Trash Panda

Amnesia [Suki & Summer]

Caspian would have been content sitting in silence to brood over his situation, but Ethan apparently wasn’t as content with the lack of conversation. After he had spent a few minutes working on the rope around his wrists, he had given up on making it more comfortable. His efforts were getting him nowhere, and the rough material was starting to chafe even worse than before. If the lights had been turned on, he was sure he’d left a red mark on each hand from all the shuffling he’d done. With nothing else to do, he’d closed his eyes to try to nap. It was then that his guard had decided to speak up.

When Ethan said he’d ruined everything, the prince rolled his eyes in disbelief. He couldn’t imagine how he could have ruined anything at all aside from making his own life worse for the next few hours or days. The rebels had gotten what they wanted. The sole heir to the throne was in their custody to do with as they pleased. If he hadn’t been in such a vulnerable state, he would have been tempted to ask Ethan what he thought he’d “ruined” just to ruffle him up. Unfortunately, he was acutely aware that if the guard decided to become violent, he was at his mercy. At least, he was until he figured out how to get out of his bonds.

“You may have made it out, but I hope you realize my ‘stupid security’ is going to come at you with the full weight of the military behind them,” he pointed out blandly. In the back of his head, he knew he should keep his mouth shut, but a small part of him hoped that the rebels would suddenly comprehend the position they had put themselves in by kidnapping the kingdom’s crown prince. All the soldiers who had previously been monitoring other Scourge activity were about to be enlisted to achieve the same goal: to bring their future king back to the capital. His father would probably revoke some of the measures that had previously been in place to prevent the ongoing war from harming too many innocent civilians too. If he did that, the rebellion wouldn’t stand a chance.

“Even if you kill me, they’re still going to come for you,” he went on, looking up at Ethan through the shadows. “Since you brought me here, they never saw a body. They’ll have to assume I’m still alive, and they’ll raze the country to the ground until they find me. The only way you can save yourselves now is to let me go.” It was sort of a bluff. He wasn’t entirely sure. It was true that the military would raise hell to bring him back, but there were most likely other actions the rebels could take before they were found. If they had access to the internet to upload videos of him in his cell or even of someone shooting him in the head, he was screwed.

He was just starting to get his confidence back when Ethan said something that made him falter. The rebel knew somehow that he’d been smitten with Iris. She must have been in contact with him, he thought, biting down on his lower lip as he tried to force down the pain that reared up inside of him. Or maybe she told him after they knocked me out. He could picture them laughing at him for giving his heart away so easily. The image stung, and he clenched his hands into fists in a mixture of anger and humiliation.

“Shut up,” Cas muttered to the guard. He didn’t care that he’d just given away that the it was a sore subject for him right now. He just didn’t want to think about Iris anymore.

Amnesia [Suki & Summer]

I threw in another one with Jacob ^^ Can't wait to see what Regis and Iris do

Amnesia [Suki & Summer]

“I don’t care if it’s an invasion of privacy, I want that security footage now!” Jacob barked into his headset. It had been about fifteen minutes since the security team had located the vehicle Caspian and the girl had taken the night before. As soon as it was confirmed that the car had been in park for almost twelve hours, he and three other men had peeled out in their own sedan to retrieve the missing royal. They had thought they’d find the pair camped out in the woods, hiding away from King Atlas in an attempt to avoid getting caught together. Instead, they’d stumbled upon an empty car and a discarded com device in the grass.

Jacob didn’t know what had happened yet, but it was clear that something had gone wrong. Caspian may have been acting recklessly lately, but he wasn’t stupid. He wouldn’t have willingly parted with the device when there were rebels in the city. It was more likely that he and the girl had stumbled upon the terrorists or even that she was to blame for his disappearance. He ground his teeth impatiently, his eyes flicking intermittently back toward a security camera across the street. If the prince had wandered deep into the forest, the tape wouldn’t have caught what had happened, but it was worth a shot to check it anyway. He just needed to get him back as quickly as possible or else Atlas would have him and everyone else who had dropped the ball last night executed.

“Curry.” Jacob turned back toward the trees as one of the other guards, Harry, called out his last name. The other man was walking over with a nervous expression, and he held something in his hands.

“What did you find, Calhoun?” he asked, stoic despite the rising sense of worry that twisted his gut. His associate wouldn’t have looked so pale if he was coming with good news.

“His cellphone,” Harry held up the device. “The battery is drained, so I think one of the apps must have been running after he dropped it. Maybe the flashlight?”

“We’ll charge it up to see if there’s anything useful,” Jacob folded his arms. “Maybe he got a photo of whoever did this. Anything else?”

Harry shifted his weight. “Yeah… I found this next to the phone.” He held up a large rock with a bloodstain on the edge.

“Shit,” Jacob blanched. “Call the police and tell them we need to have a blood sample analyzed. If that belongs to Caspian, we’re all fucked.”

“Yes, sir,” Harry nodded and jogged off to fulfill the order.

Jacob watched him go and gripped his biceps tensely. Despite his request, he already knew the blood was going to come back as a match for the prince. He must have been attacked before he could call for help, which explained why the team had never received a distress signal from him last night. If he wasn’t already dead, they needed to act fast—and he needed to tell the king that his son may have been kidnapped by the crown’s enemies. He pressed his tongue against the back of his teeth as he pulled his own phone from his trouser pocket to dial the number for the palace, already dreading the conversation. He just hoped Atlas wouldn’t have anyone killed before they had a chance to try and find the missing prince.

--

For a while, the room was quiet. Cas sat with his legs outstretched and his head lolling back against the wall. Although he’d passed out for what he guessed had been a few hours or more, he was still tired. The weariness probably had more to do with his emotional exhaustion than anything else though. He’d just been separated from everything that was familiar, robbed of any way to contact home, and thrown into a dingy cell with his hands and feet bound, not to mention he’d discovered that the woman he’d started to fall for had been the mastermind behind the whole thing. It was a lot to process.

Still protesting the resources Iris had left for him, he stayed far away from the food and water outside his cage. His stomach had started growling not too long ago, but he wasn’t going to fill it with anything she’d touched. There was a draft in the room too, but he endured the gooseflesh that rose on his arms in preference to accepting the blanket. He wasn’t sure how long he would be able to keep up his act, but that was a problem for later. Right now, he still had enough stamina to put on a tough face. He just had to keep hoping that the soldiers would find him quickly, so he could have a hot meal back in the comfort of the royal kitchen.

The thought of food prepared by his family’s in-house chefs made his mouth water, and he swallowed as he heard the sound of the door opening. Opening his eyes, the prince looked up just in time to see someone throw the door shut again. The loud crash made him stiffen, but he managed not to flinch this time. Being tired helped him appear more aloof, he supposed. However, as the soft sound of popping knuckles reached him, he felt a cold trickle of dread run down his spine. Had the rebels sent someone to rough him up this time?

He watched the shadowy figure of a man stride toward him, his heart pounding rapidly against his ribs. With his hands and feet tied up, he couldn’t do anything to defend himself if the stranger came into his cell to beat him to a pulp, but it seemed like that wasn’t why he’d appeared. Rather, the man stopped on the other side of the bars and leaned against the wall.

Cas relaxed. It was just a guard. No longer as worried about facing a one-sided fight, he took a moment to look the man over, only to raise his brows in surprise when he realized he was looking at Ethan Williams, one of the rebels who had escaped from the soldiers in the capital. He must have slipped out of the city and come back to… wherever this place was. Why am I so surprised? He thought with a subtle shake of his head, the shocked expression melting from his face. He and that other guy were in cahoots with Iris the whole time. Of course they would have escaped with her. I gave them all the perfect opportunity.

He could feel Ethan’s gaze on him in the darkness, but he ignored it. If he thinks he’s gonna intimidate me, he’s got another thing coming, he thought stubbornly, picking at the rope that bound his hands. The coarse material was starting to rub uncomfortably against his skin, so he rolled his wrists, trying to wriggle the binding a little looser. Anything to keep his attention off the rebel who was glaring daggers at him outside the cell.

Amnesia [Suki & Summer]

I'm excited for Cas and Ethan to have some interaction cx I have a feeling it will go poorly

Amnesia [Suki & Summer]

Expecting Iris to keep up her sad act to try and trick him into trusting her, Caspian was caught off guard by the sharpness of her voice. He stared at her incredulously as she said he didn’t know anything beyond his life in the capital. It was a ridiculous accusation. He’d spent his entire life being groomed to take over as the next king, seen so many maps he could envision the boundaries of every province in his mind’s eye. He may not have ever left the city in which he’d been born, but he knew more about Aspiria than everyone else in the nation other than his own father. It was why he couldn’t compromise with the Scourge, who were threatening to destroy the utopia his ancestors had built, and it was why he couldn’t take pity on the rebels who had broken into his home.

As she asserted that the terrorists hadn’t actually been trying to kill the king, he averted his gaze. Even if what she said was true—and he was hesitant to believe a word out of her mouth after what she’d done—it wouldn’t have changed the sentence. Treason was punishable by death in their kingdom, and just the fact that the men had been part of the rebellion had been enough to seal their fates. It was a necessary punishment. The crown couldn’t just turn a blind eye to everyone who wanted to swipe power out from underneath the royal family or their enemies would take advantage of their kindness. As gut-wrenching as it was, he’d had to make the tough call to uphold the precedent his father had set before him and that his father had set before him. However, he knew that there was no point in explaining it to Iris. She’d obviously been brainwashed by the propaganda of the Scourge if she thought her friends had committed no crimes.

Her following assertion made his skin prickle, and he parted his lips to tell her to stop pretending like there had been something between them, but the words didn’t have a chance to make it past his lips. Instead, he grimaced as she demanded to know what he would have done if she’d told him who she was. If he was honest, he didn’t know the answer. Last night—he was assuming he’d woken up the next day, although it was hard to tell when he was locked up in a room with no windows—he would have been shocked and appalled, but would he have had her killed like he had the others? Now that he knew the truth about her, he wanted to say that he would have had the foresight to do the responsible thing and judge her the same way he’d judged the others, but deep down in his heart, he knew he wouldn’t have been so strict. He’d caught feelings, and feelings clouded judgement. He probably would have taken her to the border to make sure she left the capital, but he wouldn’t have handed her over to the soldiers.

He drew his knees to his chest, unsure what to say, but fortunately, she left the room without waiting for a reply. As the door swung open, he craned his neck to see what was on the other side, but the view didn’t give him much of a clue. It just looked like he was in some sort of run-down old building, and there were plenty of those around Aspiria. Abandoned sites that had yet to be demolished and turned into something extravagant. He sighed, leaning his head back against the cold, concrete wall. The surface was soothing against the injury on the part of his skull that had swollen into an angry bump. Even though he couldn’t remember the incident, he was certain someone must have struck him with a blunt object, and that was why he’d passed out in the woods. He just hoped the small laceration that came with it wouldn’t get infected before he managed to get out of this place.

It won’t be long, he assured himself, closing his eyes. Aspiria’s military is one of the best in the world. Dad will realize I’m gone and send them to look for me, and I’ll be home in no time.

Amnesia [Suki & Summer]

Cas is very mad, haha. It's definitely going to be a while before he even thinks about trusting Iris again

Amnesia [Suki & Summer]

So, Iris had known who she was for a while. Cas tightened his jaw as the words cut through him like a knife. She had remembered the same evening that he had admitted he had feelings for her. Was everything just a lie then? If she had known she was a member of the Scourge—and a relative of its leader, no less—there had been no reason for her to have reciprocated his budding crush. She’d probably just played along so that he would trust her when the time eventually came for her to convince him to venture away from his guards. And it had worked. He hadn’t suspected for even a second that she was an enemy. Like a fool, he’d believed every kiss and compliment had been real, and he’d let himself get drawn in when he should have been listening to his father’s warnings from the start. He wasn’t sure if he was more upset with her for tricking him or with himself for being so gullible that he’d practically orchestrated his own kidnapping.

As she sat down, he refused to lift his gaze from the floor. He could hear the choke in her voice when she spoke, but he’d already learned his lesson. She was just trying to play his heart like she had before. None of it was real. He couldn’t let himself get caught in her web of lies again and fall into whatever other traps she had laid out. Don’t listen to it, he told himself silently, curling his fingers into his palms to keep the blood from pooling. The ties on his wrists were tight. She’s a rebel. She always was a rebel. She’s not actually sorry. This is what she and the rest of them wanted all along, to weaken the crown. He could almost hear each thought vocalized in Atlas’s firm voice. Even though he and his father hadn’t been getting along very well lately, the mental image helped. Atlas was a model king whose shoes he wanted to fill when he eventually became the next monarch, so he tried to focus on what his father would say and do if he had been put in this situation instead.

His meditation was interrupted by the sound of a loud voice that called out from somewhere in the distance. The harsh tone made him flinch, and he reprimanded himself in his head, hating how jumpy he was. He wanted to come off strong and unbreakable to convince the rebels that he wasn’t going to bow down to them just because they’d thrown him in a cell. Instead, he had a feeling anyone who saw him would know exactly how nervous he was on the inside. He had to try harder.

Taking a deep breath, he shifted to sit upright and pressed his back against the wall behind him for stability. Throughout the time he’d spent in the dark room, his eyes had been slowly adjusting to the low lighting. He could see a few shadowy features, like Iris, who was sitting on the other side of his cage, and the food and blanket she’d brought for him, but he wasn’t sure what anything else was yet. “You’re not gonna go?” he asked her dryly. He didn’t buy her apology, so he wasn’t going to acknowledge it. “It sounds like someone wants you.” He was also hoping to get a glimpse of something beyond his dark cell if she opened the door. With any luck, he’d be able to orient himself at least a little, so if he had a chance to escape, he would have an idea of where to run.

Despite his fledgling of a plan, he couldn’t keep his mouth shut. “You know you’re not going to get away with this, right?” he went on before he could stop himself, looking up at her with narrowed eyes. “I’m the crown prince, Iris. The military probably already knows I’m gone, and they’re going to overturn every rock in the country to bring me back. You and your rebel friends can’t keep this up for very long before they find you; and when they do, they’re going to execute everyone on site.”

Amnesia [Suki & Summer]

I'm excited to see more from Iris's father, since he hasn't been as fleshed out as the others yet ^^

That would be interesting! Cas still doesn't know Ethan is Iris's boyfriend, so it would make him feel even more led on if he finds out she was with someone the entire time they were getting close.

Amnesia [Suki & Summer]

Yeah, everyone knows Cas isn’t the type to break major rules, so Jacob just assumed xD He’s a fun character.

It’s gonna do wonders for his character development, so I’m excited for that though.

And Atlas is going to be furious. I’ll probably write a few intermittent posts from Jacob’s POV while they’re all figuring out what happened last night

Amnesia [Suki & Summer]

Same cx And everyone back at the capital is getting really close to figuring out that Cas was kidnapped