Polar Zone/Eleven

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I want to teach you a lesson in the worst kind of way 

Still I'd trade all my tomorrows for just one yesterday — Fall Out Boy, Just One Yesterday

LUCIFER ===UNFINISHED DO NOT READ UNFINISHED DO NOT READ UNFINISHED DO NOT READ UNFINISHED DO NOT READ UNFINISHED DO NOT READ UNFINISHED DO NOT READ UNFINISHED DO NOT READ UNFINISHED DO NOT READ UNFINISHED DO NOT READ UNFINISHED DO NOT READ UNFINISHED DO NOT READ UNFINISHED DO NOT READ UNFINISHED DO NOT READ UNFINISHED DO NOT READ UNFINISHED DO NOT READ UNFINISHED DO NOT READ UNFINISHED DO NOT READ UNFINISHED DO NOT READ===

When I open my eyes, the first thing I see is a haze of violet smoke. I blink rapidly, and the sheen of purple dissipates, replaced by Greer's face.

"Where am I?"

"Training cavern. You have a mission."

I reach for something to say and find myself clawing at nothingness: there is a pit in my stomach and my chest. What used to be there? I search Greer's face for answers and find nothing but void.

"You will go to the place you went this morning and you shall end it."

"End it," I repeat. My voice is hollow. Something kicks in the emptiness within me. A face: large eyes, light brown and dark green, delicate ears, small pink nose. Who is she?

"Everly," I whisper confusedly.

"What?" asks Greer sharply.

"End it," I swiftly amend. I dip my head at her. Again, reach for something else to say. Nothing. No emotion, no thoughts. Like my innards have been carved out. "I will not fail."

"Of course you won't." She touches her nose to my forehead. Her eyes are like green fire. "You are my wolf."

Within a few minutes, I am racing down the side of Thorn Mountain. I know where I am going: into the valley. Something cold sits in my stomach, urging me on, filling me with bloodlust. I can see only Greer's face, hear only her voice. ''End it. I must end it.''

I am her wolf; I always have been. I reach the bottom of the mountain, the valley spreading out in front of me in a patchwork of white and deep green. The trees stand sentinel, boughs creaking in the wind. Small creatures whisper through the underbrush, but they have nothing to fear from me tonight. I am not here for them; I am on a mission, and I must get there as soon as possible.

Journey along the path scented heavily with pine--as if a cat had dragged a branch through the snow earlier. Skirt the pine with the twisted trunk, leap the three fallen logs, and... there it is. A slab of large rock.

I head straight for the gap I know is between the rock and the ground and use my weight to push the rock aside slightly. A little earth crumbles down into the hidden chamber before.

"Everly?" calls a voice. "Is that you?"

I let out a low, menacing growl. "I have come to end it."

Before I can leap into the underground chamber, two cats crawl out into the moonlight. The she-cat gives me a suspicious look. "What are you doing back here? Is there trouble? Are we discovered?"

I don't give her time to think. I leap on top of her and bear her to the ground with my weight. She pummels me in the chest, pushing me back. I grab her foreleg and wrench it to the side, exposing her flanks to my claws. She screams, but I cut it off with a blow to the side of her head. Growl low in her ear, feel her shaking beneath me. Sink my teeth into her throat before she knows what's happening. Blood fountains out, drenching her coat in scarlet, filling my mouth.

My eyes lock with her panic-stricken ones. A name flashes across my numb mind. Dawnlight.

She spasms in my grasp, and then goes limp. The weight of her, blood, flesh, broken bones. I let her go, and she falls to the ground.

I turn, looking for the second cat, the tom.

Something heavy and large crashes into my head. Pain explodes like fire across my skull, and I collapse in a frenzy of orange and red flames of agony.

When I awake, I am lying in the middle of a snowy clearing. I feel odd, groggy, like someone scraped me clean and then clumsily refilled me with everything I am made of, but they got all the essential parts wrong.

A cat, a tom, sits across from me. Riverfrost.

"Sorry about the rock I slammed into your head," he says. "But you killed Dawnlight. I couldn't let you kill me too."

"What?" What is he talking about? "I helped save you and Dawnlight," I say sharply.

"Yes, yesterday morning. And then last night you appeared at our hiding spot with a dead look in your eye and the look of death on your face, and you killed her."

I stagger to my feet. The side of my head is matted with congealed blood, and a wave of dizziness rushes over me as I sway on my paws. "No..."

I chose to help Everly. I chose life. But I should've known: I cannot. I am death, I am Greer's wolf, it is all I was ever made to be.

I shouldn't have followed Everly. If I didn't know the location of the hiding place, if I hadn't been away all day and aroused Greer's suspicions, this never would've happened.

But... how? How had I somehow gone to kill Dawnlight in the middle of the night?

"You were drugged," says Riverfrost shortly.

I snap to face him. "What?"

"The flower asara. Beautiful purple leaves. Deadly, dangerous effects. It is a powerful drug; it allows for numbing of the emotions and senses, and therefore an open mind susceptible to being controlled. Extended use strips everything away from you... but it is addicting, so that not using it leads to withdrawal and all manner of other consequences. Horrible consequences."

"How do you know all of this?"

He hesitates. Then: "Because I lost a lot to it."

"You... you've been drugged with it before?"

Riverfrost gazes at me for a moment that lasts forever. Then he says, "It's not just the asara, Lucifer. It's the blood that flows in your veins. I've told you before, your mother was a brave and beautiful she-cat--but you also inherited your father's blood. He was the worst kind of cat, a coward. There's nothing worse than someone who can't stand for what they believe in."

"You don't know anything about me," I snarl angrily. I am suddenly realizing that not all the blood that covers me is my own. My stomach pitches in revulsion. "I didn't kill anyone."

"You took Dawnlight by her throat and burst her open. I've never seen anyone bleed out so quickly." Riverfrost speaks calmly, but there is something beyond disgust in his eyes.

"Why did you just knock me out, then? Why not kill me?" I demand.

He pauses, as if debating something with himself. Then he shakes his head. "Better you never know. Return to the mountain, Lucifer. Do not worry about what I just told you."

"What? The fact that I'm an... an addict?"

Riverfrost flinches. "Go back to the mountain. Tell Greer that you've done it. Ended it."

"But you're not dead."

"You're right." He meets my eyes with a steady gaze. "Can you do it? Kill me."

I snarl and leap at him. My claws latch onto the snow barely a whisker's-length in front of him. I stare directly into his face. "Next time we meet, you won't be spared. Go into hiding. I never want to see you again."

Something twists in his face as he looks at me. He nods once. Looks away. "Good bye, Lucifer." He sounds like he's being strangled.

I teeter on the edge of apologizing for murdering Dawnlight in front of him. But I don't. I turn and do what he told me to: race back up Thorn Mountain like my life depends on it.

I am out of breath and exhausted by the time I get back to the peak. The other cats are just beginning to awaken. Guard shifts are changing, and the first hunting patrol of the day is assembling. Greer stands outside the main cavern, ignoring the Clan leaders' requests for her help in organizing everyone. She is waiting for me, I know, and I make a beeline for her.

"Well?"

"I ended it." ''I am a liar. A liar and a murderer. What sin isn't in my repertoire?'' "Neither of those cats will ever speak again."

She doesn't look satisfied. "Why did you spare them, Lucifer? You told me you had carried out the Collection. They couldn't have escaped--there isn't a cat on the planet who rivals your skills. Why did you let them go? Who put you up to it?" Her voice is calm, but her face is a deadly mask. "Are you obeying the orders of anyone but me?"

The face--the multi-colored eyes and delicate features--flashes across my mind once again. "No," I say.

I'm not even lying this time. Everly didn't order me to help her.

"Then why?" Greer demands. "Why did you let Riverfrost and Dawnlight go? Answer me!"