'I want to bring it down on their heads,'
All I can think is that Dauntless got
really lucky that Taylor was in something that could, comparatively, be called a good mood. Because sometimes, if you have a really shitty day, anything can set you off. Which probably wouldn't go well in the long run:
(I did a thing)
"Sirin, wait," he said, his voice firm. I could feel traces of exasperation and annoyance flowing through his thoughts, which almost startled me for a moment; Annoyed and exasperated with me? Fuck them. I'd told them repeatedly to leave me alone, and it was hardly fair to blame
me if they couldn't work out I didn't want anything to do with them.
"'Wait'?" I asked him rhetorically, rising slightly off the rooftop to drift towards tonight's PRT mouthpiece. "You're really going to ask me that when it was all I ever asked anyone?"
He was a good little mouthpiece though. "We need to talk."
"We really don't," I corrected, crossing my arms as I felt a scowl draw across my face. Why did it have to be tonight? One more thing, following on from a shitty day where everything had gone wrong. This was supposed to be my release, supposed to relieve some stress, and now here I was; stuck dealing with the PRT. Again.
No.
I grabbed his armor in my telekinesis, pulling the strings on my brand new puppet taunt until he was standing straight and tall. He started to call out again and I clamped his mouth shut. Did he bite his tongue? I really didn't care.
"
You need to talk. You want
me to wait." They really want to push this, well, I can push this. I started wrenching strips of his armor apart, grasping individual bits and peeling them like layers off an onion, starting at his boots. "All I ever asked was for time and to talk. Time to talk to my father. Time to talk to the PRT. Time to work out what I wanted and what
you people wanted."
I'd finished with his boots now, leaving plain black socks showing holes in a few toes that I knew weren't my fault. There was a pile of twisted refuse around his feet that he couldn't see. I left it there and started on the legs.
"And I talked, but all I got back was
lies. Piggot trying to leash me so she could use me like the rest of you. D- Danny pushing me away because he couldn't even start to understand my feelings." Who the hell did they think they were to want to order me around like that? "Where was the time to make up my mind? Will you give it to me now, here? Let me make up my mind and make a choice, change what's been choosen for me?"
Tight half pants were all that remained, a plain black, and the pile around Dauntless was larger still. I started on the top half of his costume. They wouldn't let me chose, they thought they knew better.
"No. I'm nothing to you. I'm a tool for Piggot to use, a feather in her cap. Just another soldier. If I wasn't strong enough to fend for myself, if I wasn't strong enough to fend off
you, she would have ordered me brought in by now. And I'm nothing to my fa. Fuck, I'm nothing to Danny. What does he know? He never listened, never cared what I wanted, never thought I might have my own opinions, know better then him."
I'd made quick work of the arms of his suit, and there wasn't much left of the chest piece at this point.
"Certainly never thought about what he was doing. Neither did you. I read about your power online, you know. Kind of a pain for you isn't it? A small trickle of power into something each day, slowly adding up over, what was it? 'Time'? Must really suck to have the effort you put in rendered completely
pointless by someone who thinks they can control you."
The stripped pile of fabric and metal was a mound around his feet at this point. I'd felt him struggling against my grip the entire time. It was nothing, barely anything compared to the way my powers had increased in strength. But I felt the struggles increase when he felt me start on his mask.
"It occurs to me, you all know who I am. You know my face, my name, my history." I plucked the back of it apart first. Nothing major, just everything that held it in place. Now the only thing that kept his identity secure was me. "I suppose, considering the way everyone has been treating me, that's par for the course." I could feel him shacking now. We were hardly alone, and the three gang members were hanging on my every word. Laying on the ground between us, eyes flicking back and forth, if I dropped his mask they'd have clear line of sight to his face. Did I want that?
No.
As much as I'd not had the best run of luck keeping my own identity secret, the PRT hadn't had anything to do with that. At least, not intentionally. With the exception of my-
Well, I would have told Danny anyway. I might blame them for the timing, for the execution, but it would have been wrong to blame them for him finding out at all. Not to mention how much trouble it would cause me if I was responsible for a PRT cape getting ID'd.
We shot up into the air, Dauntless flying along after me until the buildings started to shrink behind us.
"Well?" I questioned him, letting him control his head and arms again. "You'll have to let me know what it's like, you know, actually having the chance to choose who gets to know who you are."
"This... Sirin you've-"
"'Taylor', isn't it? Lets not stand on ceremony, it's just the two of us. Taylor Hebert, age 15, latest Wards member, having a chat with name whatever, age whatever, high and mighty Protectorate member - well, high anyway."
"This isn't something you want to do Siren."
I stopped him there. Locked him up as he was, hands desperately clutching what was left of his mask to his face as if I wasn't already holding it in place.
"What, don't trust me? I think you've got our positions mixed up a bit. You're supposed to be encouraging the wayward Ward to return home, yes?" His hands, still grasping the mask, moved forwards and back whilst I held my phone's camera towards him to make it clear to him he only kept his identity secret at my whim. My point made, we shot across town. "Well, you've done your duty for the night, whoever you are. Just do me a favor:"
We dropped, stomach-wrenchingly fast, towards the PRT building's front doors. The two guards out the front didn't have time to react before I ruptured the containment foam tanks on their backs enough to gum up the entirety of the front doors, Dauntless and them along with it. Carefully, I relaxed my hold on Dauntless and found, as I'd intended, that his arms were stuck just right to hold the mask in place.
One less problem, no matter what tonight would bring. I leaned in close, ignoring the flash of a lone late night tourist snapping a shot along with the meaningless dribble coming from the guards.
"
Leave me alone." I tried to make it sound menacing, but I was well aware that I still had the voice of a teenage girl and I doubted it had any effect whatsoever.
Well, I was a firm believer that actions spoke louder than words anyway.
