I would have to be sneaky to get out of here. But first… I scowled at the straps, letting my magic wind around them as one by one they released, handcuffs clattering to the bed, straps opening up and falling away.
If I thought my head hurt, I was mistaken. My whole body felt like it had been run through a meat grinder. This was going to make the whole tracking down Ilyan and getting out of here thing that much harder.
My magic was already rushing around my body, doing its best to heal and soothe the muscles and bones that had been attacked. But, even one step out of the bed and I fell to the floor with a clunk, my bones rattling.
Okay, I was going to need a plan B.
Today, find Ilyan. Or, maybe just figure out how to get out of the room and around the hospital without gaining the guards’ attention. Seeing as there was only one door here, and I was currently wearing a blue and white hospital gown with no back, that was going to be a problem.
My body was already starting to feel a bit better, and my magic was strong enough that I was sure I could at least Stutter my way out of here. At least I hoped so. I wasn’t a hundred percent sure what would happen if I failed at a Stutter, but seeing as I had just been electrocuted for a few hours, there were worse things that could happen.
I could have sworn I saw a nurses’ station tucked in between halls not far from here, and if I remembered correctly the counters on those things had a lot of space underneath them. Okay, start small.
You know, and pray you don’t get stuck in a wall.
Head still spinning, I closed my eyes, giving my magic one good push as I plunged myself into the nothing of a Stutter and into... a closet.
Well, at least it wasn’t a wall.
The closet was lined with shelves and medical supplies, or I was sure it had been at one point. Everything in here was woefully bare. Each spot on the shelves had a label with what was supposed to be there. In some places there were only one or two things left, in others there was nothing at all.
Nasty queen or no, Ukraine had been hit as hard as everywhere else.
“I can’t spare any more!” someone whisper-hissed from the other side of the door. I jumped, pulling a shield over myself and vanishing from view only seconds before the door to the closet was thrown open and two women hustled their way in.
Katenka, and someone who looked like Katenka if she had been sucked into a time machine and came out with curlier hair and freckles. It didn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out what I was looking at.
“I have to try it, mom,” the younger Katenka said. Called it.
“You’ve already used three.” Katenka didn’t even look at her daughter as she began checking shelves, clearly looking for something.
“I know, and before you say anything, I also know that we are running low on everything. But I can’t leave him like that. I can’t. Nastya’s back and you know she’s going to try to remove his arm again.”
“And you think keeping him asleep through that is going to make it better?” Katenka cut her off, sending the younger version of her scowling.
“She doesn’t drain him as much when he’s asleep. She likes to see their reaction.” The young woman's face had fallen, her freckles crinkling as she wrinkled her nose. “I’m trying to keep him alive here. You know he can get us out of here. I just need to help him regain use of his magic.”
Magic. His magic. Chances were slim it was Ilyan seeing as Katenka had said there were more than just me handcuffed and there was a high probability of more than one of them being male. But I was hopeful.
Nastya had said she liked to torture him, and this guy had clearly been tortured.
I was one second away from dropping my shield, popping back into being and demanding info when someone pounded on the door.
“Crap,” the young Katenka said, pushing herself into the wall with a look of true horror on her face.
“Katenka, you in there?” a male voice nearly yelled, every syllable slurred through the wooden pane. Katenka opened it a crack, letting the man and an overwhelming smell of vodka slide in. He was old and just as haggard looking as everyone else I had seen, and had clearly been drinking.
“Sirko,.” Katenka said, keeping the door open enough to talk while still blocking her daughter from view, “what do you need?”
“They need more of his blood. She’s on the rampage again.”
Katenka swore, waving the older man off as she moved to close the door. Giving the girl one last look.
The door had only just barely closed when the younger girl grabbed a syringe and a bottle and escaped out to the hall. Damn. Girl was fast. I didn’t even have time to consider dropping my shield that time.
I had a good feeling she had grabbed the things she said she needed, and was making her way back to this mystery man. Even if she wasn’t I was going to follow her, maybe I would be able to get her alone and get information that way.
I slipped out the door before it closed, shield still in place as I prepared to weave my way through the halls after her.
Except she was gone.
Not just like swallowed into the crowd gone either. There wasn’t even a crowd here to swallow her. She was just gone-gone.
I turned on the spot, taking a step one way and then another. Didn’t matter which hallway I looked down, there was no one.
She had just disappeared.
I hadn’t sensed any magic on her, but I hadn’t really been paying attention either. There was clearly a reason why Katenka had hidden her daughter from the old man and I had an idea as to why.
She had magic. It made sense with how Katenka reacted to me. Katenka knew about magic and she was hiding her daughter, saving her from being handcuffed to a bed, too.
Damn it. Now I really needed to find her.
Before I could take another step an alarm began to go off, blue lights flashing as nurses raced into the hall and in the direction I was pretty sure my room was.
I looked down, to the needle still in my arm and the pads still on my chest. Well, I really didn’t plan this one out.
“Until next time, mystery girl,” I whispered before letting my magic pull me into a Stutter and back into the room where everyone clearly thought I was dead.
5
Ilyan
“I see your measly five,” Kaye taunted, the joy in her voice almost swallowed by the worry, “and raise you to…”
She hesitated, looking at me over the fan of her playing cards with one of her eyebrows raised so high it almost got lost in the fringe of her curly hair.
Almost.
“Ten!” She spouted the word as loud as she dared before slamming the card onto the pile on the bed between us, the metal frame jerked, sending a tremor of pain over my spine.
Her mocking taunt was replaced by maniacal laughter as she leaned back against the headboard of the rickety hospital bed that had been my prison, careful to avoid my ankle that was still locked in its restraint.
It was the only one I hadn’t been able to unlock today.
Every few minutes I would try to bring up enough strength, to call on enough power, to unlock it, but it didn’t budge. It couldn’t break through the fog. I didn't have the strength. Nastya would be happy to know just how much she was affecting me in my months of capture. I still wasn’t going to let her see.
In many ways, it didn’t matter. Even with the lone restraint I was still able to shift my weight and bend my joints, which was already better than the days I couldn’t unlock any and Kaye and Katenka would rub my back and joints in the hope of getting my blood to flow and the bones to heal. That was happening more frequently the longer Nastya’s torturous experiments went on. Now in the third month, I was able to move freely about twice a week, if I was lucky.
Luckily, Nastya had left in a hurry a few days ago and had only returned last night. Thankfully she hadn’t come for me yet, which had given me more time to heal than I usually had.
Which also meant that I got to play this ridiculous game t
hat Kaye had created when she was five.
“Doesn’t that card change the rules?” I asked, my voice slightly slurred as my tongue struggled to keep up.
Thankfully Kaye ignored it, not even a shadow of sympathy crossed her face.
“Yep! Now you are catching on.” She smiled brightly and leaned over toward me, trying to sneak a peek at my cards for probably the third time in the last fifteen minutes.
“Hey!” I teased, my own laugh bursting out, only to be replaced by a wince as I tried to move my cards away from her.
The motion was too fast for my still healing shoulder, the skin still covered by one massive bruise. Although my magic was healing me, it was slower than it had been. Removing and replacing limbs would do that.
Luckily, I had been unconscious for that experiment.
“Here,” Katenka whispered from beside me, her face full of the worry that Kaye was trying so hard to hide.
Her sad eyes never left mine as she handed me a styrofoam cup filled with the powdered fruit drink that had replaced orange juice in the SSU a few months ago. While it never filled the same craving that the orange juice had, I was grateful for it. I was grateful for these women, who would sneak sandwiches and Tang into my room every day. It was more than the single glass of water and bowl of liquified oatmeal the guards provided.
“I’m pretty sure looking at my cards isn’t part of the rules, Kaye,” I scolded, refusing to draw more attention to my shoulder than Katenka already had. “Last time we only switched two cards from each other's hands.”
“Oh, yeah…” Kaye said, her voice filled with a laugh as she settled back into her spot, still glancing at me over the top of her cards. “I think I am going to change that rule. We are going to shuffle our hands and redeal them.”
“You are changing a rule? Right now? I am pretty sure you can’t do that.” My voice was full of warning as I moved my cards away, holding them protectively. I wasn’t about to give them up that easily. I had two kings, you only needed three to win the game. Unless she decided to change that rule, too. You could never be too sure with whatever Kaye had created here.
“I’m pretty sure I can,” she teased right back, “I’m older than you after all.”
“Appearances don’t count,” I teased, tucking my cards underneath my still restrained leg so she couldn’t get at them. “You are only twenty-one. I am fairly certain that I am quite a bit older than you. Unless you have memories from Napoleon's journey across Europe that you would like to share.”
“Immortality doesn’t count then, Jan.” A smug smile stretched across her face at that, two prods for the price of one.
She knew which one was going to bug me more.
“That’s not my name.” Her smile only grew at my growl.
“Whatever you say, Ivan.”
“Not my name either,” I said the words even though I knew full well I had no way of knowing. Ivan very well could be my name, something was familiar about it.
“Denyksa?”
“No.”
Katenka chuckled as she checked my blood pressure again. There was only Dr. Sirko left in this place, but from what they said he was locked in his room unless he was needed, and the poor old man had turned to drink in his solitude, the imprisonment slowly driving him mad.
This meant that Katenka was one of the few with any medical knowledge in this place, and she had taken it upon herself to make sure, to put it bluntly, that I didn’t die.
“Well,” Kaye said, a bright light sparking behind the worry in her eyes, “tell me when you figure it out, won't you? I’d love to meet you.”
“You already have met me,” I teased, all intention of playing the game gone. “I’m sitting right here.”
“You know what I mean,” she said, fingers fiddling with an uneven chunk of hair as she leaned back against the headboard. “Years from now you are going to show up at my door and introduce yourself clear as day and for all I know you’ll be selling me vacuums, or religion, or something. I won’t even know who you are!”
“Stop being so dramatic,” Kaye’s mother scolded, the under her breath response all-but-ignored because it happened so often.
“I’m pretty sure you will recognize me, Kaye,” I said through a wince as Katenka began pressing on bones in my back and shoulder to make sure they had all healed in the right place.
She looked at me with concern, but I shook her off. Last week she had to reset my knee to get everything aligned. It was a great learning experience for Kaye, not so much for me. This pain I could take.
“You have no way of knowing that,” Kaye continued, ready to continue down her assumed future. “I will be an old lady and you... you are going to look exactly the same. Probably have that same long hair you came in with.”
“See,” I said, my smile spreading at the corner she had backed herself into. “How could you not recognize me? If my rugged good looks never change then there is no way you will forget me, even if I am selling vacuums.”
“There is no way I could forget you, anyway.”
The laughter drained from the room at her words. A heavy sorrow dripped from her, infecting the air until everybody was drowning in it.
It was hard to keep the desperation out once it escaped. It was hard not to feel hopeless.
This time, however, everything felt different
Swirling over that sorrow there was a feeling of hope that I was not sure I had felt in weeks. It lined her words, it shone from her eyes.
Hope that we would escape. Hope that there was something after this and that I could knock on her door and sell her a vacuum.
“I will never forget you, Kaye,” I whispered, extending my hand toward her.
Her lips turned up into a careful smile as her hand wrapped around mine, her skin warm and soft. We sat like that for a moment, eyes locked together in a million silent promises before our hands fell, the loss of contact leaving my hand feeling cold, my heart aching.
I wasn’t sure if it was for her, for another, or simply for the life that would follow.
“Now,” she announced as she went back to her cards as though the last few minutes hadn’t happened. “Give me your cards.”
“That’s not a rule, Kaye,” I groaned, pulling my cards out from under my leg, already knowing I didn’t have another choice.
“Yes, well, if you remembered any games from your childhood we wouldn’t have this problem.” She smiled brightly, I glowered darkly, and Katenka just sighed, obviously not interested in revisiting this discussion with us.
“Well,” Katenka began, pulling the conversation from her daughter’s control, the latter just smiled brightly and leaned against the footboard. “Everything from your arm seems to be in place, although I can’t attest to the internal workings. And you say you still don’t have full mobility?”
I only shook my head no, I didn’t really want to revisit it. Nor did I want to attempt to lift it again, the pain was almost too much.
“Well,” she said with a sigh, looking away from me. It was one of her usual tells that she was about to say something uncomfortable. “Your healing has been slowing down lately. I know they were testing a new combination of drugs, to see if your…”
She stalled, and Kaye smiled knowingly.
“Magic,” Kaye provided. Her mother only cringed. At least I had convinced one of them.
“...if your power can be prodded differently. But I’ve almost figured out the combination so we can counter it. I’ve been trying it on a few others here, including someone new. I should know soon if it is working.”
“Thank you,” I whispered as Katenka gave me one last look, the sadness in her eyes breaking my heart.
She said nothing before she was gone, the faint click of a lock sounding behind her as she spoke to the guard, their quick Ukrainian mostly indistinguishable through the heavy wood.
“Do you want to lay down now or later?” Kaye asked, the bed rattling as she moved toward me, already knowing the answer.
<
br /> I only gave her a smile as she kneeled next to me, hands stable as she helped me shift and shimmy back down to my back. I tried not to wince, I tried not to let the pain show - but everything hurt. My shoulder felt like it had caught fire with even the slightest motion, an intense line of pain shooting through my bones.
I could feel my magic try to rise to meet it, try to heal it, but it was still so slow it couldn't break through whatever drug they had me on.
Sinking into the hard indentation of the mattress, the fabric settled around me like a cushion, the groan that escaped me neither from the mattress nor pain.
“I’ll put the restraints back on after you fall asleep,” Kaye whispered as she lay down beside me, curling up against the rail and as far from me as she could.
She had tried to curl up closer once, but everything in me had recoiled. She hadn’t tried since.
“Tell me about that abbey place,” she whispered, her voice barely breaking through the relaxed fog that I was drifting into. “The one where the fight was.”
“Are you still trying to find it?” I asked, turning my head to look at her. I didn’t even try to restrain the gasp of pain that time, it hurt that much.
“I’m always trying to find everything, Jan,” she said, curling her hands underneath her chin in an effort to get comfortable. I would have offered her a pillow, but they took that away long ago. “I found Joclyn, I can find you. And then we can get you home.”
“Or you could just leave without me.”
She glared at the suggestion. It wasn’t the first time I had mentioned it, and although she refused every time, she was slowly wearing down. She was slowly realizing, just as I was, that I wasn’t a good enough reason for her and her mother to stay here.
“I know,” she finally admitted, the words not hurting as much as I expected them too. “But I am not going to just leave you here unless I have no other choice. Things aren’t bad enough to justify that.”
“I would have to say otherwise,” I said with a grunt, instantly regretting moving my arm to emphasize the point.
Flare of Villainy: The Imdalind Series, Book 10 Page 3