Queen of Quarantine

by Caroline Peckham

  The bottom of the cart held a shelf filled with various things and I counted a knife, hammer, hacksaw and poker amongst them before he stepped into my line of sight and blocked my view.

  "Let us go," Blake demanded furiously, rattling the metal cuffs that held his hands in place like he was aching to break free of them and kill this motherfucker here and now. That would make two of us then.

  "You're going to wish for death before I give it to you," I snarled.

  The man ignored us, taking a silver ball from his pocket and holding it up before setting the wheel spinning and tossing the ball inside.

  The sound of cheering voices sounded beyond the lights and amongst them all, I thought I heard Tatum's voice raised in fear, shouting my name. But knowing she was close did nothing to comfort me, because if she was here then she was in danger. And I couldn’t help her.

  The ball rattled around in the wheel and I found myself holding my breath along with the crowd as I waited for it to stop.

  "The winner is…Blue!" the man announced. "Bonus pay-out to anyone who had cattle prod!"

  What the fuck did he just say?

  The crowd were cheering again, some of them booing because they’d lost, but overall there was a lot of fucking noise. I watched as the asshole bent down and rummaged about in the bottom of the cart before standing again with a flourish, holding out a long, metal cattle prod and powering it up.

  He strode towards Blake as I yelled curses at his back and the metal cuffs cut into my wrists hard enough to spill blood while I fought to escape with even more determination.

  "Fuck you, you pig-ugly motherfucker," Blake spat half a second before the asshole slammed the cattle prod into his stomach.

  I roared my fury at him as Blake's spine arched, his muscles tensing with the pain as he bit down on any noise escaping his lips in response to the shock and the crowd cheered for the game.

  My rage blinded me as I fought and fought, my muscles flexing and my blood pounding with the desperate desire to get free and destroy every single monster in this room.

  By the time I calmed down enough to pay attention, the ball was flying around the wheel again and Blake was panting in his restraints, his eyes blazing with pain and fury.

  "Red!" the man cried in excitement and the first thing I felt was relief that at least it was me and not my brother this time. I would take every one of these losses over watching someone I loved suffer. "The brand!"

  My eyes widened as he pulled a metal brand from the cart next and the crowd chanted encouragement as he moved over to heat it in the fire.

  Fury pulsed through me along with the most crippling sense of uselessness. I couldn't break free of this. I couldn't escape. And I knew that this game wouldn't just end. They would keep playing, rolling the wheel and picking between me and Blake as the torture got worse and worse until one of us died. That was where the real money was being made here. They were betting on who would survive the longest. And either way I was going to be the loser. Not just because this would be my end and Blake's too. But because I knew that somewhere nearby, Tatum needed me. She needed me and I couldn't come for her. She was alone after we'd all promised that would never happen. And if the Night Keepers met their end here, then every oath we'd made would have been for nothing. And the idea of that failure hurt me so much more than any torture ever could.

  The man approached again, the glowing hot brand with the Royaume D’élite symbol of a letter R inside a ring of fire on it held out before him.

  I gritted my teeth before he pressed it to my thigh, biting down on my tongue as a roar of pain built in my throat and the scent of burning skin sailed beneath my nose.

  It was agony unlike any I'd known before, blinding and unending and made so much worse by the stench of failure that accompanied it. Because I deserved this. I deserved all of it if I couldn't get to her. If she suffered because of my failure then I was owed this and more. And as the pain almost stole my sense of self, that was all I could hold on to. Our girl needed us. And we weren't coming.

  I t was never ending. This constant torrent of ice cold that made my lungs burn with the fires of hell.

  My muscles tightened and strained against the cuffs holding me there, on some fucking sex bed which I seriously hoped had had a thorough clean, my biceps bulging to the point of pain as I tried to rip my way free of this torment.

  Inside my head was nothing but white noise and the images I'd sealed away of her. Hot lips on my flesh and the bluest eyes I've ever seen staring right upon my blackened soul, seeing all of me and finding it enough. Finding it worthy. Impossible and yet true.

  That was it. All I had left in the dark. Pain and panic, fear and misery and her. The rest paled into insignificance. Because every time a crack began to form in my flesh, she was there to soothe it away. She was there to whisper encouragement in my ear. She was there to pull me from the dark. I was her demon and I'd only ever break for her.

  Not this monster. Not ever again.

  The freezing water made me shiver violently as I bucked and thrashed, but I never made a sound. Not one.

  The flood of water stopped, the washcloth which had been plastered across my face was tugged free and I looked upon the face of my own personal hell as he peered down his nose at me. No doubt he thought this position was fitting. Here I was beneath his heel. Below him. At his mercy. Under his control.

  But I'd been wrestling control back from him for a long time now. Longer than he could ever fully comprehend. I'd been stealing it the day I'd taken that toy car to Spain when I was just a small child. I'd been claiming it every time I kept to my routine or played on my piano. There was music in my soul which he could never destroy, running thicker than blood in my veins.

  I gasped, unable to help it as I choked down air and my lungs spasmed with pain, black spots dancing before my eyes as I fought to stay conscious.

  "Where are the vaccines?" my father asked simply, smoothing down his shirt sleeve like the drops of water getting on his clothes were the biggest issue in the room right now.

  I was panting in and out, my breaths coming harshly. There was no way to hide that as my raw throat and angry lungs fought for air and rejected it just as forcefully. Everything hurt. Inside my body, inside my head. I was getting delirious, my brain overrun with too much and too little and still that one fucking question was all he ever asked of me.

  I looked him in the eye, let him see how fucking little I thought of him, how little I cared about him doing this. I let him see that he wouldn't break me, and I knew he understood.

  His lips twitched with what I was certain was pride and I was pleased to say I didn’t fucking want it. I didn’t want his pride or his contempt, his love or his hatred. I wanted nothing at all from him aside from his death. And if I survived this exchange, I would deliver it to him on a silver platter.

  The washcloth fell over my face again and my chest tightened in panicked anticipation of what I knew was to come as icy droplets of water fell from my hair into the trough beneath me while I listened to him scooping the water back into the buckets.

  I would endure this though. I would endure it for my brothers and most of all I would endure it for her.

  The water crashed down over me and inside my head I was screaming at the top of my lungs even while they burned, and I coughed and heaved uncontrollably. But not a sound left my lips in protest to the treatment. None would. I'd die first.

  In the dark I sought her out again and I could almost taste her on my lips, feel the brush of her soft skin against my fingertips. That was all I needed to find my strength as the torture continued. It was all I needed to get me through anything.

  I.

  Would.

  Not.

  Break.

  E ternal darkness this was not. There wasn't a light at the end of the tunnel or a heaven full of naked Tatums begging for my cock. There were no fluffy white clouds or even the burning gates of hell for that matter.

  No. Death for Kyan Rosco
e felt a whole hell of a lot like being trapped in a vat of searing agony while unimaginable pain rocketed through my left side and the sound of All The Small Things by Blink-182 assaulted my ears.

  Though I seriously doubted that was the soundtrack to hell and I got the feeling it might just be something a little more visceral as I listened to the lyrics and they drew me back to reality.

  The back of my skull was banging like a goddamn drum and I had to assume I'd hit it really fucking hard, but I couldn't afford my injuries any attention right now. I needed to push them aside and figure out what the fuck was going on.

  My eyes snapped open and I drew in a ragged breath as I squinted at my surroundings, taking in the clear plastic sheeting I was lying on over the cold, stone floor. The light overhead was bright and blaring off of white tiled walls and I spotted a little seahorse decal etched into them. There were no seahorses in hell. Fact. Squids clearly resided with the Devil, but there weren’t any of them in sight. So I definitely wasn’t dead. In fact, it looked like I was in a blandly decorated bathroom.

  A man was humming along to the music which came from a portable speaker balanced on the toilet and I turned my head slowly just as he tipped a large blue barrel of liquid into the bathtub, his back to me as he worked. I narrowed my eyes at another barrel which lay on its side by his feet, reading the label and gritting my teeth as I realised this motherfucker was pouring me an acid bath.

  Well fuck him. I didn't work this damn hard to paint my flesh in ink just to have it all dissolved in a fucking tub of sulphuric acid like some half rate gangster failure.

  I rolled onto my side, sucking in a sharp breath as the pain of my bullet wound daggered into me like a pure shot of hellfire. Luckily, Blink-182 were loud enough to drown out the sound of me pushing up onto my hands and knees as I grunted against the pain in my flesh.

  The asshole turned slightly and I stilled, waiting for him to see me, come at me, try and fucking finish me - but he didn't. He just leaned over to pour the last drops from his barrel of acid and offered a view of his profile for me. Which was all I needed to recognise the motherfucker who had laid his hands on my girl and fill me with a blinding need for vengeance.

  I shoved to my feet, a furious snarl escaping me as I almost blacked out from the pain in my body, but I refused to let that stop me.

  The asshole turned with a shout of alarm, grabbing a gun from his belt half a second before I collided with him.

  My weight sent him crashing back into the wall beside the bathtub and I snatched the wrist of the hand holding his gun, slamming it back against the tiles with a furious roar.

  He threw a punch straight into my side, agony tearing into me as he hit my bullet wound and stars burst to life before my eyes as darkness curtained my vision. Oblivion called for me and I told it to get fucked, throwing my forehead forward and smashing his nose, causing blood to splatter my face.

  I drove a punch into his gut and slammed his wrist against the tiles again, forcing him to drop the gun which skidded away across the plastic sheet.

  I wrapped my other hand around his throat, but his fist crashed into my side again and again and the pain was so blinding that I somehow found myself falling, my ass hitting the edge of the tub as I almost fell backwards into it.

  By some act of God, or the Devil, or just fucking luck, I managed to grab the edge of the tub, my boot slamming into his chest as he lunged at me and knocking him away from me again.

  I lurched after him, blood splattering the plastic sheet as I leaked worse than a faulty tap, but that didn't matter right now. What mattered was finishing this before my body gave up and I ended up taking a bath I'd never be getting out of.

  I shoved myself away from the tub, coughing as the acidic scent caught in my throat and grabbing something from the top of the toilet to smash his head in with. Unfortunately, it was a fucking roll of toilet paper which just bounced off of his face as he lunged at me with a goddamn hunting knife. Not just any knife either - that was my baby, and he was turning it on me like some two-timing whore.

  I ducked aside as he swung the blade for my throat, the backs of my knees hitting the toilet and making me fall back to sit on the closed lid and knock the speaker flying.

  I grabbed the toilet brush holder from beside me and managed to smash it against the side of his head as he lunged at me again, the shitty brush side swiping his face and making him curse as he stumbled aside.

  My body was screaming at me to stop, but I ignored it. No fucker told me what to do when I had my mind set on something, not even my own goddamn body and I slammed into his gut with my shoulder, knocking him from his feet. The knife went skittering away across the plastic sheet and the dumb motherfucker lunged after it, rolling away from me and exposing his back to me.

  I threw myself after him, blood smearing across the polyethylene from my wound and soaking through my jeans as it painted everything in red.

  I fell on him. Literally fell because I was pretty sure I blacked out again for a moment as a bolt of agony sliced through me so sharply that it stole my goddamn breath away. But the moment I blinked the darkness aside, my hand was fisting in his hair and I slammed his face down onto the tiles beneath us.

  He reached for the knife as his blood flew, his fingertips brushing against the hilt while I slammed his head down again and again.

  On the fourth strike, the tension went out of his limbs and I sucked in a breath through the pain that was consuming me, struggling to my feet as he twitched on the ground.

  His fingers were still touching the knife and I kicked it away, swearing at the movement before gritting my teeth and hauling him upright in front of me.

  I shoved him towards the bathtub, and he came to as I made him take a step over the slick plastic. He threw an elbow back at me but I was ready for him that time, blocking the strike with my forearm and kicking out the backs of his knees.

  He screamed as he crashed into the side of the bathtub, his hands gripping the edge of it as I tried to force him closer.

  For a moment, it seemed like my strength would give out and I'd fall back beneath his desperate attempts to escape me. But then I closed my eyes, the sight of him backhanding my girl flashing through my memory and a vengeful, furious beast awakened in my soul.

  With a roar of effort, I gripped the back of his shirt and hauled him up and over the edge of the tub, his screams like the sweetest song in the world as he saw the inevitability of his fate coming for him and fell face first into the bath of acid.

  I leapt back as the liquid splashed up around him, somehow avoiding every drop and he began kicking and flailing, desperate to get back out again before it was too late. But it was already too fucking late.

  I slipped in the blood that coated the polyethylene sheet but managed to stay upright before ripping it from the floor and holding it up between me and the bath.

  As the asshole scrambled upright, I slammed into him, knocking him back down into the acid and managing to place a hand on the back of his head as I forced him down beneath the surface.

  He kicked and bucked, but I kept my weight on him, the plastic sheet protecting me from the acid as I silently thanked Niall for teaching me about fucked up shit like this. Polyethylene was immune to sulfuric acid, at least short term like this. This guy's body though? Not so much.

  He finally stopped kicking and I stumbled back, falling on my ass as the energy was sucked from my limbs, my racing heart and the surge of adrenaline that had kept me going this long fading now that I'd won.

  But I couldn't just let myself pass out again. For one, my girl and my brothers needed me. And for two, I was pretty certain that I'd bleed out soon if I didn't do something to stop this fucking hole in my side from leaking.

  With a pained groan, I crawled towards the sink and managed to use it to heave myself upright. There was a mirror hanging above it and I looked at myself, taking note of how fucking pale I looked beneath the blood that coated my skin before ripping my ruined shirt off.
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br />   I looked down at the small, round hole in my side as blood ran freely from it and I bunched my shirt up to press down against it. I turned, looking for an exit wound in the mirror, but didn't find one. So the little metal fucker was still in there then. Good. I wasn't going to be taking it out myself either. I just needed to stop the bleeding for long enough to help the people I loved.

  I turned and looked around the bloodstained bathroom, spotting a bag by the door and limping towards it. Inside, I found the weapons that had been taken from us when we were captured, and the corner of my mouth lifted into a smirk as I took the blowtorch from the middle of the guns before turning to hunt for my knife.

  It had ended up in a corner and I stumbled towards it with more grunts of pain. I swear the bastard bullet hole hurt more now than it had while I was fighting for my motherfucking life.

  I managed to grab the knife, kissing it for staying faithful to me before returning to my spot by the sink.

  This was going to hurt like a bitch.

  I lit the blowtorch and lifted the blade of my knife to the flame, heating it and sanitising it in one. I was practically a full-blown surgeon. Who needed some fancy degree and years of training?

  When the blade was hot enough, I took a deep breath, pulled the bloodstained shirt away from the bullet hole and gritted my teeth.

  This was either one of the worst or one of the best ideas I'd ever had. Only one way to find out for sure though.

  I came damn near to screaming as I pressed the burning hot blade to my flesh, cauterising the wound and clenching my jaw so hard I was surprised I didn't bust a tooth.

  It hurt. No, fuck that, hurt wasn't close to what it felt like. It was an exquisite kind of agony reserved only for the foulest of demons who resided within the deepest depths of hell. And I must have been one of them because somehow, I'd earned their pain too.

  I held on for as long as I could before my fingers seemed to spasm of their own volition, the knife falling from my grasp and clattering loudly into the sink. I grasped the edge of the porcelain basin as I panted, my eyes clamped shut as I waited for the agony to fade and fought against the urge to black out again. The speaker was playing Numb by Linkin Park now and I couldn't help but wish for some numbness of my own to get me through this.