Chapter 25
Chapter Twenty-Five
Hell.
I never believed in it until I was put down here last time. It wasn’t some mythical place bad people went to after death. No. If hell was a place, it was right here on earth. Only real-life beings could inflict this kind of depravity and cruelty.
I longed for death in hopes of one moment of relief.
“Hold on, princess.” My sanity had curled onto itself, no longer differentiating reality from my dreams anymore. And I didn’t care. I needed him; his illusion gave me the one source of strength to keep breathing.
The pit was smaller than last time, arms shackled to my ankles so I could never fully stretch or move.
They left me in pitch darkness for a moment before white blinding light was pulsed so brutally, my retinas burned and my head pounded.
They filled the small room with relentless ticking noises or beeps, then loud piercing chilling sounds.
No rhyme or reason. No rest. No food. No relief.
“I can’t,” I sobbed.
“You can.” He touched my face, his blue eyes reflecting in the strobe light. He felt so real, as if he were really here with me again. That our connection was alive.
I let myself drown in the hallucination.
Time no longer mattered. The starvation eating at my mind emphasized the voices in my head. Věrh?za was chomping down on the cracks Halálház had already put in my foundation.
“You promised me, Kovacs.” My vision of Warwick tugged at my face to look up at him. Oddly, in my hallucination, he looked like he was barely holding on as well. His face was sunken, bruised, and worn. “Whatever it takes.”
“I’m trying.” I swallowed. Istvan had upped the mental torture, and I was also a lot more human this time.
My strength to keep fighting, no matter how much I wanted to, was lowering with each passing moment.
I was ready to give over to it . . . either death or insanity, whichever one came first and took me away from the suffering.
“Try harder,” Warwick muttered fiercely.
“You are the only thing keeping me going.” His forehead touched mine, his timbre almost vulnerable.
“Remember, we don’t play by normal rules.
We make our own.” My lids shut with the sensation of his skin, the feel of his hair and breath across my face as his deep voice rumbled into me.
The pain eased; the nightmare stopped when he was here.
“Right here . . . this is how we survive. You and me. How we push through and live, sotet démonom.”
I nodded, leaning into his mirage, letting myself feel the moment of peace he gave me. Though I knew I was holding onto a thread.
It wasn’t long before my delirium stopped conjuring him up. The voices no longer rattled in my head, tucking me away from the torture. I stayed curled on my side, staring at nothing.
Void of life.
Anesthetized to everything.
I didn’t even move when the door did finally open. My senses were numb, my mind ignorant of what was real and what was not.
“So, how was your second time staying here?” Boyd’s stocky figure filled the doorway. “You must have enjoyed it because you stayed an extra two nights this time.”
Somewhere in the back of my head, I grasped I had been down here at least five days then.
Five days and only five times I was dragged out to pee and given a half cup of water before being thrown back in, shackled up in a painful ball.
The moment of relief when I was unchained to pee was more excruciating when they locked me back up again, my muscles and body screaming in agony.
The moment of blissful silence in my ears ripped away again.
Boyd’s boots struck the floor, strolling to me. “Look at you in no hurry to leave. You want to stay longer?” He bent over, unlocking the binds latching my wrists to my ankles. “I’ll put a note in your file to up the ante next time. Don’t want you to get too comfy here.”
There would be no next time.
More men shuffled in, picking me up.
“You smell like shit and piss.” Boyd waved his hand by his nose. “Toss her into the shower. The bitch soiled herself.”
Flinching at their touch, I was hauled up the stairs by two guards, my senses so fried I couldn’t register anything. Even as they dragged me to the shower room, tore the sullied uniform from me, and shoved me under icy water, yelling at me to scrub myself, I felt nothing.
I numbly moved as they berated and taunted me. My non-response seemed to trigger them more. They needed to feel my fear, my humiliation, my subservience to their frail egos.
I did not give it to them.
People considered “breaking” a sign of weakness.
I disagreed. Bending meant you could be molded and shaped into something else.
I may be full of dents, scars, and trauma, but whatever they did to me, they could not bend and form me into their idea.
They turned me rigid. Titanium. I broke; I did not bend.
I snapped; I did not bow. They did not twist and cast me into something different.
My broken pieces could be forged together. Made stronger.
“Let’s go!” one yelled, tossing a clean uniform at my naked body. I dressed and followed them out. My legs trembled, but I forced myself to stand on my own.
The cells were filled, but most were awake, appearing dirty and haggard, suggesting it was late, not early. Everyone was in for the night after a long day in the factory.
As the guards took me back to my cell, a tingle climbed up the back of my neck, my head jerking to the side, catching movement on the opposite side a story above mine.
A breath caught in my lungs, a spark of life burning through the deadness inside.
Warwick.
Our eyes caught instantly, like we knew the other was there. Though I was seeing him for the first time in a week, his image had been with me so much in the hole, it was like we had never been separated.
His hair was wet as well, and he was wearing a clean blue uniform. He was healed, but appeared weary and slightly gaunt in his face. I probably looked worse than a walking skeleton, my ribs already sticking out again.
The guards put him into a cell as my own guards shoved me into mine—straight across and one level down.
Istvan’s cruelty at his finest. Putting us as far apart as possible while still being able to see each other. We could watch from afar whatever happened to the other one and not be able to do a thing. Beatings, torture . . . rape.
Our doors clanked shut, the guards strolling away as we continued to stare at each other. My sanity still teetering, I thought I could feel him behind me, his presence reassuring me, asking if I was okay.
“Lights out!” a guard yelled, and the place went dark. Only a few fire bulbs eased some areas like a nightlight, but I could still recognize his outline, feel his eyes on mine like hands brushing at my skin.
“We will find a way out of here, princess.”
Maybe I was no longer completely sane, or Warwick had such a command, even without the bond, to push at my walls and barrel in.
Eventually, he pulled away from the bars, disappearing into the shadows of his cell.
“We will, Farkas. And we’ll kill every last one of them as we do.” I muttered to myself before crawling down on my blanket.
I was far past hunger. Far past simple hate or rage.
It bubbled deep inside, the heat welding my pieces back together.
Forging for a battle that was no longer hinting on the horizon or merely whispers in the dark.
It was here.
“Is she a dead fishy?” A voice stirred me.
Chirp!
“Yeah, check to see if she’s breathing.”
The need to sneeze tickled my nose, pulling me further from the one moment of peace I’d had in a week.
I had fallen right to sleep, my body exhausted, but dreams kept jerking me back awake, filled with piercing sounds that weren’t there and voices calling for me.
Anxiety kept me from truly letting go, the nightmare of my torture visiting me every time I shut my eyes.
Chirp!
“You sure?” An object poked at my cheek, creating a groan from my lips. “Yep, you’re right. It’s alive.”
Chirp.
“You are not always right. Who knew how to get us here?”
Chirp!
“Well, okay, you . . . but who knew how to get us down here?”
Chirp!
“Okay, well, yes, it was you too . . . but who was the one to dress us in these fabulous outfits?”
Chirp.
“That’s right. Don’t you forget it.”
My head pounded as my lashes pried apart. I wanted to vomit, to go back to sleep and not feel any pain, but the awareness that my two friends were here yanked me out of the depths and actually put a smile on my face.
“Opie,” I muttered, a piece of my heart feeling right again.
Chirp! Chirp! Middle fingers flew into my face.
“Yes, hello to you, Bitz.”
Chirp! She huffed, flipping me off again.
“Missed you too.”
“Fishy!” Opie sang with glee. “So happy you are okay. I have no idea how you survived this long without us. My little broomstick—you can’t seem to go a day without a life and death event.”
Tell me about it.
Shockingly, no bright or inappropriate ensembles assaulted my eyes. Today he wore a dark wool cloak with a hood, Bitzy in a smaller version, as if they were trying to go unnoticed. Which was all kinds of wrong.
“What’s with the outfits?” I frowned, sitting up.
“We couldn’t be spotted.” Opie peered around as if at any moment someone would jump out. “Ex-master Finn is here somewhere. If I’m caught here, well, let’s say being rat bait wouldn’t be the worst ending.”
“What?” I blanched. “You’d be killed?”
“Worse!” Opie’s face crumbled, his voice pitching with terror. “He’d make me clean. Forever.”
A snort caught in my throat.
“My punishment would be eternal servitude.”
“And that’s different from before?”
“I’d be condemned to wear a prisoner’s outfit like yours .
. . and can I say, Fishy, your skin color is blending a little too well with this putrid light gray.
Not doing you any favors.” He twirled his hand from my uniform to my face.
“I’m mean, look at my complexion. Yes, I look good in any color, but dreary hues are so awful and don’t get me started on the fabric.
Ugh, my skin itches at the thought.” He shivered.
“No matter what, you sparkle on the inside.” I tried to smile, leaning back against the wall.
“That was my theme for today.” He grabbed the cloak, yanking it open. “Ta-da!”
“There it is.” I covered my eyes, a chuckle bobbing in my chest.
Under the cloak, Opie had on camo booty shorts with leather straps crisscrossing all over his torso, a studded choker made from bullet shells, and the ends of his mohawk dyed pink. I had no doubt the camo came from the uniform of an HDF soldier here, and the shells came from the factory upstairs.
“But I have to hide my fabulousness today, which is just so heartbreaking. My creations weren’t meant to be hidden from the world.”
“Finn is here? You’ve seen him?” I asked.
“Oh, he’s here.” Opie huffed.
Chirp! Bitzy flipped off the air.
“How did you get in?”
“We almost didn’t. This place is spelled as tight as Master Finn’s ass.” Opie’s happy mood plummeted, a scowl on his face. “But if wild rats can get in, so can we.”
“What about locks?” I sat up higher. “Can you open the ones here?”
“This place is extra, extra spelled. We struggled to even find it. But even if I could, fishy, what are you going to do?” He motioned to the guard station and the dozens patrolling the catwalks.
“There are hundreds of locks and spells from here to the outside. We had to scurry in through a million drainpipes to get down here.” He pointed his finger at me.
“Which shows how much we love you. Do you even want to know what is in those? My anxiety went through the roof. They are filthy and disgusting. And I did not want to clean them one bit. Nope, not at all.”
Opie was right. Even if he could unlock my cell, where did it get me besides back to the hole?
There were too many guards, levels, gates, and barricades between me and the outside.
Plus, getting everyone I loved at the same time?
Pretty much impossible. The instinct was to get out any way you could, but I needed a plan.
We might get one chance at it. It needed to be exact.
A loud buzz shrilled through the prison, the lights for the day going up full blast.
“Time to get up, kurvas!” I heard Boyd yell from the guard station. “Today is gonna be extra special.”
The excitement in his voice meant nothing good for us.
The doors clicked open, allowing us to step out and head to the bathrooms.
“Ahh, it’s like we’re sending her off for the first day of school again, Bitz.” Opie flapped a hand by his eyes. “Our little girl is growing up so fast.”
I glared back at them as I moved to the door.
Chirp! Bitzy double flipped me off, her way of saying, “Fuck you, but have a good day.”
“Have fun, fishy. At least try to play well with others.” Opie waved as I strolled out, heading down the walkway.
My eyes peered up, finding Warwick within his bustling row, his head above most. When our eyes met, I had this sense he had been in my dreams last night, too, giving me the only moments of rest.
“Whatever it takes, Kovacs,” I could almost hear him say because, like me, I knew he could sense something was coming. A deep foreboding sunk into my gut.
No matter what hell we thought we were in, this place hadn’t even begun to unleash its suffering on us yet.