Chapter 21 #2
My brain couldn’t allow any more thoughts and questions in, full of the trauma from the last hour.
Commotion rallied around me. I could see Andris wailing and clawing as they pulled him away from Ling’s corpse.
A soldier lifted Kek’s limp body, Lukas being dragged behind.
In my peripheral, Warwick bellowed for me, the vibration strumming inside like a violin string.
The guards dragged me away, my eyes going to the clothes and items being left behind.
The two most powerful objects in the world, the fae book and the nectar, were buried in the heap, discarded like garbage.
Five super soldiers hustled me out to the street, their forceful grips digging through my clothes, bruising my already burned and torn skin. My eyes opened wider. Just out of sight from the square, over six military trucks were parked at the curb, being filled with what was left of Sarkis’ army.
Captain Kobak perched himself on the back bumper of the middle one, dictating where to place the prisoners, purposely keeping some apart.
Kobak’s attendance didn’t surprise me. The six army-style trucks did. Istvan had three pre-war ones, which had been altered to work in the new world but were always breaking down. These were fae-made and much larger . . . and I had seen the model before.
When Warwick and I were escaping Killian’s.
“Bazdmeg.” Fuck. I muttered to myself. My body flushed as the truth of how deep Istvan was in unseating the Fae leader.
He took these from the palace. Might even have taken the palace over by now.
The fae wouldn’t stand for it. Istvan could fight the few dozens of us, but not the hundreds of thousands in this country.
He had to at least keep the appearance of the fae still being in control until he gained more power.
“Kovacs?” Warwick’s voice boomed through the mass, rotating my head to the side.
“Warwick!” I called back, desperately trying to find him through the condensed crowd. Though I couldn’t see him, I knew he was there. Even without our link, I could feel him. His presence tried to search for mine.
“No!” Kobak yelled, his attention over my head toward where I heard Warwick calling me. “He goes in that one.” Kobak pointed to the fifth truck. “General said to keep these two apart.”
The guards gripped me harder, to the point of extreme pain, forcefully pushing me toward the third vehicle, banging my knees into the metal bumper as they shoved me into the back of the truck.
“Slide back!” One ordered, cramming us in, while another came along, chaining us to the bench we were on. A few reacted to the metal touching their skin, their bodies almost going limp.
They were using iron.
If you were pure fairy or even half, it would render you inept. The purer you were, the worse it hurt. To Killian, it would be torture.
“Don’t bother to even think of trying to escape.” The guard barked at us. “The chains are iron and goblin made.”
Basically, we were all screwed.
My heart thumped, adrenaline being burned through like dried leaves. What the hell was happening? Where were they taking us?
Rosie was tossed onto the seat across from me, her face trying to hide the terror that was racking her body. Her burned and torn flesh was barely covered by the shreds of clothes she wore, mostly destroyed in the bombing.
“Well, look at what we caught.” A stocky guard leered down at her. Something about his voice grinding against my memory. “A kedvenc kirv?m.” My favorite whore. His knuckles slid over her cheek.
Recognition knifed my gut, remembering his ugly words about my friend. The guard, Kristof, who was at the market we tried to rob.
Rosie tried to jerk away, making him laugh.
“What’s wrong, kurva? Don’t you like me? I thought we had a really good time together.” Kristof’s hand cupped his pants, shoving it in her face. “Bet you’d like to suck on this again. Have you gagging as I shove it down your throat.”
“Hey!” I yelled, my cuff clanging loudly against the metal, trying to distract him. “Stop it!”
He didn’t seem to notice, pulling at her top, displaying her breasts.
“Don’t touch me,” Rosie sneered.
“Not what you said last time.” He crudely grabbed and twisted her breasts.
Rosie glared up at him, spitting in his face.
“Te kurva kurva!” You fucking whore! He clutched her chin roughly, slamming her head back into a metal bar that lined both sides of the covered truck bed. He fully grabbed her tits. “How about I show you some fuckin’ manners?”
“Stop!” I bellowed, others around me chiming in.
“Hey, knock it off, Kris.” A guard stepped up to the back with another capture. “General Markos is here. Don’t be doing stuff like this with him around.” Wait until he’s gone to assault her. I heard the implication clearly.
Kristof grabbed Rosie’s chin again, saying something into her ear before knocking her head again into the metal, then hopping out of the truck. His physique rolled with excessive aggression, puffed up and toxic, with some exaggerated sense of ego.
“Are you okay?” I asked her. She nodded blankly, covering herself up again.
“Not the first man like that I’ve dealt with.
” She responded distantly, not looking at me.
I could see her walls going up. The pain and abuse she had to live through, years of boxing it up so she could keep going on because so many men are insecure assholes who think by “putting a woman in her place,” they are somehow “real” men when all they are is weak and pathetic.
Though this little demonstration proved to me these soldiers weren’t robotic at all. They weren’t shut down, ready to take orders. They were over-aggressive, as if the medication was burning off or this was a bad side effect.
Two more were thrown in and shackled a few down from Rosie at the very end.
“Birdie,” I called to her.
Her head popped up, her blue eyes on me. Her physique was tight, ready to fight, her expression defensive, but her eyes stared at me with questions.
None I could answer, except this was my fault.
Though there was no accusation in them, more a what the hell should we do?
My head slightly wagged back and forth.
We couldn’t do anything. Not with so many we loved and cared about, separated between all the trucks and chained in as well.
Whatever was ahead of us, we had no choice but to see it through.
The rundown roads popped us around in the back like kernels, my wrists raw and bleeding as the cuffs dug deeper with every pothole we hit. I was trying to stay focused and alert, but the jarring journey rattled my already spinning head.
This night was going from bad to worse, and with every mile the caravan took us outside the city line, my stomach filled with acid.
Zuz and Wesley were also in my truck at the very end.
It was a mix of women and men, but they did a good job of keeping the more powerful ones separated.
I had a feeling Killian, Andris, and Warwick were being held with extra care.
Not that my uncle had any magic, but he held power with his people. One word, and we’d fight.
The truck shifted gears like it was starting to head up an incline. We had a brief glimpse as we rose higher, a quick look at Budapest below. The sparse lights in HDF and the fae side sparkled in the dark.
We had crossed the river and were heading into the mountains on the Buda side.
The fae side.
Fear beat my heart, and it felt like time lasted forever in this strange state, but it also went too quickly when the truck came to a rolling stop, the brakes squeaking under us. The other trucks halted in line behind us.
Wesley, Birdie, Zuz, and I instantly sat up straight, looking at each other. The night made it too hard to see, sharpening my other senses.
Truck doors slammed, voices talking, curt and loud, some even laughing.
“All right, stop fuckin’ around! Bring them in!” Kobak’s order howled through the clear, cold night. I could see fire lanterns being used outside the truck, suggesting there might be no electricity out here.
Adrenaline pumped back into my veins from the terror of the unknown.
Would this be where they killed us? A mass grave out in the mountains where no one would ever find us?
I wasn’t sure I was ready for what was coming, though I didn’t think Istvan would’ve kept us alive just to kill us miles away.
If he was keeping us alive, it was because what he had planned was the crueler choice.
A soldier jumped up into the bed of the truck, coming around with speed and efficiency, uncuffing the binds from the bar and manacling our wrists together.
“Let’s go! Let’s go!” Another one with a torch waved us to get out, his accent sounding Czech.
We stumbled out, and they quickly formed us into a double line, the fairies having trouble keeping upright because of the iron. Several guards were on either side, marching us forward.
I couldn’t feel the cold temperature, even as I shivered violently. My subconscious understood something I hadn’t yet. Or didn’t want to.
With the handful of torches, I could make out a tall building in front of us, the tiers and white limestone reminding me of a wedding cake.
Inhaling, I recognized it immediately, though I had never been here, only seeing pictures in books about Budapest.
The Elizabeth Lookout Tower. The highest point on János Hill, deep in Lord Killian’s territory.
My pulse tapped ferociously at my neck like morse code, air barely going in and out of my lungs. I understood what was happening, but denial was a strong force, gobbling you up with doubts and other explanations, anything to not face the truth.
A commotion from far behind me twisted my head. A man shouted, his voice familiar, but I couldn’t make it out. His pitch chilled me from the inside out, pricking at the dread clogging my throat as if they foresaw what was ahead.
“Move!” a sentry yelled, shoving me forward, my feet tripping over each other. They trotted us toward the tower, but instead of going up, they took us around to where it looked like new construction was going down . . . inside the earth.
Guttural terror stabbed my chest, ripping away my air. My limbs went stiff, freezing in place, even as people slammed into me from behind.
“Move it now!” A guard shoved me so hard, I hit the ground, the cement grating my palms, pain throbbing at my wrists at the impact.
“Get up!” He seized me, planting me back on my feet and propelling me down the long set of stairs, forcing each foot in front of the other, plunging us further into the mountain.
Down, down, down . . . there seemed to be no end.
I felt the shift in the air instantly, and this time I recognized it. The barriers were ripping away fae power and blocking magic from entering this space.
Frantic dread clawed up from the abyss, shredding through my airways, black spots dotting my vision.
I could feel it taking away my logic and understanding.
It would react without my say, take over as panic consumed me.
Cries from other hostages around me mixed with the desolate yells from deeper within the cave.
Echoes of scraping metal banged echoed around the tunnel we entered.
“No. No. No.” The single word repeated over and over in a chant, adrenaline spiking, my heart hitting so hard against my ribs, wanting to escape before it was too late.
My legs dipped, not able to stop the tears from rolling down my face, my head spinning so badly I knew I was having a panic attack.
Because I fully understood what was happening.
Where I was.
I had been through this before. I vowed to never come back.
I’d choose death over this.
A stocky man stood at the end of a tunnel, waiting for the new arrivals. Seeing him caused the ground to drop out from underneath me, making me grab for the wall to stay standing. The stocky man’s familiar eyes cut through the group, pinning on mine. A vindictive grin hitched up his scarred lip.
No. My head shook, making his laugh bounce off the walls. This can’t be happening. None of it made sense.
But here he was . . .
Boyd.
The guard from Halálház who assaulted and tormented me. The fae guard who worked for Killian.
“Look who’s back.” Boyd’s nasal voice pricked at my vertebrae, smugness beaming off him. “I was hoping our paths would cross again.”
Vomit pushed up the back of my throat, the darkness around my eyes spreading as cries and hollers from cages below felt like a drill in my spine.
Not again. This can’t be happening.
“Welcome, fishes.” Boyd held out his arms. “To the new and improved prison. One way in and no way out.”
“You think you would survive again?” Killian’s voice came fluttering back to me from a conversation we had. “There will be no escaping the new prison. I can guarantee that.”
“This is Věrh?za.” Boyd motioned behind him.
“The House of Blood.”