"So, how is he?" Ayako Watanabe asked Chief Chandler the moment she set foot into the woman's office. The 'water magic' user had just returned to the station after having to deal with an overnight cryptid hunt with one of the other agents, and had only just received the news that Cyrus had returned.
"I'm not going to lie to you…" Chief Chandler couldn't help but sigh. "Not great."
"How…how bad is it?"
Chief Chandler paused for a moment while deciding on what exactly to tell her subordinate. She didn't want to worry the woman over the rookie agent's current condition. But she also didn't want to lie to her either.
"I wasn't able to get that great of a look at him when I took his parents to go see him yesterday. But from what I did see…it wasn't pretty. Whoever had him sliced up his face pretty good. And according to the doctor, he had some serious bruising all over his body and a few broken bones."
"Fuck…"
"On top of that, he had enough drugs in his system to put a full-grown horse on its ass. Honestly, he's lucky to even be alive."
"When can I go see him?"
"You should be able to after work. But I can't have you going right now. We're still stretched pretty thin thanks to our ongoing Iznana investigation, and I need everyone here."
Ayako wanted to argue with the woman; Cyrus was her partner after all. However, the 'water magic' user knew better than to do so. The Chief was right; they needed all hands on deck right now. With everything that had been going on over the last few weeks, it simply wasn't possible for Ayako to just leave to go check up on her partner. No matter how badly she wanted to.
"Understood."
"Don't worry, though." The Chief then said as she began looking over one of the papers on her desk. "We'll be moving Cyrus here to our infirmary the day after tomorrow so that our 'healing magic' user can patch him up. To be honest, I would've preferred to transport him here right away, but the hospital won't just release someone in his condition this quickly."
"I understand. Thank you for letting me know, ma'am."
With that, Ayako took her leave and made her way over to one of the station's lounge areas to await further orders. Although the woman wanted nothing more than to see Cyrus right now and make sure that he was okay, she decided that it was best to just wait until she was given the green light.
'At least he's alive. That's really all that matters right now.'
-(o)-
[Later That Day]
"Hey, hey, I just heard from downstairs! Is it true that-"
"Shhh!" One of the hospital nurses tried to stop her friend from talking. They were in an open area after all. "We're not supposed to say anything about it."
"But she's really here, right?"
"She is." Another nurse walked into the room with a slick grin on her face. "She's visiting that one guy that came in yesterday morning."
"The one with the weird back tattoo and the scars all over his face, right?"
"Yeah."
"Oh, shit!" The first nurse tried to hide her excitement. "You think that might be her boyfriend or something?"
"Dunno." Her friend shrugged. "The guy seemed kinda young. But, I think one of the night shift guys said that he's a friend of her brother."
"You think I can get a picture with her? My Instagram's been kinda dry lately."
"Girl, you better just be happy that she's paying us to keep our mouths shut." The other nurse said. "Don't try to ruin a good thing just to get a few likes. I don't know about you, but I'm not trying to ruin my trip to Houston next week."
-(o)-
Cyrus slowly opened his eyes and turned towards the steady beeping sound that suddenly woke him up. His vision was still blurry, and it took a second for him to adjust to the bright light directly overhead. But once things started to clear up a bit, he instantly became confused at what he was looking at.
Immediately to his right was a rough silhouette that he'd come to be very familiar with over the last couple of months.
"Evan?" The freckle-faced teen groggily questioned with a half-lidded gaze.
"Close…but not exactly." The person responded in a soft voice that he somewhat recognized. "Personally, I don't really think the two of us look that much alike. I mean, me and Elizabeth pretty much have the same face."
"What?" Cyrus gave the person a confused look before the blurriness finally subsided. Now that he could actually see, the young man was able to tell that the person he was looking at wasn't his friend, Evan, at all. Nor was the mana signature the same. Instead, it was a woman whom he had only met once before. "Skye?"
Elaine was currently in the process of setting a bouquet of flowers down on the nearby table stand. It was a rather magnificent arrangement of plants that Cyrus recognized from all those summers he spent working in his mother's store. One filled with all manner of yellow roses, sunflowers, and pink tulips. All of which were used in your typical "Get Well Soon" package.
"It's good to see that you're awake, young man. Everyone was worried that you'd be out for another few days."
"W-what are you doing here?"
"Paying you a visit." The woman said with a casual flip of her hair. "I was in the area and decided to drop by. You are one of my brother's and sister's friends after all."
It took a second for those words to register in Cyrus's brain. And once they did, he immediately tried to sit up. However, the moment he did so, his head began to spin in all directions. On top of that, every part of his body ached with a pain that almost made him fall back down to the bed, especially the area around his pelvis and shoulders. "What the hell?"
Elaine was quick to try to keep Cyrus calm.
"Whoa, whoa, easy now. Don't try to move too quickly."
"Where am I?"
"The hospital." The woman replied in a calm tone. "You've been in here for about a day now."
Almost immediately, Cyrus began to frantically check his surroundings. The last thing that he clearly remembered was lying on the floor in Frost's playroom. Now, he was somehow inside a hospital room surrounded by all manner of medical equipment. Judging by the layout of the place, this was the same hospital he was sent to after getting hit by that truck earlier that year.
'I-I'm…I'm free? But how? When?!'
"Do you need me to call a nurse?" Elaine then asked with what appeared to be genuine concern on her face.
"No, I-" Cyrus paused as he took a moment to breathe.
This wasn't a dream, he could tell by how real the linen blanket felt on his fingers. This was real. He was genuinely and truly free from that living nightmare. What day was it? How long had he been gone? Where was everyone else? Did his parents know that he was here? What about his friends? What about Ayako and Fredd-
A sharp pain suddenly appeared in Cyrus's chest as images of his now-dead friend flashed through his mind.
"I just…need a minute. Sorry."
"It's okay." The woman said. "You're safe now."
"I-I…oh my God…."
A pregnant silence filled the room for the next minute or so as Cyrus tried to make sense of everything that was going on. He could hardly believe that this was happening right now. He was no longer trapped; he was actually free. Free from the pain, the delirium, the cold. All of it was gone. Or at least, he hoped it was.
Elaine silently studied the look on the young man's face as she tried to figure out exactly what to say. She knew that she needed to make her move quickly, but this was going to require a bit of finesse on her part. Saying the wrong thing to Cyrus in his current state might cause him to go off the deep end. And she couldn't have that happen. Not when she was so close to getting what she wanted.
"I heard about what happened from Evan." The woman then said in a calm tone. "I'm glad to see that you're back in one piece."
"Yeah…" Cyrus gave the woman a slow nod as he subconsciously wrapped his blanket around his body. "Me too."
The young man then placed his still-aching hand over his cheek and began to trace the scars that now littered his face. Cyrus didn't need a mirror to understand the severity of what had been done to him. He could feel each and every mark that Frost left on him. Marks that he had received for failing to give the woman what she wanted and not acting like the obedient toy that he was supposed to be.
Elaine herself was genuinely surprised at the state that the young man's face was in. She knew that Hannah took too much enjoyment in mutilating her toys whenever she had the chance. But to go this far just to satisfy her own sick sense of enjoyment was not what she wanted. Quite the opposite, actually. Especially since there was no telling what this was going to do to his mental state in the future.
'I really need to get rid of that stupid girl. This is not what I wanted.' The 'wind magic' user thought to herself. 'Then again…this might actually be a blessing in disguise for my plans.'
Unfortunately, even with 'healing magic', there was little that could be done to help Cyrus regarding his looks. The freckle-faced teen was going to be living with these scars for the rest of his life. They were going to be an ever-present reminder of what had happened to him, just like her own scar was for her.
"How do you feel?"
"I don't…everything hurts. Fuck…"
"Don't worry." The woman then said in a soft tone. Elaine made sure to avoid touching Cyrus for the time being. Doing so might cause him to have an adverse reaction. "My assistant, Nick, is right outside that door. He can use his magic to heal up anything you need him to. Just say the word, and I can bring him in here."
'Fuck, it's cold in here.' Cyrus thought to himself, not even fully registering what the woman was saying to him. The young man unknowingly wrapped his blanket around him a bit tighter than it was before. It wasn't nearly as cold as it had been when he was trapped in Frost's room, but it was nowhere near as warm as he wanted it to be either.
Cyrus then looked at Elaine before asking the woman a question. "Can you turn the heat up a bit, please?"
All Elaine did was nod before standing up and walking over to the thermostat on the nearby wall. The woman took a moment to turn the temperature up by about five degrees before sitting back down in the chair that sat next to Cyrus's hospital bed.
"Better?"
"I think so." Cyrus nodded in response as he felt the warmth of the AC unit begin to fill the room. It still wasn't as warm as he wanted, but it was a decent start.
After about a minute or so of taking account of his body and stretching out his fingers and toes, Cyrus turned to the woman. He briefly gave her a confused look before giving her what could only be described as a weak attempt at a smile. His head was still spinning, but he felt almost well enough to talk for a bit. And to be honest, he really wanted to take his mind off what was currently going through his head.
"I guess I should be lucky." The 'tree magic' user said with a pathetically weak laugh. "Having a famous pop star visiting you in the hospital is a pretty nice thing to wake up to…."
Elaine gave the young man a smooth grin. "Oh, I bet! I won't be here for long, though. I had to bribe the nursing staff to make sure that they didn't tell anyone I was here. But I don't think they'll keep their mouths shut for too long."
"The problems that come with fame, huh?"
"Unfortunately."
A calm silence once again filled the room before Elaine decided to make her move.
This was her chance. The 'wind magic' user had thought long and hard about how exactly she was going to handle this. But after much consideration, she came up with a plan that she knew would work. It was a risky one, for sure, but one that had the highest chance of success. Now, all she needed to do was start talking.
And if things started to go south, she had a nice little insurance policy in place to avoid any real trouble.
"I'm going to be honest, I was more than a bit worried when the twins told me about what happened. I have a rough idea about what you might've gone through. But even so, to be subjected to that kind of thing must've been terrible. Especially after what happened to your friend."
Cyrus didn't really know how to respond to that. In truth, he was having a hard time formulating a single coherent thought right about now.
The young man then took a moment to glance over at the television at the front of the room. One that was currently playing on the local news channel. The date was October 26th. A little over three weeks from the day that he and Freddy had been attacked.
It almost didn't feel real….
Three whole weeks. Almost an entire month. That's how long he had spent trapped inside that room. Three entire weeks floating in and out of consciousness while being subjected to the freezing cold and the whims of a psychotic woman who only wanted to use him for her own sick sense of enjoyment. It was almost too hard to think about.
The scars on Cyrus's face began to ache as the memories of that time came flooding back into his mind. Even now, he could still feel each and every mark that Frost had left on him. Every scar. Every cut. Every bruise. And to be honest, he didn't even want to know what he looked like right now. He had no desire to see the mutilation that showed the world how he was still that woman's property.
Instead, he wanted to talk about something else.
"Was there a funeral?" Cyrus then asked while averting his gaze from the woman. "F-for Freddy, I mean…."
"There was." Elaine nodded slowly. "About a week after you went missing. Unfortunately, I wasn't able to go myself. But Elizabeth told me that they gave Agent Price a lovely send-off. I believe that your parents were there, too."
"Where is he?"
"Crown Memorial Park, in Pineville."
"I see…" Cyrus slowly nodded. "Thank you for telling me."
"No problem."
Cyrus took a moment to lean back on his bed.
His whole body still ached. His limbs felt like rotted wood, and his joints felt like stiff iron. As he looked down at his arms, he could tell that he was significantly skinnier than he was before. During the time that he was under her care, Frost had only given the young man water, cold oatmeal, and sour grapes to keep him alive. Just enough to sustain him, but not enough to maintain his strength. And that was only if he had been a "good boy" that day.
Elaine briefly studied Cyrus's face for a few seconds before speaking to him again. It was now or never.
"I'm truly sorry for what happened to you, Cyrus. If I had known about this, I would've stopped it the moment I had the chance."
"It's okay." Cyrus weakly waved off. "It's not like it's your fault or anything."
"It is." Elaine said with a guarded expression. Now was her time to strike. "I never approved of any of this. If I had known what Hannah and her people were doing to you behind my back, I would've put a stop to it immediately. This is not what we're about."
It took a few seconds for Cyrus to fully digest those words. But once he did, all the young man could do was blink before looking at the woman with a perplexed expression on his face.
"Wait…what did you just say?"
Elaine leaned forward in her seat, her pale green eyes were unflinching, but at the same time serious. "I didn't want you to get hurt like this. I never permitted Hannah to treat you the way that she did. I gave her orders… but she went far beyond what I would've ever allowed. I never expected her to go this far."
Cyrus's blood turned cold. What the hell was this woman even saying right now?
"…What do you mean you gave her orders?"
Elaine didn't look away. "I mean exactly what I said. Hannah, Frost, she's one of my operatives. She wasn't acting entirely on her own. But what she did was completely against my wishes."
"What?" Cyrus's voice cracked. He sat forward slightly, wincing from the pain in his torso. "What the hell are you saying to me?"
"What I'm trying to tell you, Cyrus, is that I'm the one in charge of Hannah. I'm the Boss, the eighth Branch Head of Iznana."
-(o)-
Cyrus had no clue what to think about what he had just heard. In all honesty, he wasn't sure if what he just heard was even real or not. There was just no way. It didn't even make any sense.
This had to be some sort of joke. Either that, or he was experiencing some sort of weird fever dream that he still had yet to wake up from. Those were the only logical explanations for what was happening right now. Everything else just seemed…insane.
For a moment, Cyrus's breath caught in his throat. But after a second or two, he found the ability to speak again.
"What?"
Elaine nodded solemnly. "I'm not just a singer. Nor am I just some normal celebrity. That's a front. A mask. One that the public knows me by." The woman paused before speaking again. "Behind all of that, I'm also the eighth Branch Head of Iznana."
The room fell dead silent.
Cyrus stared at her like he'd just been struck by a train. "Y-you…you're Iznana?"
"One of its leaders. Yes."
Cyrus sat there in stunned disbelief, the color draining from his already pale face as he tried to rationalize what he had just heard. "Is this some kind of joke?"
"It's not. I'm being very serious."
It was only then that Cyrus finally processed the other part of what the woman said. Just a second ago, Elaine had referred to Frost as "Hannah". A name that he recognized almost instantly.
Suddenly, the young man's mind flashed back to when he was on the floor in Frost's playroom. He was almost certain that Aaron, Hannah's younger brother, was the one he saw standing in that doorway. The guy looked exactly like him. But aside from that, it did make sense. Hannah was an 'ice magic' user, and Aaron was a 'fire magic' user. And he was attacked by a 'fire magic' user the night that he was captured.
Wait, this wasn't what was important right now. Cyrus currently had bigger fish to fry. He still needed to address what was in front of him. More specifically, who.
Cyrus then turned his gaze back toward Elaine. The woman was clearly waiting for some type of response from him. And to be honest, he had no clue what he was even supposed to say. This was all too much to be thinking about right now. If what this woman was saying was the truth, then it also meant that Elaine was the one directly in charge of Hannah, or Frost. She was the one responsible for that woman and what she did to him.
"Why…" Cyrus said in a guarded tone. "Why are you telling me this?"
"Because I want to help you, Cyrus."
"What?"
"I'm being honest, I want to help you."
Suddenly and without warning, Cyrus shot up from his bed and immediately began to make a break for the door. Unfortunately for the freckle-faced teen, his weakened body gave out on him almost instantly. He only managed to make it a couple of steps before he unceremoniously fell to the ground. Despite this, however, the young man managed to push the curtains surrounding his bed to the side. Yet the moment he did so, two things became very clear to him.
The first was the fact that the door to the room had a light-green mana barrier around it. One that completely blocked the entrance.
The second was the two mana signatures right on the other side of the door. Elaine mentioned earlier that her assistant was waiting outside, but it seemed like she had another person there as well.
'I need to get out of here!' Cyrus thought as he once again tried to stand up, only for his legs to give out from under him.
Elaine was quick to try and help the man get back onto his feet, but Cyrus immediately swatted her hands away the moment she tried to touch him.
"Don't touch me!" The young man told the woman in a fierce tone.
"Okay, okay…." Elaine held her hands up in an attempt to show him that she meant no harm. "But I would advise you to get back into bed. You're not strong enough to walk yet."
"You would know all about that, wouldn't you?!"
"Cyrus, I-"
"Shut up!" He then lashed out at her. "What the hell are you even doing here?! You think that you can just waltz in here and tell me all of that bullshit?!"
Elaine was glad that she had the foresight to put that barrier up over the door and windows, mainly because it was an easy way for her to soundproof the room. "Cyrus, you need to calm down."
"Calm down?!" The 'tree magic' user laughed. "You expect me to calm down when a fucking Iznana boss is standing right in front of me?! What kind of sense does that make?!"
The woman was about to say something, but she quickly recomposed herself. Something like this was to be expected out of the young man; it only made sense. But she couldn't do what she needed to when he was acting like this.
"I'm not here to hurt you!" Elaine then declared. "Like I said, I want to help you?"
"Help me with what?! What exactly do you think that you can help me with?!"
"Getting revenge on Hannah for what she did to you!"
Cyrus paused as he took a second to absorb her words. "What?"
"I want to help you get revenge on Hannah for everything that she put you through."
"You can't be serious?"
"Look." Elaine then let out a quick sigh. "Can we continue this conversation once you're back in bed? I can't talk to you when you're in this state."
"You're the reason why I'm even like this!"
"No, I'm not. I'm here to help you."
"What the fuck…."
The duo shared another round of words before Cyrus finally relented and crawled back into his bed. Despite the situation that he currently found himself in, Cyrus knew that there wasn't much that he could do about it right now.
For starters, he was too weak to properly defend himself. Any attempt that could've been made to attack the woman would've been pointless, especially since he still couldn't properly regulate the mana in his body. On top of that, Elaine was one of the most powerful sorcerers on the planet. The woman had the power to wipe an entire city off the map if she wanted to. So, needless to say, if she wanted to hurt him, she could've done so without batting an eye.
Cyrus wanted nothing more than to leave this room right now, but he was currently stuck between a rock and a hard place. So, with very few options available to him, the young 'tree magic' user decided to bide his time and wait for an opportunity to escape the moment he found a chance to do so.
-(o)-
"Start talking, now." Cyrus folded his arms across his chest as best he could while glaring daggers at the woman.
Elaine let out a slight breath before she began speaking. "Like I said, I want to help you. What Hannah did to you was completely unforgivable, and I want to make it right."
"She was acting on your orders, wasn't she?"
"No." Elaine declared firmly. "What Hannah did to you, to the others that she turned into victims, was not what I wanted. Not in the slightest. Her job was just to secure the…DNA of people with unique magic types. What I told her was to simply buy them from others and send them back to me. That's it. Everything else was her own doing."
Cyrus mulled over the woman's words as he did his best to recall what his former captor had said to him a few weeks ago. His memory was still foggy, but he could definitely remember the woman saying something along those lines. Fros- Hannah said that the "Boss" just told her to buy the DNA from whoever she needed to. But she ended up getting bored with that and started torturing the poor souls instead. Or something along those lines.
Elaine, however, knew that what she was saying was total bullshit. She already knew what Hannah was doing to the poor sorcerers that she and her friends had captured. But as long as they didn't kill anyone, she was willing to look the other way. That being said, she made sure to leave that part out. She had no intention of lying to the young man sitting before her, but she had no reason to come completely clean either.
Like her grandfather always said: "The best way to lie is to simply tell the truth."
"Why would you make her do this?" Cyrus then asked his next question. "What's the point?"
"Whether I like it or not, there's a lot of money to be made selling and trading sorcerer sperm on the black market."
"Are you trying to tell me that you needed the money?" Cyrus almost laughed. "Aren't you worth almost a billion dollars or something?"
"It's not just about the money." Elaine replied. "My operations as branch head require me to keep a lot of connections and do people favors. And one of the easiest ways to do that is by trading sorcerer DNA to others in exchange for help."
"And how long have you been a part of Iznana?"
"Almost a decade." The woman told him without even the slightest bit of hesitation. "But I became a branch head a few years ago after Theo killed my former boss, Kwame Ayew."
All Cyrus could do was drop his head into his hands as he tried his best to wake up from the nightmare that he currently found himself in. He couldn't believe that this was happening to him. Barely a day ago, he was trapped in some horrific sex dungeon being tortured by someone whom he apparently knew. Now, he was sitting directly next to a top leader of one of the most dangerous criminal organizations on the planet.
This was one of he few occasions where Cyrus regretted ever getting involved with sorcerer society. It was all just too much right now.
"Why are you even telling me all of this?" The 'tree magic' user looked up at his unwanted guest. "Better yet, what's stopping me from running to Chief Chandler and Deputy Chief Mubele and telling them what you just told me?"
Elaine adopted a serious expression on her face as she stared at Cyrus directly in the eyes. "Do you really think that I would do something this risky without having a contingency plan in place?"
"Are you threatening me?"
"No, I'm not."
Cyrus had no reason to argue with the logic there.
Of course, an Iznana Branch Head wouldn't do something this brazen without already knowing what the outcome would be. The woman had just declared herself to be a wanted criminal to him, with seemingly no reason to expect that she would be in any real danger as a result of it. This meant that Cyrus, as of right now, was not in control of whatever happened next. Everything from this point on would go exactly the way that Elaine wanted it.
And if it didn't, well…he didn't really want to think about that right now.
"Stop fucking with me!" The man then leaned toward her and frowned. "I'm not dumb! Just tell me what you want from me! You already have my fucking sperm locked away in a box somewhere to sell off to the highest bidder. What else could you possibly need from me that you don't already have?"
"Like I said, I want to help you." Elaine said. "More specifically, I want us to help each other."
"Go on…"
"Look, I'm not going to lie to you and say that I had no intention of selling off your DNA. And if you want me to destroy those vials, I will. I never wanted you to get hurt. If I had known what was going to happen, I would've just come to you directly to ask for it."
'This woman is really fucking crazy.' Never in a million years would Cyrus think that the world-famous superstar, Elaine MacNamara, was this kind of person. The woman sure did a damn good job at hiding her true nature from the rest of the world.
"That being said…what Hannah did to you was absolutely disgusting and abhorrent." Elaine continued. "The reason I joined Iznana was to help our kind. I'll be the first to admit that my methods haven't exactly been as pristine as I wanted them to be. But the last thing I want is to see other sorcerers get hurt. And I can't tolerate having someone like that walking around when I can do something about it."
"You really expect me to believe that?"
"I do."
"Why?"
Instead of a verbal response, Elaine decided to do something that Cyrus wasn't expecting. The woman suddenly undid the top buttons on her shirt's collar and showed the young man the thick scar that covered the entire circumference of her neck.
'Is that… is that a lynching scar?!' Cyrus couldn't help but wonder. The mark looked exactly like the ones he had seen in old photos from the Jim Crow era. Ones from where Black people were killed by Whites during a time in their history when that sort of atrocity was commonplace. 'What the hell happened to her?'
"Because…I'm just like you." Elaine then said in a sincere tone. "I've also been hurt like you have, and I want to help you. I never got the chance to get my revenge on the people who did this to me. But I can help you get revenge on the person who did that to you."
Cyrus took a moment to trace the scars on his face.
The 'tree magic' user would be lying if he said that he didn't understand what the woman was saying to him. Even though he had never been that kind of person, Cyrus definitely wanted to get back at the ones who had caused him so much grief. The people who did this to him, Hannah, Aaron, and probably Mikayla, too, now that he thought about it, had killed his best friend, mutilated his body, and tortured him for their own gains. It was hard for any rational person not to want to take revenge on those who had done them so terribly.
Wait, was he even thinking about right now?
"What happened to you?"
"I was almost killed by some Inquisitors when I was nineteen. And this scar is a reminder of that, just like the ones you have on your face now."
There was a lot more to that story that Elaine didn't want to discuss right now. So, the woman decided to steer the topic of conversation back to what she wanted. This wasn't the time for her to relive her past traumas.
The woman then leaned forward and placed her hand on the low railing on the side of the hospital bed.
"Cyrus, let me help you. Let us help each other. I know that you want to get back at Hannah for everything that she put you through. Anyone would. And I want to make sure that fool never harms another sorcerer again. If you agree to this, I promise that I will do everything in my power to make sure that you pay her back ten times over for the pain that she's caused you. I can even have my two friends standing outside fix your body up right now if you say the word."
"And what if I say no?"
"Why would you want to?"
Cyrus had no clue what to say to that. It was the kind of question that really didn't have a right answer. Now that he thought about it, why would he say no? He was being offered the chance to take revenge on the people who killed his best friend. A chance to take down the ones who tried to ruin his life.
Maybe it was all the drugs and sedatives still working their way through his system, or the hatred that was beginning to bubble beneath the surface, but the idea didn't necessarily sound all that bad to Cyrus. Quite the opposite, actually.
"You seriously want her gone?"
"I do." Elaine nodded. "And I'm giving you the chance to make things even instead of doing it myself."
"What makes you think that I can trust you?" Cyrus asked what most would deem a very reasonable question. "You're an Iznana boss. How can I be so sure that you're even telling me the truth? That this isn't just some ploy to make it easier for you to take me out later on?"
"I wouldn't have bothered to come talk to you in person if that was the case." Elaine responded in a stoic tone. "Don't take this the wrong way, but if I wanted you gone, we wouldn't even be having this conversation right now."
'She has a point.' Cyrus mentally conceded. The 'wind magic' user had the power to make him disappear whenever she wanted him to. Between her family's wealth and Iznana's influence, Elaine could practically do anything that she wanted to. Silencing him for good would be as easy as calling in a take-out order. Hell, it would probably be even easier than that.
The young man then dropped himself back onto his bed. "It seems like I don't really have a choice in the matter."
"You do, Cyrus…" Elaine told him. "And we both know what the right one is in this situation."
All Cyrus could do was drag his hands over his face as he mulled over his options. This whole situation was just too ridiculous. What was he even supposed to do here? He already knew that, one way or another, Elaine was going to get what she wanted. But what the hell did that even mean? There was definitely something that was missing here, something that he couldn't quite put his finger on. But what that something was, he couldn't figure out.
"Why me?" Cyrus then asked. "Why are you even making this crazy ass offer to me?"
"Because you're special, Cyrus. More special than you could possibly imagine. You're the kind of sorcerer that only appears once in a generation. And I want to help you. Help you get back at the woman who hurt you. And to help you reach your full potential. That's why I'm doing this."
There was something off in the way that Elaine said those words. Almost as if there was a lot more that she wasn't saying.
Cyrus took a couple of silent minutes to think about what to do next. And after some deep contemplation, he was able to come to a decision. He knew that he was going to be putting himself in a very precarious position, but what choice did he have? This situation was already out of his control. At best, all he could do was try to take advantage of what was in front of him and look for a way out as soon as he got the chance.
The freckle-faced teen then sat up once again before looking the woman right in her pale green eyes. Cyrus knew that he couldn't trust this woman worth a damn. But if she was offering him the chance to get revenge for Freddy and take Hannah down for good, then maybe it would be in his best interests to at least see exactly what she was willing to offer him.
"Tell me everything." Cyrus told Elaine in a stern voice with a face full of conviction. "I want to know exactly what you're planning to do."
Elaine couldn't help but smile. She already knew that Cyrus didn't trust her worth a damn, but this was a good start. Sooner or later, he would be completely under her thumb. But for now, she was content with where they currently stood. After all, it was only a matter of time before he saw the light and joined her in her ultimate goal.
And if not…well, she had another way to make him bend to her will.
"Fine." The woman said to Cyrus as she crossed her legs and straightened out her posture. "Let me tell you exactly how we're going to help you to give Hannah exactly what she deserves."