. I thought the experiment in the asylum should remain untainted by extra information, but he said you were always a threat to the students. That everyone was warned to stay away from you, though the authorities never explained why. He said he wanted to get a closer look at the freak you had become."

My heart cracks. My eyes flash. I'm so hurt, so angry, so humiliated, and burning with anger that's like a raw flame raging inside of me.

I want to crush Agreste's spine. I want him to know what it's like to wound, to inflict such agony on others. I want him to know my pain and Jenkins' pain and Fletcher's pain and I want him to hurt.

Because maybe Agreste is right.

Some people do deserve to feel pain.

"Take off your shirt."

For all this talk, Agreste looks genuinely surprised. But he wastes no time unbuttoning his jacket, slipping off his gloves, and peeling away the thin cotton shirt clinging to his skin.

His eyes are bright, sickeningly eager; he doesn't mask his curiosity.

He drops his clothes to the floor and looks at me almost immediately after.

I feel my face to see if I'm drooling.

His perfect face. His perfect body...

I want to murder him. I want his outsides to match his insides, black and dead.

I want to cripple his cockiness with the palm of my hand. 

He walks up to me until there's less than a foot of space between us/ His height and build make me feel like a fallen twig. "Are you ready?" He asks.

I stop myself from breaking his neck.

"If I do this you'll get rid of all the cameras in my room. All the bugs. Everything."

He steps closer. Dips his head. He's staring at my lips, studying me in an entirely new way. "My promises aren't worth much, princess." He whispers. "Or have you forgotten?"

He steps 3 inches forwards. His hand on my waist. His breath, sweet and warm on my neck. "I'm an exceptional liar."

Realization slams into me.

I shouldn't be doing this.

I shouldn't be making deals with him.

I shouldn't be thinking about torturing anyone. Dear God I have lost my mind.

My fists are balled at my sides and I'm shaking everywhere. I can hardly find the strength to speak. "You can go to hell."

I'm limp.

I trip backwards against the wall and slump into a heap of uselessness; desperation.

I think of Luka and my heart deflates.

I can't be here anymore.

I run to the double doors and yank them open before Agreste can stop me.

But Luka stops me instead.

He's standing just outside. Waiting. Guarding me wherever I go.

I wonder if he heard everything and my eyes fall to the floor, the color flushed from my face.

Of course he heard everything.

Now he knows I'm a murderer, a monster, a worthless soul stuffed into a poisonous body.

Agreste did this on purpose.

And I'm standing between them. Agreste with no shirt on and Luka looking at his gun.

"Soldier." Agreste speaks. "Take her back up to her room and disable all the cameras. She can eat lunch alone if she wants, but I'll be expecting her for dinner."

Luka blinks as he hesitates to speak, "Yes, sir."

"Marinette?"

I freeze. My back is facing Agreste and I don't turn around.

"I do expect you to hold up your end of the bargain."

-------------------

Damn, long ass chapter.

I didn't know where to end it but the next chapter isn't as long.