It was the same ritual every morning. The screams and sounds were so familiar that I didn’t even move anymore. I just lay on the floor, wishing I hadn’t broken the hospital bed last week, and focused on the comfort of the cold cement as the doors continued to slam. Closer and closer.
Arching my body toward the door I waited for mine to open, my heart swelling in need for the brief moment of contact I was about to receive.
Whimpers of joy from the child who was restrained next door replaced his screams before my own door was thrown wide, the only friendly face that existed in this dark place coming into view.
Kaye took one step in and slammed the tray onto the floor, the action sending brown peas rolling. I didn’t even look at the tray anymore, I looked right at her, at her brown eyes, at the way she nodded. I returned the nod, her hand swiping over the ridge of the door frame as she grabbed the note I had left for her. I watched her leave, the low messy bun she now had to wear the last thing I saw before the door slammed between us, closing us off from each other, and me from the one good thing that existed here.
I didn’t move.
I lay still, my body pained from sleeping on the cold hard floor, and stared at the food, at the tray, and the little piece of paper that I could see tucked between the divots on the underside. The formed plastic tray was cracked and missing chunks around the edge, which made it the perfect vehicle for note transport.
Trying to focus past the wall of narcotics that Nastya had decided to try on me last night, I reached my unrestrained arm toward the tray. My fingers fumbled against the edge as I desperately tried to grab it. It was just far enough away that I couldn’t reach it. I already knew they hadn’t given me enough line from my IV to shift closer.
I sighed and rolled over, listening as the sobs of the little boy next door picked back up, the kid calling for his mother as he had since the first day I had been put here. Somehow, the sounds of his cries had become comforting, familiar. I was sure he felt the same way. The way he called for her, the way he spoke to her from time to time.
Sighing, I lifted my arm, the heavy thing wrapped in layers of gauze and bound with a locked brace to keep me away from the IV. The filthy tube trailed from my hand, winding over the floor and through the air until it reached the machines and bags and everything else they used to control and monitor me.
Too high to reach.
Too risky to try.
“A little length next time, would be good,” I said, turning toward the camera in the opposite corner, the thing there to make sure I didn’t mess up their systems. They couldn’t take the risk of giving me full use of my mind and magic after all.
At least they still thought it was working. Shifting my weight, I turned toward the tray, but only the fractured edge hit my fingertips.
Fine. I would have to call this practice.
I pushed myself a little farther toward the tray, letting my magic swell as the tray shifted, the tiny surge of energy bringing the try right to me. Perfect.
I waited for an alarm, or footsteps, or a rush of cold in my IV but nothing happened. They either weren’t watching me, or the motion was subtle enough they had missed it.
Didn't matter to me. I had my food, and more importantly, the letter.
Keeping my back to the camera, I huddled over the tray as I poked at the old meat, stomach turning at the once green peas and equally as discolored carrots.
Luckily, I didn’t get as sick as many of the others in this prison, but thanks to the IV, I also didn’t need to eat as much.
The smell of the meat didn’t twist my stomach as much, so I elected to devour that, taking slow bites as I pulled the letter out from underneath the tray.
Countries have fallen. Kyō are coming. Now or never.
I had heard The Kyō mentioned once by Kaye, years before everything changed. Even without hearing more I could already tell that this ominous group could easily be more powerful than the SSU.
“What?” I whispered in Czech as if the single syllable would be magically answered at my demand. There was nothing else.
Nothing more.
I placed the meat in my mouth and immediately spat it out, the taste a million times worse than I expected.
I couldn’t eat that, I shouldn’t eat that. And yet….
Looking from the note to the unrecognizable slab of meat, I knew there was no choice. I could feel that in the way my heart was thundering in hope. If they were falling, if it was finally happening, I needed strength.
Forcing down the grey square, I pulled my mind from the sludge I was eating and instead attempted to bring my magic up to the surface, using all my strength to break past the barricade of medicated drudgery I was fighting.
With each chew I changed the color of the paper, with each bite I focused my mind and folded it into a new shape, with each swallow I let it hover above the ground, shifting and swimming as it danced. The paper danced and moved, swirling through the air as I swallowed the last bite, the stale meat sitting uncomfortably in my gut.
As the paper fell to the floor, I pushed it to flatten, watching the creases in the paper disappear as those same words winked up at me.
Now or Never.
I had planned to tell her of a memory from the day before, of the tiny village near that house I always dreamed of. Perhaps another clue, yes, but it did not lead to freedom like this would. That news was no longer important.
My heart thundered as I stared at the words, my slow mind struggling to find a way to phrase the questions that buzzed through me in a way that anyone who would find the paper may not understand.
‘When do we escape?’ was not going to cut it.
Sighing, I popped one of the carrots in my mouth without thinking, the sour rancid flavor turning my stomach. I was barely keeping the meat down, this was not going to help. Spitting the formerly orange blob across the room toward the filthy toilet I pushed the tray away, finally realizing how I needed to phrase it.
Placing my fingertip on the paper, I pushed my magic into it, the power twisting and moving the ink into different shapes.
When can we visit her?
It was enough, and I knew she would get it. I smiled in anticipation, the idea of being able to hold Joclyn seeming impossible after everything. The dream for the future mixed with the dreams of each night and the few precious memories I had and I sighed. Folding the paper back up, I prepared to send it across the floor and into the door frame.
The paper never made it. It fell to the floor as a rush of cold moved through my veins, the faint blue fluid filling the clear IV tube and flooding me like a wave of ice.
I stiffened at the sensation, unable to move as I stared at the paper, the incriminating thing out in the open, my magic frozen enough I couldn’t even nudge it.
The cold grew and I knew the paper was not the worst of my problems.
They never took me to her this early.
Something was happening.
A full thought couldn’t even break past the numbness that was overtaking me. The world was becoming nothing as I fell forward into what was left of my food, slumping into carrots and peas and some sauce that I had purposefully ignored. I tried to move away from it, but I couldn’t move.
The floor began to vibrate as I lay there, the sounds of boots pounding against my skull a second before the doors swung open and the screams began. The heavy metal thing slammed against the supporting wall as at least ten soldiers rushed in, flanked by someone I hadn’t seen anywhere other than behind glass for the last few months.
Commander Domor.
I tried to speak his name, but I only gurgled and drooled against the floor. They really had drugged me this time. The disgust on the man’s face made his disdain for me clear.
“Take the machine with him,” he commanded the soldiers, pointing to the box I was attached to. “Get him in the truck. Your leader is waiting.”
The soldiers burst into action as the man sniffed, covering his nose with a handkerchief i
n an attempt to block the foul smell.
The image made me laugh, he created this, the least he could do is smell it.
Commander Domor stepped outside the room as the soldiers lifted me from the floor, two of them dragging me by the arms as the others flanked our sides with their massive guns drawn and ready.
The other prisoners’ screams silenced at seeing the weapons aimed at them, but only because it wasn’t normal.
Nothing about this was normal. Instead of going left as I always did, the soldiers dragged me to the right, back through the double doors that led to the cleaner part of the hospital.
The tops of my feet scraped against the floor as they dragged me, the desperate people reaching toward us, grabbing at clothes and feet as if I could help them.
“Get back filth!” the soldiers demanded, bullets flying as they fired above their heads, threatening them to get back, not caring if they hit them, or killed them.
Screams followed the gunfire and the soldiers began to run, my feet sliding over the slick floor, carpet, and then cement before I saw sunlight, true sunlight for the first time in who knew how many years.
Although the light from my dreams had been filled with this same warmth, it hadn't seeped into me like this did. It hadn’t infected me. It hadn’t been real. This was real, and it was glorious.
I attempted to turn toward the sun, to feel it on my face for the first time, but my head flopped to the side thanks to whatever they had pumped me with. It might as well have been the sun I saw, however.
Kaye was right there.
Kaye, her mother, and a few other nurses I didn’t recognize filled one of the military vehicles that sat before the hospital building. Medical equipment, guns, and the electronic machine they had used to torture me for so long were all loaded into the back of another truck, and I was loaded into the back of a third.
The soldiers threw me into the covered bed, arms and legs tangling as I went end over end into a hard metal corner. The perfectly timed steps of the soldiers faded as they marched away, leaving only Commander Domor and me as he jumped into the darkened back of the truck, pulling a pair of metal handcuffs from his pocket.
“Just in case all of that lovely medicine wears off before we get to our new home, eh?” He sneered as he locked my free wrist into the cuff, attaching me to one of the many large rings that lined the bed of the vehicle. “We wouldn’t want to lose our most valuable weapon now, would we?”
He laughed again as he clicked the cuff tighter, the metal ring pressing uncomfortably against my emaciated wrist.
My fingers began to tingle at the pressure of the cuff before he ever left the truck, the bed rocking as he jumped through the fabric opening. The flap shifted as he left, letting in one strip of beautiful sunlight before I was left in the dark again. Unable to move, I heaved in air, desperate to calm the panic that was rising in me. The emotion grew as the silence was broken by the sound of gunfire in the distance, the sounds of screams not far behind. Bursts of gunfire accelerated before a massive explosion rocked the ground, truck and limbs shaking at the impact.
The screams swelled, footsteps following as the sound of the bombing continued.
“You can’t take it! It’s not going to work!” a voice yelled in heavy Ukrainian as the engine of the truck roared to life, sending everything rattling.
“We need him. Nothing works without him.”
Kaye.
She was close, right outside the truck, just inches from me.
I needed to get to her. I fought through the drugs, through the fog, and tried to yell, to scream, anything to get her attention. Nothing happened, not even a grunt. I just lay hopelessly against the metal ridges of the truck bed, staring at the cloth of the opening as it flapped in the wind, revealing moments of the chaos outside.
“Meet me at the UK Embassy in Germany,” her voice was even closer.
“But it’s fallen, too!”
“Then get close!” she screamed. “We don’t have time!”
My heart sped up at her proximity, my pulse quickening further as I tried to yell, only to have any effort blocked as another bomb fell, this one right beside us. I attempted to move, to scuttle away and escape the truck, or the war, or whatever it was that was coming. I didn't move an inch, no matter how much work I put into it. I was trapped in the hell the drugs had brought.
The truck roared to life as the earth continued to shake and we began to move, several people beginning to jump in the back with me.
“No, no!” one of the soldiers screamed, the first two who had jumped in obviously sent to guard me. “This is a private transport!”
From where I lay tangled on the floor, I could only see their feet. The two soldiers' boots stood strong before a few others rushed in, three muffled shots sounding loud as the soldiers dropped to the ground, blood pouring from their vacant faces.
“Get in,” I heard Kaye shout before someone walked right past me, slamming their fist into the heavy metal that separated truck and cab in a rhythmic four pulse beat. “Let’s move!”
She yelled just as the truck took off, roaring to life and speeding away as more guns and more bombs began to rattle the world.
The bombs continued on either side of us as the truck sped along. Each bomb burst through me, a heavy flood of anxiety jerking muscles and heart until the soft touch of fingers against mine took it all away. Kaye’s fingers wound through mine as she leaned down, coming into focus in the dark.
“We really must stop meeting like this,” she teased, giving my hands a squeeze before they left, moving to cut the large cuff that kept the IV hidden off my arm.
As she worked, the cold in my veins began to fade, the grogginess no longer growing as it had been. My mind began to move, the subtle current of my magic moving back into my fingers. I sighed at the release, attempting to convey my thanks as my tired body settled into the ridged floor of the truck bed. Thankfully, Kaye patted my arm in understanding, moving back to cut the lock that kept the brace against my arm.
“I tried to flush your system earlier, but I didn’t expect them to drug you so heavily. I am not sure how long it will take for everything to come back,” she said, her focus still on the massive brace on my arm. “Do you feel anything yet?”
I could only moan in response.
“Good,” she whispered, carefully moving my head into a position that was thankfully more comfortable. “Just rest, it will get better.”
“Who is that?” someone asked in Ukrainian, the voice gruff as we hit a large pothole, the jerk of the vehicle sending everyone jumping.
“Our ticket out of here,” she whispered as she began to remove the IV, her motions rough.
“That’s him?” the same man asked, his severe face flashing into view as another bomb hit, the truck filling with light as it rocked. “He is the one you have been going on about for months?”
“They have drugged him, Andriey!” Kaye snapped, her face looking even angrier from where I lay below her. “If I can get the drugs out of his system then we might have a chance.”
“A chance to what?” Another question, this time from a woman, the faceless voice hissing through the dark. “The man cannot even sit on his own.”
“Do you wish to abandon this plan?” Kaye hissed, another bomb swallowing her words as everyone shook and shrieked. “We will not get another chance to escape. And the Kyō… we do not know what will await us.”
“Yet you will trust Nastya’s puppet,” the man again, his voice growing louder as he shifted toward me. “This man cannot even speak.”
“I am not a puppet. I was a king.” I attempted to sound as powerful as I knew I could be, but the words only came out slurred and mussed.
I wasn’t sure if the lack of pronunciation was from the drugs or from spending years in a torture chamber, however. I preferred to think it was the former.
Either way, the response caused the man to jerk, and although I still could not push myself up to look him in the eye, I turned
the best I could, staring him down.
“They drugged me and chained me in the back of the truck.” I hissed, the clarity of my words slowly returning. “They do not do that to puppets.”
The man glowered at me before leaning back, his eyes still spelling danger. I looked from him to the others, each one either matching my determined scowl with their own, or looking away awkwardly.
There were about ten of them crammed into the small space, and all of them were looking between Kaye and me. The two in the corner were whispering something as they did so.
“Who are these people?” I was suddenly realizing that with all the time Kaye and I had passed notes, I didn’t know that much about what she had been doing.
“Workers from the hospital, some of the villagers from nearby.” She spoke offhandedly as she peeked out of the jeep again. “They have been working with me. Working against the SSU.”
The look she fixed me with was more determined than I had seen, the fight in her finally coming into its own now.
“Are you a rebel leader now?” I asked, the phrase fitting the powerful woman.
She chuckled at the question, but she was the only one, everyone else smiled in response, their respect for her coloring their faces.
“What did you think I meant when I said I was fighting back?” she teased, but I could already tell the others did not agree with that sentiment. “There’s a lot I haven’t been able to tell you. But once we are free of them, I will.”
The admission made me smile. She was right, she had told me, and it suited her.
“What do you need me to do?” My voice was becoming clearer as I was, the spinning fading as the sound of bombs and guns did.
“As much as you can,” Kaye said, loading a few guns as she peeked out of the fabric that covered the truck. “And don’t give me lip. I know what you can do, Jan.”
“That’s not my name,” I taunted, slowly pushing myself to sit.
My arms shook under the effort, my brutalized and weakened body struggling to operate. It didn’t matter, I had lived with this fog for years, I would push past it. I was powerful, and not just in my dreams.
Flare of Villainy: The Imdalind Series, Book 10 Page 7