Alright! So I have defeated the laundry and now I am here to defeat your chapter. Okay, so I'm not really going to defeat it because that would imply it was a big, scary monster, but I am going to read and review!
Specifics
1. The start of this chapter is a little rocky. If you're not going to give us a more certain hint of what she did that was so bad, then don't mention it until you're ready to. Hinting should be built around a small pea of information, otherwise it's just empty over-dramatised suggestions. It's the equivalent of 'Look here, this is going to get exciting!' instead of being subtle and gently building the excitement. It's all a part of building atmosphere, which I might talk about at the end of this chapter!
2. Instead of saying it's the dagger she used earlier, give us a specific detail of it. Tell us it's the ruby dagger or the dagger with the piece of string around its pommel. We weren't in the story when she used it earlier so that means little to us and instead if you made this a less generic dagger and more of one she recognises as being significant, then we will recognise it also. And it's a more sublte way of telling us she might have killed someone because we'll not know what part this dagger played. For all we know it might have belonged to a person she kidnapped and that might be this big wrong doing she has performed.
3. There's too much telling going on here and I can now very quickly infer that James is the one she's met from her past and maybe that's a red herring and I'm completely wrong, but even if it is, your reader's still going to experience a moment of 'oh yeah, like that's not obvious'. And that's not so good because it's the point where you risk them detaching from the story and putting the book down, even if they are wrong. If you had Zach jump to these conclusions before the reader got there, that would work because then you're not pretending to be subtle. But big, dramatic hints that appear to have obvious answers are annoying.
Overall
Okay so I might have preferred this chapter to be entirely from Zach's point of view. Did we need to see Auxi having the nightmare? You told us nothing about it so maybe it would be more interesting to start from Zach being woken by something/ just getting back from some shady mission or sending the note in the last chapter. Then he stops on the stairs and sees her there and is afraid.
That would be more intriguing as it would make us curious as to why he would fear Auxi and then you could have their dialogue and the end of the chapter wouldn't feel like you'd made a character switch and we'd get some of Zach's thoughts, which would be cool. It would also help to make Auxi seem more interesting and less dramatic. When we have her thoughts on the situation, it feels very self centred. If we get to see her through Zach's eyes, we might be able to understand better some of his pity and uncertainty toward her.
Atmosphere
Alright! So you have a lot of lovely visuals and a good understanding of sentence structure, but your atmosphere is just a little off. This is because you don't spend enough time on the finer details of settings. Like this chapter. We get that they're on the stairs, but that's probably the biggest setting element you give us. There's no mention of a vase of flowers in her room or that the edge of the rug is curled up against a heavy, gilded chest.
You're also not covering the other four sense as much as I'd like you to. You did good in chapter one with Jack's voice, but what about other sounds? Does Zach listen to her footsteps as Auxi walks away? Is there the sound of a scuffle in the street outside? I don't imagine these bases are very sound-proof or are they? What are they built of? Is this a large wooden house, brick, stone?
Little details could really help to engross your reader in this piece. If you can drown out the sound of my washing machine with your descriptions of a street fight or by telling me that the dagger is strangely warm to the touch or cold, then you'll have more of my attention. For the most part you're good at this, but every now and then you forget to tell us where the characters are or what they're doing, besides recounting all their past troubles to us 
More current details and less past woes please!
See you around,
Heather xxx
Points: 6235
Reviews: 2631
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