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Jaune to Joan Chapter 22
🕑 Added 2022-06-14 23:42:07 +0000 UTCChapter 22
That night, Joan didn’t eat anything. She tossed her meal against the wall in anger and raged. She indulged in every emotion Cinder fought not to allow herself. The hate, anger, rage, fear, insecurity, and shame for everything of the situation overwhelmed her, but worse than all that, she felt so stupid. For some fucked reason, she had begun to trust Cinder. She began to believe something about all this was ok. The soft comforts Cinder gave her… they fooled her into thinking things would not inevitably worsen.
Joan had never made such a foul mistake in her life, and she wouldn’t soon make it again. Throughout the night, Joan made several plans. Many of which involved her revenge, her escape, or her compliance with Watts to betray Cinder. Joan made all the plans she could because nothing in the world could ever be as bad as sitting alone in silence and letting what Mercury had done- what he had almost done sink in. Her sink crawled and she began to cry every time she tried to think about it.
The night came and went. The morning dawn shown through Joan’s one barred window. She had her plan, her final plan, her escape, everything. All she had to do was wait till Cinder came marching in- hell, if it was Mercury, all the better.
The plan, in some form, had been months in the making. Joan had first spotted the key to it all on her first or second day in the room- the room that had been turned into a complete mess from her night of rage, sorrow, and shame. Almost everything fragile had been tossed, thrown and shattered in her anger. Clothing scattered the room’s floor. After what Mercury had almost done, Joan spent the whole night striving to find anything that didn’t make her feel painfully exposed. She even resorted to layering up to seven clashing dresses atop each other- it didn’t work, she still felt exposed, bare, vulnerable. The sensation just reminded her why this was what she needed to do. Three or four pars of broken heels had also been tossed around. Joan would need to run if this worked, heels, though more comfortable to her now, were still not ideal for that. She had tested several pairs, snapping off the heel and then breaking the angle of the toe to try and find the most suitable shoe for running. In the end, she found something passable, but as soon as she was out of the compound, Joan figured she would end up going barefoot. She didn’t know where the compound was, or even what kingdom it was in, but she knew she could run, she could hide, and if things went well, Cinder, or Salem, or whoever ran this show’s army would be wounded and broken. Joan trusted that would give her some advantage.
Most of the furniture had been moved and placed back, but the bed lingered ever so slightly ajar, a faux body made of clothing and bedding resting between the sheets. The door was where most of Joan’s innovation lingered. She had ripped all the clothes out of her closet and then the bar that their hangers hooked onto. To that bar, she ripped up small pieces of fabric to make a rope, and affixed it over the door as to prevent it from being closed again once it was open. All she would need to do was pull the rope when the time came.
In Joan’s hands, the two swords that she had found hidden behind the bed. She still suspected they were a test or a trick of some sort, but she also figured that it would not matter if she could kill Cinder before she initiated the collar. From there, Joan would hopefully be able to find a key on Cinder’s dead person. And, Joan had come to a conclusion on that front. She would kill Cinder. That was that.
Joan had been through a lot, but one thing had not changed for her at all, leaving Cinder to turn to a grim and devolve into a beast of pure negative emotion; it was too cruel. This, this was the one kindness she would give Cinder. This was it. For all Cinder had put her through, Joan knew she owed her captor nothing, but, she did not care. This was not about owing or anything of the sort. It was about what was right and just. Cinder did not deserve the fate Watts had planned for her, and Joan would save her from that the only way she could.
The wait was brutal. Joan had no idea what time it was after she had shattered her alarm clock. But clock or not, she had to stay sharp. If she let her guard down for so much as one moment, that would inevitably be when Cinder barged in and punished her for all of what she had done to the room. This was her one chance, her only shot.
Joan’s shot came around after what felt like hours of waiting. The door kicked open and immediately, Joan knew who it was from the click of her heels. In one swift motion, Joan pulled down the bar to hold the door open, popped out from behind the door and swung for the woman’s head.
The strike was good, headed clean for Cinder’s neck. The surprise on her face was better. Joan could tell without a shadow of a doubt that Cinder had no idea this was coming. Guilt for that only just had the chance to trickle down to her stomach when the shock came and Joan dropped both blades. She tumbled down to the ground in immense pain and watched as the tray of food intended for her crashed next to her.
“Joan! Joan! What happened! You! Your collar, it was set to shock you if you attacked any of us- I- why-” Cinder knelt down to Joan’s side, and surely she continued to ask questions, but Joan passed out before she could hear any more of it.
End of Chapter 22
