And now that I'm surrendered, so helplessly

Ella woke up feeling tired and groggy. It took a her a few seconds to fully process what was going on, but the sweet aroma of candy and pastries filled her nose and brought her back to reality.

“Whoa… ugh… huh?” She sat up in bed and rubbed her eyes. It felt like she’d just woken up from a very long nap. Her memories of the day before were a total blur; this wasn’t unusual, due to the circumstances of living with her condition, but she’d never had such a big gap in her timeline before.

Cinder was in control all day yesterday. I couldn’t really do anything.

That thought made her curl up in bed and shiver. What had her alter done? And why had she been kept from the surface for so long?

Ella could only ever access small flashes of Cinder’s memories. Right now, when she tried, she was drawing a complete blank. Her hand slipped to her wrist out of reflex, but she didn’t snap her rubber-band. She didn’t feel the need to. Even though her anxiety was shooting through the roof right now, she couldn’t feel the familiar pressure of Cinder in the back of her mind, trying to take control.

It was like her alter had sealed herself behind a wall in her mind, and didn’t want to come out.

Is that really it? Am I free? Of course, Ella knew it wasn’t that simple. There had been times in the past where Cinder holed herself away, and then returned later when she thought she’d finally been cured. Ella had no doubt this was just another one of those times.

But at least, right now, her alter wasn’t making her life miserable.

Normally, Ella would have been content to spend the entire day hiding away from the others. But it was her stomach that **** her hand. She was hungry, and even though her room had candy on every surface, she knew it wouldn’t sustain her. She wanted- no, she needed some real food for a change.

So she took a deep breath and climbed out of bed. She looked beside her, and saw that her roommate was nowhere to be found. Augmented Synthetic Humanoid Assassin… had she even come to bed? Would Ella even know?

…Good. Ella didn’t want anything to do with the scary assassin. She put the silent girl out of her mind and got dressed, and then cautiously left her room.

The sound of voices in the lounge caused her to freeze in place. Uh-oh. Just as she feared, she wasn’t alone.

“…That’s what I’m saying!” A loud voice with a faint accent exclaimed. “It’s not as simple as that! We shouldn’t let anyone take the bounty until we’ve had a chance to discuss it as a group!”

“Then why are you being so confrontational about it? That’s what I don’t understand. I’m just trying to work through all the options here.” The other voice was softer and a lot calmer. She sounded far more mature.

Ella tiptoed to the end of the hallway and peaked inside to see the two women arguing with each other. One of them was Dawn… she knew the cat girl decently. But the other woman was the blonde French girl, who Ella had barely spoken with. Rose. She had been doing the cleaning duty with Ella the other day, before Cinder took over. She reminded Ella a lot of her wicked stepmother, actually, with her loud voice, selfish demeanor, and rude way of speaking.

Just laying eyes on her gave Ella pause, and made her snap her rubber-band out of reflex.

“THWAP!”

Unfortunately, the sound of rubber on skin was a lot louder than Ella expected, and echoed through the entire lounge.

“Huh?”

“Oh…”

Both women turned their eyes towards her, and Ella froze in place. She wanted to run, in more ways than one, but she couldn’t.

“Aah…” Her mouth flopped open and closed, trying to find something to say. But nothing seemed to come to mind.

“Ella…” Dawn approached the other woman with a slow pace, like she would approach a dangerous animal. She showed Ella her palms to help calm her down and signal she wasn’t a threat. “Good morning. Are you feeling better today?”

Ella blinked. “Feeling… better?” What did Dawn mean by that?

“Yeah, yesterday… some stuff happened,” Dawn mumbled. “You, uh… that is to say, your alter, Cinder, she-”

“Cinder touched a magic mirror that completely brainwashed her,” Rose interrupted the other woman. “And ended up getting stuck in a situation where she had to listen to everyone’s orders.”

“What?!” Ella screeched. She clutched her arms and started to shake. “She… you guys ordered her- me- around!?”

“No! No! No, we didn’t!” Dawn waved her hands frantically, and her tail flicked behind her. She glared briefly at Rose. “We tried to keep anyone from taking advantage of her, don’t worry!”

“Yeah, uh…” Rose could feel the pressure of Dawn’s stare burning a hole into her. She’d messed up trying to simplify things and cut to the chase, she knew that. “It was a bounty. Sorry. I didn’t meant to freak you out like that.”

She winced.

“You… you’re not gonna… turn into her or something, right?”

If looks could kill, the glare Dawn gave the blonde would have reduced the number of women in Nick’s harem by one.

“Rose…”

“It-it’s okay…” Ella mumbled, taking a cautious step out of her hiding place. She fumbled with the rubber-band on her wrist as she tentatively approached the two of them. “She’s right to be afraid of that.”

Ella knew that better than anyone, because nobody was more frightened of Cinder taking control than she was.

Dawn looked sympathetically at the poor girl, and bit her lip. “Ella…”

“Cinder isn’t here right now,” Ella mumbled. “She isn’t gonna be coming out… for a while. I don’t think…”

“Oh! Well, that’s good then!” Rose brightened up upon hearing that, even though she said something awful. Ella winced.

“I-I should go…” Ella could feel that she wasn’t welcome here. And honestly, she didn’t know if she wanted to be. Dealing with someone like Rose… it was stress she didn’t need right now.

“No, don’t go,” Dawn said, trying to put the other girl at ease. “This is important. And it involves you, too. Why don’t you take a look?”

She turned to the Bounty Board and gestured to the posted bounty.

“I think that it’s actually something that could come in handy for you in particular,” Dawn claimed.

Ella read the flyer for the first time.

FORFEIT YOUR NEXT NIGHT WITH THE MASTER TO ANOTHER CONTESTANT

REWARD: 5 VP

For a moment, she wasn’t sure what that meant.

“Next night… with the master? What?”

Rose sighed. “Look, it’s like this. You know how we all get the opportunity to have one night with Nick in the Master’s Suite each round? Well, if you claim this bounty, then your next night will be given to someone else. You won’t spend it with him, but you get 5 VP.”

“Is… is that a lot?” Ella tilted her head to the side, not sure what her reaction should be to that suggestion.

Rose and Dawn glanced at each other.

“I mean… it’s not nothing,” Rose replied.

“It’s approximately 2.5% of the total VP required to reach the goal,” Dawn explained calmly.

“…Oh.” Ella still didn’t fully understand what was so special about all this, but she kept that to herself. Right now, she was way more focused on getting breakfast. Stuff like who got to spend time with Nick, or the VP…

Those issues weren’t a concern to her. They weren’t the kinds of things that got her motivated.

She had bigger problems.

“Dawn here was probably thinking the same thing I was,” Rose said, glancing at the cat girl. “That this bounty would be good for you to take. Personally, I kind of want it for myself. But she convinced me that we should wait until everybody wakes up, and have a talk about what to do with it.”

Dawn nodded. “Ella, you’re pretty low in VP rankings, so you could use a boost. Honestly, so could I. I’d take the bounty for myself, but…”

Her voice trailed off and Rose smirked.

“But our cute little kitty cat here isn’t playing to win right now,” she teased, ruffling her hand through Dawn’s hair and tickling her ears. “In spite of claiming to be a pragmatic, competitive winner, she’s actually considering putting irrational emotion first, and prioritizing spending time with her crush!”

“Sh-shut up!” Dawn ducked out from under Rose’s hand and glared at the blonde, her cheeks turning red. “It’s not a crush if the feelings are reciprocated, you know! Use more precision in your language!” She chastised Rose, who rolled her eyes and scoffed.

“Right, because that’s the big issue here. Precision in language,” Rose grunted.

Dawn glared at her and muttered something under her breath that the blonde ignored.

Seeing that talking with Rose would get her nowhere, the cat girl turned back to the fidgeting Ella and her voice softened.

“…So… ignoring that… I think that you could benefit a lot from this bounty,” Dawn explained. “What do you think? Want to consider it?”

“Um… actually…” Ella glanced at the sheet again, then turned back to Dawn. “I, uh… I’m actually fine with it.”

Rose and Dawn both looked confused.

“Fine with… taking the bounty?” Rose questioned. “Because that’s the whole thing…”

“What do you mean, Ella?” Dawn gently asked.

Ella blushed and smiled a little. “Fine, with, um, I mean… fine with… spending time with Nick. That’s what I’d be giving up, yeah? Spending my night with him?”

Both girls took a second to process that.

“Wait, you’re kidding, right?” Rose shook her head. “Do you actually… wait, are you crushing on him right now!?” The thought of that caused her brain to short-circuit.

Dawn looked equally amazed. “I-I see… um… I’m sorry, I just assumed… because of Cinder, that you wouldn’t want to… I mean…”

“Yeah, sorry, that just came as a surprise,” Rose said, shaking her head. Her voice turned tender. “You seemed so stressed out and bothered the last time you had to clean the Master’s Suite… you even turned into Cinder. So we thought that you wouldn’t want to spend your night with Nick.”

That had been Rose’s initial assumption. But seeing the flush on Ella’s cheeks signaled to the blonde that she might just be dealing with something else entirely.

Like a girl who had a crush on a boy.

“It’s, um… okay…” Ella sighed and began to fidget with her rubber-band. She still couldn’t feel any pressure from Cinder, but she wanted to be prepared just in case. “I guess I should probably tell you guys the truth. Actually… the reason I came here… was because I wanted to meet Nick.”

Rose visibly winced when she heard that. “Oh, no… let me guess, you read his book, and you’re his biggest fan, right? Sorry, we’ve already got one of those.”

Dawn shot her a dirty look.

Ella just looked confused.

“…Book? Nick… he’s an author?” This was the first she was hearing of that.

“Uh, yeah, so… you didn’t know?”

Ella shook her head. And now Rose felt like a moron.

“I had no idea…”

“Then why?” Rose questioned. “I mean, yeah, he’s a great guy, and he’s an amazing listener, and he’s willing to just let you go at your own pace in a relationship, he’s happy to let you take the lead, and when you need a shoulder to cry on, he’s the sweetest guy in the world, and he’s always willing to hold you and make you feel like you’re special and loved, and… uh… what were we talking about again?”

She’d blanked out a little while going off on a tangent that would have made Nola proud.

Dawn rolled her eyes. “Reasons why someone would want to be with Nick,” she said, suppressing her amused smirk.

“…Yeah, uh… well, I get it,” Rose shrugged. “So what was it that made you like him, huh?” She narrowed her eyes into an appraising stare, like she was running a job interview. The aura she was giving off was like she was asking “In what position do you see yourself in five years? Missionary? Doggystyle? Reverse cowgirl?”

Ella just stared blankly at her. She had no idea how to respond to the strange atmosphere around the blonde. “Uh…”

Rose sighed. “…Wait, let me guess. He was really nice to you one time. I don’t know, bought you ice cream or something? And then you fell head over heels for him, is that right?” Ella seemed like the kind of gullible girl who would do something so sweet and stupid, as opposed to her far more ruthless partner.

Dawn rolled her eyes again as Ella just fidgeted.

“We, uh…that is, I mean… I never actually met him before,” she mumbled, looking down at the floor. “I just… I came here because I wanted to meet a nice man, that’s all.”

Rose’s jaw dropped. Dawn’s ears perked up in surprise.

“Wait, that’s it? You came here just because you wanted to meet a nice man?” Rose shook her head. “What kind of reason is that?!”

“Rose, your glass house isn’t going to last long if you keep throwing that many stones inside of it,” Dawn said with a sneer. “Why did you come onto this show again, by the way.”

“That… we’re not talking about me right now.” Rose tapped Dawn on the forehead and turned back to Ella.

Ella… actually began to feel a little better.

I thought that Rose was some loud and rude and overbearing person… but she’s actually… kind of stupid, too. Is she one of those brainless blondes people are always talking about? Ella lacked any guile to truly judge the other woman, and she was actually a little happy. Initially she’d been intimidated by Rose, but after listening to her talk, it was clear that the other woman didn’t have nearly as much control over her life as she’d thought.

Ella could sympathize, almost.

Now that she could breathe again, and without feeling the overwhelming pressure from Cinder constantly struggling for control, Ella could almost start to relax.

I’m having a conversation with people! And they’re not trying to harass me or judge me, or trigger me, or anything. They’re almost being nice! Well, not Rose. But Dawn’s being nice. And she’s actually bullying Rose, and not me! She did say she wanted to be my friend the other day, even though she **** Cinder to the surface… but maybe that was for my sake, too?

Ella couldn’t be sure. But just the fact that she could have a conversation that wasn’t making her anxiety levels skyrocket meant so much to her.

“Look, uh… you guys… since you know about… my issue… I guess I could tell you,” Ella mumbled, playing with her rubber-band. “About why I’m here. I actually told Nick already, so… it’s not like it’s a secret or anything.”

“Oh?” Dawn turned back to her. “If you want to share, that’s okay. We promise not to tell.”

“That’s right,” Rose said, nodding encouragingly.

“And I know Rose is an idiot, but if she gives her word, you can believe her most of the time.”

“That was unnecessary, cat girl.”

Ella almost giggled. But she didn’t want to let herself get too comfortable, lest she forget about the issues she was facing.

Especially because she was running the risk of triggering herself just talking about this.

“…I’ve never really had much of a chance to meet… boys,” she admitted shyly. “Stuff like romance… that was all just faerie tales and stuff. Not real, you know? It’s just never been something I could ever consider?”

“Oh? Why?” Rose asked.

Dawn looked at her like she was an idiot. “Why do you think, you moron?” She snapped.

Rose gave her a blank stare. Then she figured it out. “…Oh! Because of the…” She twirled her finger beside her head in the universal signal for “cuckoo” and the vein in Dawn’s forehead throbbed so hard she thought she might aneuryze.

“Rose, does your brain ever stop and think ‘maybe I shouldn’t say this incredibly rude thing’ or do you just have no filter whatsoever?!” Dawn hissed, her tail standing on end.

“Uh…”

Dawn groaned and slapped her palm against her forehead. “Never mind. Don’t answer. God, I can’t believe I actually saved you from elimination…”

“Love you for that, by the way.”

“Don’t talk to me right now.” Dawn turned to Ella and her voice took on a gentle tone. “I’m sorry. She’s… dumb. Like, really dumb.”

“Hey! That’s mean!”

“That’s right, it’s not good when someone else says the mean things to you, is it?”

Ella watched the two of them bicker, and wasn’t sure what to make of it. But their back and forth gave her some time to make peace with her statement, and not lose her cool.

Then like a switch being flipped, both women turned back to her.

“…Sorry,” Rose apologized, looking down guiltily. “What were you saying?”

“Oh, uh… just… well… I’ve never really had much romantic experience, due to, um… you know,” Ella mumbled, trying not to bring Cinder’s name into the conversation. After all, it wasn’t just about her. There was a lot of Ella’s life that had gone to shit before she snapped, and boys had never really been a part of it. “And… I just… I wanted to experience that myself, you know? Even if it was just for one time… with a guy I didn’t even know. So when they approached me and asked me if I wanted one last chance to maybe fall in love before everything came to an end and I was locked away forever, well…”

Meeting a boy and falling in love had sounded a lot better than prison at the time. Or, best-case scenario, a padded room in a dingy medical facility.

“I see… so you actually want to fall in love with Nick, then…” Dawn was surprised by that, given how Cinder behaved. From her limited knowledge of dissociative identity disorder, she knew that even though alters behaved in different ways, at the core of their being they were still the same fundamental person. Did that mean on some level that Cinder was potentially trying to find romance with Nick herself?

That was a scary thought.

Rose, on the other hand, had no thoughts as complicated as that. She didn’t give a fig about Ella’s condition, she just stared at the other girl with bright eyes.

“Oh, wow! That’s so amazing! So you came all the way here looking to find love?!”

“Uh… uhum, um…” Ella mumbled and took a step back, and grabbed her wrist. She was a little unnerved by how excited Rose was about this whole thing.

“I feel the same way!” Rose gushed. “I initially came here for money, but then I found love! Trust me, you’re not going to regret this, Ella! Nick’s such a good guy, I’m sure you’ll fall for him fast!”

“Oh… okay?”

“But just keep in mind, I’m still gonna be his number one. Just so we’re on the same page,” the blonde smugly added, holding her hand over her chest.

Dawn rolled her eyes and Ella just stared at Rose with a confused expression on her face.

“…Alright…”

While Rose stroked her own ego, Dawn processed the new information Ella provided into the framework of the current dilemma she was developing. She glanced over at the flyer hung on the Bounty Board.

“So Ella, you actually want your night with Nick. That makes things a little trickier… we still have to work out who’s going to get the bounty, if anyone…”

Fortunately, more people were starting to wake up. Before long, they’d be able to hold a nice discussion on the topic.