(4 Days After Takeover)

Zach PoV

As I'm scrunched over my new desk I hear a knock. I look up from my work to see Grant standing at my doorway.

"Yes?" I asked him, my patience short. The princess was not cooperating. She wasn't talking to anyone I sent down and she wouldn't sign any documents legalizing my group's occupancy and takeover of the castle.

"Something's wrong with the princess. It's not natural. She's not eating, not talking, normally a person in her position would have caved already. Plus she's a girl. She's female, and only sixteen to boot. She should be down in the dungeons sobbing, but she's not." He said as he ran his hand through his brown hair, a habit he does whenever he is nervous.

I motioned for him to sit down in a chair across from me. I looked him over. He was clearly upset and confused, as could be read by the muddled look on his face.

"Okay tell me more. What is she doing then, if not crying her eyes out?" I asked him, eyeing one of my guards in the doorway. We made eye contact and I motioned for him to shut the door.

After the guard had shut the door Grant answered my question. "She sits, she sits and talks to the other prisoners. Now normal prisoners should hate her, since she put them in jail. But, it's like they don't mind. They talk to her, friendly like. I caught one of them holding her hand this morning. Patting her hand more like, talking in hushes. I think there's something up in those jail cells. Something's wrong; it's just spooky. She should fear us. She should cringe away any guard goes near her cell and yells out an insult to her but instead she just looks at us and smiles. Smiles!" He said, clearly distraught by her actions and the actions of her fellow jail occupants.

I rolled my head around my neck a few times, feeling relieved afterwards. What I was actually doing was trying to buy time to gather my thoughts. Her actions were so unusual.

I looked at my friend Grant, wondering if he could keep his mouth shut about what I was about to tell him.

"I've had… similar problems." I admitted to him. It seems not many of her subjects have any objections to her, and won't help hunt down the secret society OURS." I rubbed my eyes with my hands, this job was getting harder than anticipated, especially with the loss of Uncle Joe.

Grant whistled quietly. It was an annoying habit of his. I started to complain but he cut me off. "Looks like the little princess has quite the fan club," I nodded, wondering where he was going with this comment. "So she needs to sign those documents before her little 'fan club' run to the Council and they come down on us."

I nodded. With every moment the documents were not signed the more danger it was for us here. If word got out to the Council and it turned out they did like her, we could be in serious trouble and all our work to capture this castle would be for nothing. Joe's death would be for nothing.

"Stop giving her food. Cut her off from females; surround her with the meanest guards and male prisoners. Make her miserable." I told Grant. He said okay but his expression told me he doubted my plan to make her cave.

"She's tough, Zach. Tougher than I think we both know." He said, getting up and walking towards the door.

"Then find out just how tough she is," I said through gritted teeth. "and break her." I said, emphasizing those words.

I went back to my paperwork, but my mind was still on Princess Cameron.

Cameron PoV

I smiled at Sabrina, the woman who had comforted me earlier today and told me news that made my resolution to stay strong so much realer and a purpose.

Macey was alive.

Some of OURS grabbed her body after I was taken down to the jails and managed to revive her heart.

(A/N: This is actually possible. You can be brought back to life a couple minutes after you've died if you revive the heart.)

She had walked over to the edge of her jail cell that connected to mine when she saw my face earlier this morning.

I had been crying. It was the first time I had shown true emotion since I was brought down here. She told me that her brother was one of the ones who revived Macey and that Macey was recovering. She had sources and ways of sending and receiving news throughout the palace even though she was incarcerated.

By using her connections, I had been sending orders and receiving news to and from OURS all day. It took awhile to be caught up on who was captured or killed. But once the casualties were done I started taking command of OURS again. I was organizing small rebellions on the outside and inside of the castle.

Luckily all of my subjects are so loyal to me, although it might have to do with the fact that they respect me because they all know how I can fight and organized the start of OURS. I heard about the trouble that the rebels (now current occupants) of the castle had been getting trying to learn about OURS.

The radiance I've felt after I found out about Macey couldn't be contained through my stony mask. I've smiled all day, especially to the rebels. I have new respect and understanding to the phrase 'kill them with kindness' after seeing all of their angry faces that their jeers and insults haven't affected me.

An officer, his name's Grant I think, came through the steps and walked to the door of my cell. He reached for his belt and pulled off a key, and stuck it in my jail cell's door.
"Goode wants to talk to you." He told me, holding the door open. He motioned his head in a get up and go sort of way.

I lifted my chin, shot him a dazzling smile, all the while wishing I could shoot something else into him.

I shook my head, keeping eye contact with him. I heard him growl at my reaction.

"Get out here. Now." He snarled at me.

"I am princess. And I need answer to no one." I told him, rising from my seat on the ground with as much dignity as I could muster.

"You're not princess of this castle anymore." He told me as he reached and grabbed my forearm.

I reacted to his touch quickly. I pushed his torso down while raising my right knee; thus effectively kneeing him in the gut.

He let out a grunt of pain and I pushed him backwards.

"Next time I won't be as nice." I told him, walking out the door of my cell and starting for the steps. I said, thinking of the dagger I had hidden in my bra, and the two in my hair that looked like chopstick hair decorations.

I flounced up the steps with him trailing behind me. I heard him faintly mutter a few choice curse words about me and I smiled.

Grant PoV

I trailed up the stairs behind her, muttering curses at and about her all the while. But I was also cursing myself for the feeling of respect I was starting to feel for this princess.

"Stay here. There's guards at every door and window just in case you try anything. So don't." I told her as I opened the doors to the throne room for her.

She just smirked at me as I closed the doors.

I strode down the corridors and walked into Zach's room without knocking. He looked up at me from a desk.

"She's waiting for you."

"Kay." He responded to me. He got up and walked into the corridor. He paused when he was out there.

"Throne room." I told him.

"Thanks." He said absentmindedly as we started walking to in the direction of the throne room.

We reached the throne room and I opened the doors. My mouth agape at what I saw in the room.

Princess Cameron was sitting on the throne. A glittering throne on her head that wasn't there when I left her; and I knew it wasn't in the throne room before since I personally searched the room for trap doors and exits.

She looked like pure royalty. I felt intimidated by her just by looking at her.

"So we meet at last, Goode." She said, her voice carrying and echoing from the throne all the way down the long stretch of the grandeur of the throne room to the door, where Zach and I stood. Something about her voice made me doubt the truth of her words though, a haughtiness and look of cleverness.

"I would agree with you, but your comment and your voice make me doubt your words." commented Zach, leaning against the door frame. Obviously he had thought the same thing that I had.

"Ah. Don't recognize me Goode?" She said and paused, looking Zach over. "A pity, but I'm sure I'll give you more than enough to remember me by this time around."

She said that and Zach's mouth opened, gaping at her, if only a fraction of a centimeter.

"Or maybe you should just tell me how we've met before." Zach told her, trying to modulate his voice to appear unfazed.

"Now, when are you little girls going to flee my castle." She asked us, cocking her head to the side.

"The word never has a good ring to it. Doesn't it Zach?" I ask Zach sarcastically.

Zach smirks and he and I start our walk towards the throne.

"Don't you mean our castle?" Zach asked, emphasizing our and gesturing to himself and me.

"I couldn't have said it better myself." She said, a smirk on her face and her eyes glittering dangerously.

"What?" I asked, my curiosity getting the better of me.

"Oh you don't know?" She asked, curiously. She looked between Zach and me. "Your little friend Joe Solomon didn't tell you? I'm surprised that little son of a –" Her speech was cut off when a fist made solid contact with her jaw, sending her head flying back and colliding with the hard limestone throne.

I look at Zach in shock. "Goode! What are you doing?" I said running forwards towards the throne. I looked at Zach and he looked furious but then he looked down at his fist. A look of surprise crossed his face.

I turned back around and lifted Cameron's head. I lifted the lids of her eyes while calling her name. Her eyes were unfocused and there was a trail of blood leading from her mouth and continuing its trail down her throat.

"Cameron. Cameron. Wake up!" I called to her, cursing Zach in my head.

Her unfocused, glazed eyes slowly started coming into focus. She shook her head and knocked my hands off from where they were placed on her jaw where I was tilting her head so I could look at her and make sure she was okay.

I stepped back to the same level where Zach stood.

She sat back up in the throne. Her back arched and head held high. She glared fiercely at Zach.

Then she leaned forward and spat blood. It landed at Zach's feet.

"Well. I see you and your other friend Josh have something in common. You both hit like a girl." She said.

I heard a sharp intake of breath. I turned my head slightly and looked at Zach.

His face blanched and his eyes were filled with shock.

"You?" He asked.