Actions

Work Header

The Liar's Demise

Chapter 19: Epilogue

Chapter Text

 Her life was over. She had lost – really lost. Everything she had been building… all of it gone – or so far out of reach that it might as well be gone. She had reached too far, too fast, been too greedy, acted hastily. If she had only been more selective with her patsies, been more discrete with her identity – damn that Nadine… But she had wanted to have it all, the moment it appeared to be within reach.

And now she was left with next to nothing.

Lila lay back on the rough metal cot, wincing at the lack of tension, the pricking pain in her back in all the wrong places from the springs digging into her muscles. A tension headache had set into her forehead within the first week, and it hadn’t abated in the slightest. She rough, starchy prison uniform that they forced her to wear scratched and irritated her skin; since Gabriel Agreste had been an inmate in this prison since its opening in the spring, she had expected the uniforms to be at least moderately fashionable. But perhaps this was part of the Heroes of Paris’ punishment for the former Hawk Moth: forcing him to wear these too-firm, scratchy, striped tents for the remainder of his prison sentence. And by extension, forcing the same on her. Lila groaned, smacking the wall next to her, staring up at the blank ceiling.

Nearly a month she had been in here, and the finally it was starting to sink in: this was going to be her home for now.

There had been no talking her way out of this one. The moment Chloe Bourgeois and the Heroes of Paris had dragged her back to Paris, she had been dropped unceremoniously in the prison yard of their Nouvelle Bastille Prison for “processing.” Both President Guizot and Mayor Bourgeois had released statements within the hour condemning her actions and promising that she would be prosecuted swiftly, to the fullest extent of French law. The Italian Embassy had officially disavowed her and any knowledge of her activities; her mother had been recalled to Rome and reassigned to the embassy in Suriname the next day. No one had said anything in Lila’s defense – not publicly, at least. The trial had commenced before the end of the week.

The trial itself had been little more than a formality. Pegasus had brought out information from as far back as the first Heroes’ Day to suggest that she had been in league with Hawk Moth, though her attorney had gotten that stricken from the record – the universal amnesty for Akuma victims still applied. In a closed session, Antoine Becquerel had appeared to testify and confirm that Lila had been a member of Night Bat’s “Lynchpin-ions” as far back as last summer. Chloe had recounted every instance when the two of the had fought over the past year. Speaking in her own defense, Lila had tried protesting to the judge that Night Bat had threatened her mother to force her to help him; Ladybug had countered that Night Bat had not been at Tarascon when Lila betrayed them and attacked Ladybug. Lila’s attorney had found several of her old classmates willing to testify on her behalf as character witnesses… all of whom had been destroyed by the prosecutor on cross-examination. Then Nadine had come out to testify. Lila’s jaw clenched. If she’d had her way…

But after that, all hopes of leniency had disappeared.

Lila’s stomach turned. No deals had been forthcoming. The Heroes of Paris had never even asked if she was willing to give them names of the other Lynchpin-ions, or the Lynchpin, or anyone else in the organization. Probably Nadine’s fault – she had known far too much for her own good, and she hadn’t known enough to keep her mouth shut. Or else it was Chloe: she probably told the Heroes of Paris not to trust a word she said. Her nostrils flared.

Even a last-minute appeal to the Italian consulate had fallen on deaf ears. Her mother had returned to Paris for the trial, before being sent to South America, and Lila had been given an hour with her mother after one of the trial sessions. Her mother had been shaken – after Nadine had finished speaking, there hadn’t been a dry eye in the court. Lila had begged, pleaded with her mother for help, insisted that the Heroes of Paris were setting her up, that it was all a witch hunt engineered by Chloe Bourgeois. Her mother had given her a dubious look, but she had promised to speak to Ambassador Carullo. The next day, the Ambassador had attended the trial, staring at Lila stone-faced until the judge gave him time to speak. But when he had spoken, he had only expressed “his government’s deepest regret for the events that had occurred,” and insisted that “his embassy had no knowledge of the actions of one of their citizens.” The soundbites had played on the international news for the rest of the trial, right alongside the pictures of Lila at the embassy’s last holiday party.

Bastard.

Lila scoffed ruefully. At that party, Ambassador Carullo’s idiot son had spent half the night flirting with her and plying her with drinks. She had almost agreed to leave with him… but her sense of standards had prevailed. At the time it had been the obvious answer: he was boorish and ugly, without any motivation – even in the bedroom, according to one of the embassy clerks. But in retrospect, if she had left with him, then perhaps the ambassador’s answer could have been different.

In the end, it had been a relatively short trial – the evidence against her had been overwhelming; the evidence in her favor woefully inadequate. Lila frowned. In retrospect, the Heroes of Paris had been far too well prepared for the trial. How had they been able to amass so much evidence, so quickly? Nadine had given them her identity barely two weeks earlier, but the evidence against her, especially from her actions at school during Hawk Moth’s reign, had been far more than Chloe alone could have accounted for, even with Alix and Kim and Nathaniel to supplement it.

That question deserved some thought.

Not that she would lack in time for thinking. She was going to be stuck in this godawful prison cell for at least the next decade, before she could even hope to receive parole. The only slight mercy to it all was that she had been given her own cell and wouldn’t need to share it with a roommate. That suited her just fine, at least for now. Isolation was protection and safety, until she could figure out the prison hierarchy. She could observe the other prisoners in the exercise yard, watch their interactions, plot her next moves. Since the trial’s end, most of them had kept their distance… but perhaps that would change in time. Lila sneered, staring up at the ceiling. She had been kicked in the teeth – that much was clear. But like the bruises and bitemarks from her last fight with Sent-Bee, these bruises would heal. She was in prison now, virtually cut off from the outside world, but she could rebuild. She could come back again.

Heavy footsteps rang down the corridor from the direction of the cellblock entrance. Letting out a breath, Lila clasped her hands behind her head. It wasn’t mealtime, or time for exercise, and those were the only times the guards had ever come for her. The footsteps drew steadily closer before stopping abruptly. “Visitor, Rossi,” a guard called gruffly, rapping on the door to her cell.

Slowly, Lila sat up and glanced over at the guard, a taller man with close-cropped hair and a sour look on his face. “Oh, thank you, M. Ouvret,” she answered, giving him a quick once-over before looking up at him with a bright, simpering smile. “Do you know who it might be?”

He shrugged. “Didn’t say. But it wasn’t on the schedule earlier, so must be important.”

Interesting. Standing up, Lila approached the door, swaying slightly as she walked. “I do appreciate your care in coming to get me.”

“Wrists.”

Sighing, Lila held out her wrists through the small opening in the door for him to cuff them together. “You know, normally I prefer when my partner is cuffed,” she purred, leaning forward and batting her eyelashes. Stiffly, he snapped the handcuffs in place and opened the door, his face remaining entirely expressionless. Lila masked her annoyance with a hurt expression. “Oh, you’re no fun,” she pouted. “You see, I’m just so nervous to be walking through here with my hands cuffed like this… but you’ll protect me, won’t you?”

“This way.” Clenching his jaw, Ouvret gestured for her to walk slightly in front of him down the hallway toward the cellblock door. Lila took in the cells lining the corridor on either side as she went, cataloguing the prisoners and their reactions to seeing her. A couple made eye contact with her; Lila held the eye contact for as long as she could, daring them to look away first. Then out of the cellblock, down another hallway, through a locked door, past a guard station, a couple of turns. Finally, Ouvret stopped outside another door and pulled it open. “I’ll be right outside.”

Coolly, Lila stepped inside and paused in surprise. “Here to gloat, Bourgeois?”

“Nope.” Chloe lounged at the chair on one side of the table, feet up, casually filing her nails. Not taking her eyes off her hands, she held her fingers out to inspect them. “Just thought I’d stop in and make sure you’re still here.”

Lila’s nostrils flared. Her eyes narrowed “You may have taken back that stupid comb and the stupid pest, but that doesn’t change anything.”

Chloe furrowed her brows, examining her fingernails carefully, and placed her nailfile on the table, brushing her other hand through her hair. “Oh, you mean this old thing?” she taunted, revealing the hair comb. Unconsciously, Lila took a step forward; the nailfile was up in an instant, pointed at Lila’s face. “Give it a shot. I dare you to try.” Lila froze in place, glaring down at Chloe, who snorted. “That’s what I thought. I’d say that this changes everything… for you.”

Lila scoffed. “Just you wait. I’ll get out of here, and next time I will kill you.”

Chloe finally glanced up at her languidly. “Yeah? You really think so? You’ve lost. You’re in here where you can’t hurt anyone ever again. There’s no way you’re escaping from here – short of doing your time. And even if you ever get out, there’s nothing you can do to us. You’ve lost your miraculous. You’ve lost those other Lynchpin-ions you suborned – most of them are in prison here with you, or else they’ve disappeared.” She hummed, arching an eyebrow. “Now which group do you think you should be more concerned about?” she asked. “We have a pool going, you know. The ones on the outside are a little stronger… but the ones in here have a lot more access.”

“Access goes both ways,” Lila pointed out, clenching her jaw.

Chloe snorted. “Considering that you’re the reason they’re in here, I doubt you’ll have too many friends. What power do you have left?”

Lila narrowed her eyes, her fists clenching. “You’d be surprised, Bourgeois. I might be down for now, but I’m not out. I might have made a mistake this time, but you can be sure it’s not one I will repeat.”

“I know you won’t repeat it: you won’t have a chance to try it again.”

“You’d better watch your back,” Lila snarled.

Chloe smirked, standing up and rapping sharply on the door. “Don’t drop the soap.”

Series this work belongs to: