Chapter Twenty-Eight #2
Ivan walked towards me slowly, his hands still clasped behind his back like we were discussing something pleasant instead of destroying what little hope I had left.
“You thought freedom would be that easy?” he asked calmly. “After everything I have invested in you?”
I couldn't breathe.
The road felt smaller. The forest darker, as though the entire world belonged to him.
Ivan stopped directly in front of me before gripping my jaw hard enough to hurt, forcing me to look at him.
“You disappoint me, Sabrina.”
Hearing my name nearly broke something inside me.
Nobody here used it anymore.
His thumb dug deeper into my skin as his expression darkened slightly.
“You still think someone will save you,” he said quietly. “You still think there is a life waiting for you outside these gates.”
The tears finally spilled over.
“There isn't.”
I shook my head immediately because he had to be lying. He had to be.
But Ivan only smiled again.
“That foster family of yours? They already replaced you.”
“No,” I whispered.
“Yes.”
The word came easily to him.
“They did not even search for you properly.”
Something inside me cracked then because, deep down, I believed him.
That was the worst part.
Ivan leaned closer, his voice lowering into something soft enough to sound almost kind.
“Nobody is coming for Sabrina Hart.”
I couldn't remember how to breathe.
Ivan finally released my jaw before stepping back and gesturing towards the open car door behind him.
“Get in.”
I stared at him for a long moment, at the man who had stolen my life and turned my hope into entertainment. Slowly, quietly, something inside me started dying.
I got into the car without another word.
Ivan smiled like he'd won.
Maybe he had.
***
A year changes people in ways you don't notice until you look back and realise the person you used to be is gone.
Not dead, just gone.
The basement was gone too. Ivan moved me upstairs months ago after deciding I'd finally stopped looking at doors like escape routes.
I think that was the moment he realised he'd broken something inside me.
Not completely. Completely broken things can't survive, and survival was the only thing he valued.
Now I lived in one of the rooms upstairs, though calling it living felt generous.
The room was small and empty except for a narrow bed shoved against the wall, a metal wardrobe and a sink that dripped constantly through the night. There were no mirrors. Ivan had made sure of that early on. He once told me mirrors made people hold onto identities they no longer deserved.
So Sabrina Hart disappeared piece by piece instead.
Now there was only Diabola.
That's what they called me here, what he called me.
The first time Ivan used the name, I ignored him. He beat me until I tasted blood every time I swallowed. The second time, I answered immediately.
You learned quickly in that house.
The metal mask covering the lower half of my face felt heavy tonight. It always did after hours of wearing it. At first, the edges had cut into my skin until my cheekbones bruised beneath the steel, but eventually my body adapted the same way it adapted to everything else there.
Now the weight barely registered.
The polished black metal curved over the lower half of my face, cold against my skin and secured tightly behind my head with leather straps. Ivan said people feared what they couldn't fully see. He liked turning people into symbols instead of humans.
A weapon didn't need a face.
The mask only came off at night, when I was alone.
The training room smelled of sweat, blood and gunpowder.
Those smells clung permanently to the walls, soaked so deeply into the concrete that I didn't think they would ever disappear.
Shadows stretched across the room beneath the weak overhead lighting while I stood silently near the wall, my hands clasped behind my back exactly the way I had been taught.
A boy knelt in the centre of the room in front of me.
He looked older than me, sixteen maybe. Blood dripped steadily from his split lip onto the concrete floor while one side of his face swelled purple from bruising. His breathing was uneven and shaky in the quiet room.
He kept glancing at me, at the mask.
People always stared at the mask.
Fear flickered across his face every time he looked at me, and I already knew what he saw when he looked at me.
Not a girl, but something worse.
That was what Ivan wanted.
That was what he had built.
The sound of slow clapping broke the silence a second later.
My entire spine straightened instinctively before I even fully registered him entering the room.
Ivan noticed things like that.
He noticed everything.
“Good,” he said smoothly, his dark eyes flicking towards me with approval as he stepped further into the room. “Much better.”
I stayed silent because speaking without permission was dangerous there.
Ivan circled the kneeling boy slowly, his hands clasped behind his back like he was taking a casual evening walk instead of inspecting someone bleeding onto the floor.
“Do you know who this is?” he asked conversationally.
The boy swallowed hard enough that I could hear it from across the room.
“N-No.”
Ivan smiled slightly before gesturing towards me.
“This is Diabola.”
The name didn't feel strange anymore when I heard it.
That should probably have terrified me more than it did.
Ivan crouched beside the boy suddenly, gripping his jaw hard enough to force his head upwards.
“Do you know what makes her special?” he asked softly.
The boy shook violently.
Ivan's smile widened.
“She survives.”
The room fell quiet again.
Ivan finally turned his full attention towards me, his gaze dragging slowly across every scar visible above the mask. There were more now – across my arms, my shoulders, and one near my collarbone where a blade had slipped too close during training.
I didn't react to pain properly anymore.
Ivan liked that.
“You were weak when I found you,” he said calmly, almost thoughtfully. “Crying in a basement. Waiting for people who never wanted you.”
Something twisted in my chest.
“You remember that?” he asked.
“Yes.”
My voice sounded different now, flat and cold, exactly the way he had trained it to sound.
The mask changed it too, making every word sound less human.
Ivan looked pleased.
“And who are you?”
The answer came automatically.
“Diabola.”
“Again.”
“Diabola.”
No hesitation. No emotion.
Because Sabrina Hart was dangerous to remember.
Sabrina cried. Sabrina hoped. Sabrina wanted someone to save her.
Diabola survived.
That was all.
Ivan finally released the boy before standing again.
“See?” he said lightly. “Even broken things can become useful.”
The boy looked terrified.
Fear kept people alive here.
Eventually, Ivan left the room after giving more instructions I barely listened to. The second the door shut behind him, silence settled heavily across the space.
The boy still refused to look directly at me.
I didn't blame him.
I probably looked terrifying now. Black clothes, black gloves, the metal mask and the scars. There had been a time when I would have hated becoming this.
Now I didn't really feel much of anything at all.
Hours later, I finally returned to my room. Only then was I allowed to remove the mask. Only when I was alone. Only when no one else could see me.
The metal was freezing beneath my fingers as I undid the straps behind my head. The second the mask came away from my face, the skin underneath ached from being trapped beneath cold steel for hours.
I placed it carefully on the desk beside my bed.
Even sitting there motionless, it looked cruel, like something designed for a monster.
For a long moment, I stared at my reflection in the darkened window nearby.
I barely recognised the girl staring back at me.
Hollow grey eyes. Sharp cheekbones. Scars.
There was nothing left of Sabrina Hart in her face anymore.
Just Diabola.
A monster Ivan Volkov had built with his own hands.
My food sat untouched on the desk beside the mask, already cold by now. I sat down slowly and ate in silence because hunger wasn't optional there.
Nothing was.
Outside the window, snow fell softly.
I watched it until my food was cold, trying to remember what freedom felt like.
But the memories already belonged to someone else.