6. Verena
Verena
This isn't the first time I've woken up gagged and bound, tossed over a man's shoulder as he carried me to an unknown fate.
While the Huntsman descends cobblestone steps overgrown with ivy and thorns, my vision dips in and out of blurriness. All my old terrors claw their way back to the surface from where I buried them years ago.
You're sick. Let me go.
Hush, sweetling. Why would I let you go when I have you all to myself at last?
I don't know what the Huntsman did to me, but I'm drowsy as hell as he sets me down on a chair. He ties my wrists tightly behind it with a rough rope. My crown and veil are long gone as my head lolls to the side, eyelids fluttering.
From some long-distant plane, a door slams. That familiar mechanical buzzing sound fills my ears.
This will sting. Hold still and cry pretty for me.
Abruptly, the darkness holding me hostage drops away. I gasp as my head snaps upright. My heart thunders frantically inside my chest, cold sweat of panic dripping down my neck.
For a moment, all I can see is that basement from all those years ago. The wood pellet stove. The pictures of me pinned all over the wall. The steady drip of blood onto the cement floor as—
I shake my head to dispel that horrible memory. Then I take in my real surroundings, inhaling a deep breath of an old, damp, foresty smell.
I wasn't conscious during the journey here, but this looks like some kind of shadowy ancient dungeon reclaimed by nature.
A small natural waterfall pours steadily from somewhere in the ceiling into a small underground stream gurgling nearby.
Several large, deep puddles of water have formed around it, breaking up the rough-hewn stone blocks littering the ground between overgrown moss.
The sconces on the stone walls are unlit, but a bit of sunlight creeps in behind me from a half-collapsed tomb-like entrance, which I have to crane my neck to see.
At one end of this ruined dungeon is a massive cage made of thick, twisted metal and thorny vines as thick as trees. A few burgundy roses bloom along the vines, but many have wilted away to join countless dark feathers spilling out at the foot of the cage.
I can't see what's in the cage, but I feel it watching me as malicious energy permeates this dim room.
The Huntsman stands nearby, glowering with his impressive arms crossed over his chest. He still looks murderous, but says nothing.
Oh, god. What are my chances of making it out of this mess when the Huntsman is clearly an enemy to the evil queen now?
A cold male voice scrapes through the air from inside the cage.
"Remove the gag so I can hear her beg."
The Huntsman withdraws his knife. With a sneer on his handsome face, he cuts the gag in one swift movement. Clearly on purpose, he lets the blade drag across my right cheek, leaving a sharp sting behind that immediately starts to drip.
My stomach flips when he reaches for the broken gag.
"Wait, don't—"
Too late. Scarlet blood from my cheek has dripped onto his rune-covered hand.
I flinch, not wanting to see how the queen's blood will fuck up this guy. Despite what he's doing to me right now, I'm way too fragile to handle another head-melting incident.
But nothing happens.
"Go on, speak. After nearly a hundred years, it had better be a thorough plea for mercy," the voice in the cage warns.
I'm still staring at my blood on the Huntsman's hand. He doesn't bother wiping it off, just continues to look at me like I'm horse shit stuck to the bottom of his boots.
I don't get it. Why isn't it hurting him?
A clanking sound echoes inside the shadowy cage, like the unseen monster is dragging around heavy chains.
"Speak."
At first, I'm not sure I can, thanks to the painfully reminiscent fear clogging my lungs.
"A-a hundred years?" I finally rasp. "What happened a hundred years ago?"
The laugh from the shadows is cold. "Don't mock me. I hope you know, Reinhilde, that your reckoning will not be a swift one. One such as you, albeit powerful, has no place imprisoning a faerie."
There's a fucking faerie in that cage? That's who she's pissed off—one of the revered magical beings Merrick mentioned?
If I ever meet the real Rhinestone, I'll wring her neck myself. That bitch doesn't know how to pick her fights.
"However, in all the years this curse has constrained me, I have found no way to weaken it," the monster goes on.
"So I offer you a choice as to when you will suffer beyond mortal comprehension.
Release me now, and I shall wait until you are old and grey before exacting my wrath upon you.
Choose not to free me, and I will assume that killing you here and now will break your damnable hold over me at last."
He's like a game show host from hell, which makes me the contestant who's doomed no matter what option she picks.
I swallow hard. "Look, I don't know who you are, and I didn't imprison you. Sorry you went to all this trouble getting Thor over there to kidnap me, but I'm not the real Reinhilde."
Considering that I'm on the verge of hysteria from being abducted again, I'm proud of myself for explaining so clearly. A single beat follows where I almost hope my calm words did something for me.
"How disappointing. That's not even believable enough to be called crafty."
"I'm not lying."
"We both know your lips have known little else but lies and pricks."
Seriously, is nothing going to be easy for me in this fairy tale clusterfuck I somehow fell into?
"Okay, yes, apparently the real queen is a total maneater, and not in the fun femme fatale way. But I'm a completely different—" I start to protest.
The monstrous voice cuts in. "Tip her."
The Huntsman moves at once, delivering a swift, brutal kick to one of the chair legs to send me toppling. I'm in the middle of shrieking in surprise when my head is plunged into the ice-cold water of one of the deep puddles, my chin banging against a stone somewhere in the process.
Water floods into my mouth and up my nose. Reflexively, I try to force it out by coughing, but that just makes everything worse until I'm thrashing in the water, desperate to get air.
As soon as my lungs start to burn, the Huntsman yanks the chair back upright, leaving me coughing up water and shivering.
"I offer you the choice again," the faerie drawls. "Free me now, or die."
"You fucking—I told you, I'm not the queen!" I snap, my temper slipping through the lingering panic of nearly drowning.
"Your mannerisms have changed since we last met," the smoky voice notes before metal clanks again.
For a second, I'm worried I'm going to see what this horrific faerie looks like if he's approaching the bars, but the sound stops.
"But for all your tricks, you cannot escape my wrath—and as Wrath, I owe you the punishment you have earned through your sins against myself and so many others. "
"Except I didn't earn anything." I whip wet hair out of my face and spit out more water, dragging as much air into my sore lungs as I can. "Listen to me. You have the wrong woman. I'm not her. I've never done anything to either of you to deserve this."
The faerie sounds almost bored. "I doubt this northerner would agree. After all, you went back on your deal with him, and now his headless friend and all his headless kin are rotting in the earth."
Oh.
Oh.
So when that blond boy made that threat, he was talking about the Huntsman killing me.
I peer up at the silent, vengeful man beside me. Utter contempt is etched into his handsome face as he glowers down at me, a silent agreement with everything the monster just said.
"I'm sorry about your friends. Really, I am," I tell him, hoping he'll see how earnest I am. "But the real Reinhilde did that to them, and I'm not her, so—"
"Such pathetic attempts," the monster sighs. "Again."
I scream when the Huntsman pushes my chair over. Once more, I'm left to gurgle and hold my breath for as long as I can in the freezing, murky water of a massive puddle. They leave me under for longer this time—so long that my head fills with fuzzy fragments.
My heartbeat throbs in my ears along with that awful voice.
Do you see now why you should have done exactly what I told you to? You'll listen to my messages from now on, sweetling.
Just as my consciousness flickers, the world flips. I cough up water again and fight for oxygen, my head spinning.
"My patience is nearly gone, Reinhilde," that merciless voice warns.
I don't realize I've started crying until I have to sniffle before answering. My throat is raw.
"I-I'm not Reinhilde. I woke up as the queen yesterday, but I'm not her. I'm—"
"It would be more believable if you claimed you had no memories at all," the monster in the shadows scoffs. "Enough with the fake sniveling. Free me."
"I don't know how. I didn't imprison you!"
"I expected all manner of obstinate, theatrical lies from you, but this display is insultingly weak. Speed things up," he orders the Huntsman.
I hold my breath and brace myself to be knocked over yet again. Instead, the Huntsman speeds things up by reaching down to snap my left pinky finger where it's tied behind my back.
My scream is a lot more shrill this time as I struggle and rock in the broken chair.
"Motherfucker," I choke. "For the last damn time, I'm not the evil queen! I didn't behead anyone!"
That reminder only seems to stoke the Huntsman's vengeful anger.
"You did not hold the axe, yet their blood stains your hands alone," he growls. "So it shall be one broken finger for each innocent you slaughtered."
He reaches down again, and—
Snap. Snap.
Over and over. The rough screams ripping out of me hurt my throat until the pain in my burning, broken-fingered left hand becomes too much. I squeeze my eyes shut as more tears drip from them.
I want to go home.
I don't want to fucking be here.
But just like ten years ago, all the screaming is useless. I can practically feel everything all over again—the needles dragging across my skin. The cold barrel against my temple whenever I flinched.