Chapter 24
Chapter Twenty-Four
My uniform clung to my sticky skin, sweat dripping down my back and face. Between the heat from the stoves, the room packed with people, and a bad air filter, the place stunk of body odor, smoke, and the scorching smell of iron.
My head pounded from the clanks of the machinery and hammering, drilling through the huge warehouse-size room, deep underground.
We were just above the prison level, still deep in the earth, though there was a tunnel big enough to fit trucks through at the far end of the massive room.
The tunnel leading out had an electrical gate and was guarded by men with machine guns and no doubt spelled and warded.
It looked like a place that would have stored military trucks and brought in supplies for the prison, never to be accessed by us inmates.
Istvan had different ideas for the space’s use.
Halálház used us as labor, but we were giving back to the prison, keeping it running and functioning. We hemmed our own clothes, made the meals, cleaned, and maintained. Yes, while being whipped and tortured. I won’t suggest Halálház was good; it was fucking hell. But this might be worse.
Istvan was using us to manufacture items.
For war.
One side of the enormous space was set up like a sewing factory.
Where—surprise, surprise—they put all the women.
They packed us in at rows of long tables with outdated machines.
Still divided by the color of our uniforms, we hunched over, stitching, hemming, pressing, and seaming together soldier’s uniforms. Ones with a new regime insignia.
Using the block letters HDF, it was laid out diagonally, each letter getting smaller, so it appeared like a triangle .
. . or an arrow, with a circle around it.
The other shoulder had the old Hungarian flag, the one used before the fall of the wall when humans ruled.
The dark green crisp uniforms felt very much a nod to the past communist history we fought so hard to end here.
A time my father feared and hoped would never come back.
Markos was trying to revive it, making himself the supreme leader.
The other side of the warehouse, where they put the men, was set up to make shells for bullets.
They produced thousands of iron cases, torturing the fairies who had to touch and move the slabs of iron before cutting. The machines were old, and most had to work by hand, shaping the metal after heating it in open fire stoves.
I noticed Albert and Hans were struggling to keep up. Albert was only in his fifties, but Hans had to be nearing his seventies. It was grueling work, even for the men who were young, fae, and in shape.
All of them had stripped off their shirts because of the intense heat.
Except one.
Kitty. The fact that she belonged with us didn’t get overlooked.
The guards taunted her, forcing her to do even more than the rest. The woman was fierce and strong, but it hurt to see her being degraded because of who she was.
I did notice Ash trying to stand between her and the guards, which seemed to earn him glares from her.
For all I knew, Kitty could out sew us all while people like Birdie, Kek, and Zuz were bleeding from stitching their fingers instead of the fabric.
At least I had some practice from Halálház.
Rosie definitely knew what she was doing, and I noticed Nora and Petra trying to subtly help those around them catch on, as Ling had done for me.
Wiggling my aching ass, I arched my back, my head pounding from dehydration. We had already been working for five and a half hours with no breaks, and the single bowl of gruel didn’t last an hour into our hard manual labor.
“I’m sorry, is there a break time I didn’t know about?” Joska grabbed my ponytail, tweaking my head to look at him. “Did we say you could stop?”
“We, huh?” I snarled, glancing around at the other guards, half-fae. “For someone who claimed so strongly to hate fae and would kill them if he ran into one, you suddenly seem fine working with them.”
There are times I really wish I thought before I spoke.
Joska’s face turned deep red, his brutish appearance scrunching up with rage.
His hand clamped down painfully on my roots.
“Like you have room to talk, you fae-lovin’ bitch!
” He got within an inch of my face. “You think I want to be around these disgusting fuckers?” He spat, gripping my hair until my eyes watered.
“Markos is wrong about this. But he isn’t the only one with a plan.
This world will be purified. I will see to it,” he snarled, snapping my head forward.
My forehead cracked into the sewing machine, pain exploding through my skull, the impact drawing tears into my eyes.
My hand went to the source of pain, coming back red. Blood dripped from my machine.
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Birdie’s shoulders roll like she was getting ready to attack him. I glanced up, shaking my head at her. She would just make it worse.
“If I see one drop of blood on that uniform, you’re going to the hole,” Joska yelled at me, pointing at the red streaks on the knobs. Then he glanced up. “Back to work, all of you!”
Using my sleeve, I wiped the blood off my head and the machine, feeling nauseous and dizzy.
“How are you?” Rosie whispered next to me.
My head bounced in a reply, but it wasn’t her gaze I met down the table, it was a demon’s. Kek’s blue eyes met mine, and I could see the same response in hers.
Fuck, little lamb . . . we’re really back in hell.
Out of everyone at this table, she understood the most. There was no competition between the new fishes and the old, between Halálház and Věrh?za.
The torment was awful no matter what, but there is an even deeper level of horror when you’ve already gone through Dante’s inferno, barely making it out, and then finding you have to go through it again.
It doesn’t become old hat, especially when it’s a fresh nightmare with different obstacles.
You are more painfully aware of what you have to do to survive, the emotional darkness you will have to reach to cope.
I was a target in Halálház, and now I’m like a flashing neon sign in Věrh?za.
Though in my misstep, I couldn’t help but feel Joska slipped up, hinting at something.
He didn’t like the way Markos was taking things.
And I could see a faction splitting off if the General continued to work with the fae on his climb to the top.
Istvan always came off as a fae-hater, so why was he working with them?
Even more so, why were they working with him? What was each side getting out of this?
I knew I was missing something. Neither Boyd nor Zion were capable of a coup, but they were involved in it.
Glancing around, I noted the various fae and human guards. Even if I placed myself in danger, I had to get each side talking. The more I learned about Markos’ plans, the better.
Something tickled at the back of my neck, a buzz moving into my chest, tugging my attention to the doorway. Two sentries dragged in a man in a gray uniform, shoving him forward.
I knew instantly in my gut who it was, like I sensed him before he even entered the room, though it took my eyes a few moments to recognize the figure. His face was beaten, bruised, cut up, and swollen, but the familiar salt and pepper hair and bushy eyebrows connected the pieces together.
“Nagybácsi,” I whispered. The urge to run to him, to wrap my arms around him, pushed my legs off the bench. Quickly, I sat back down, knowing it would only bring more punishment for him.
Guards thrust him toward a machine, yelling at him to start working. He had been beaten so severely, he struggled to stand. Gaunt and despondent, he didn’t seem to be present.
I had to wonder how badly they had hurt him since he wasn’t actually human anymore. The magic running through him because of me would heal him quicker than normal.
Right under Istvan’s nose were the very things he hunted and was turning this world upside down for.
The nectar—me.
The result of the nectar’s power—Andris.
Through my lashes, I watched my uncle hobble to a machine.
Both Scorpion and Maddox subtly moved to him, helping him pick up the process, which made my heart ease a bit.
They adored him as much as I did, and I knew they’d protect him.
Still, it wasn’t just the physical pain I was concerned about—his grief from losing Ling had to be destroying him.
She was the love of his life. The reason he gave up his life at HDF and became the amazing man he was today.
I only knew the surface level of her, but my heart ached at her loss.
I kept expecting to turn my head and see her sitting next to me at the machines, nudging me along, as she did at Halálház.
“Five-minute water break,” Boyd yelled out across the warehouse, motioning at several huge buckets full of water. Each had one cup for all of us to use, which, with the new influx, had to be around nine hundred if not more. “There will be no talking. Get your drink and go back to your station.”
The lines formed fast, with no segregation, packing us in. I searched for my uncle, but couldn’t find him as Rosie and I clustered into a line, crowds forming in on all sides.
“Brex?” a voice whispered beside me, his blonde hair tied up as sweat poured over his ripped chest.
“Ash . . .” Even saying his name made me want to cry, to hug him so tight, feel the love of his embrace. But we kept our heads straight, the machine noises covering up our soft voices.
“You okay?” he muttered.
“Yeah, you?”
He dipped his head. “Warwick?” he asked.
My exhale and slight shake of my head was enough of a response. I had no clue, though deep down, I knew he was alive. I believed if anything happened to him, I would know, would feel it in my soul, that tremendous disturbance he would cause in the world by leaving it.