Chapter 52 Generational Ties
Sapphire
“Jack…” I struggle to form the name.
Niklaus looks between us, confused.
“Yes?”
“Jack Ambrose?” I clarify.
His bright green eyes scroll over my face, my neck, my hands pausing over my tray. He’s trying to figure out if he knows me. Is my face familiar? Have we had encounters before? But he comes up blank.
“I’ve kept my last name a secret.” Jack leans across the table, whispering, but close to losing his temper. “I haven’t even told Sophia, my oldest friend.”
I sit up, unsure how I should even approach this. I open my mouth, but there aren’t any words to articulate how I know him.
“You work for them, don’t you?” Jack pounds his fist on the table, then points at me. “The brothers sent you. It’s not enough what you psychopaths did to my brother, is it? You had to dig deeper into my family tree, huh? I swear to God, if you go after any of the Ambroses, I’ll—”
“I’m a witch!” I spit out. Not the best lie, but not the worst.
Sophia laughs, then bows her head as she realizes I’m serious.
“A witch,” Niklaus repeats, angling himself to face me with a polite smirk. “Do tell.”
“I can summon knowledge about people. I am not a spy.”
Jack scoffs. “That’s a bullshit lie an infiltrator would tell.”
I give them both a once-over. I’m so confused. None of this makes any sense. How far back did I go? Are my parents even alive yet?
“I don’t understand. I thought you both were born in the Chandelier City.
” I shake my head, trying to piece together everything I know about my grandparents.
Chekiss has been the only grandparent I’ve ever known.
I suppose I’ve never really given much thought to Jack and Sophia, other than a few brief mentions from my mother.
Sophia and Jack exchange a look, smiling sheepishly.
“We have always dreamed of escaping this place. Traveling to Dementia. Starting a new life. But no one has ever escaped the Vexamen Prison.” Sophia shrugs, as if she’s accepted her fate.
“And you two haven’t married yet?” I ask.
“No. Goodness!” Sophia laughs, taking another spoonful of soup past her lips. “Jack has always been a big brother to me.”
“Shouldn’t you know that if you’re a witch?” Jack challenges, still glaring at me skeptically.
“I didn’t mean to each other. I know you will never marry Sophia. But you haven’t found a wife?”
Violet. One day, you will marry Violet.
Jack shakes his head.
“Jack is very jaded about the idea of love and marriage,” Sophia clarifies.
“And children?” Niklaus says.
Jack looks down to his clasped hands on the table. He shakes his head again without a word.
Hmm. That’s interesting. He never wanted to have my mother and Aunt Scarlett?
“And you, Sophia?” I add.
Her high cheeks turn a deep maroon. “I’d love to have children and a loving husband one day. Two boys and a girl. It would be lovely to have the boys first so they can protect the little princess.”
My heart throbs.
“So, you two were born here? How long have you been imprisoned? What did you do to get in here?” I can’t keep up with the questions producing endlessly in my brain. And most importantly, how will they eventually end up back in the Chandelier City?
Sophia perks up to answer, but Jack places a firm hand on her shoulder.
“Not another word. I’m still not convinced you aren’t working for the brothers. Until you prove otherwise, no more questions.”
I want to keep pushing, but Niklaus pats my thigh, giving me a reassuring nod.
“Fine. Would you two mind filling us in on how to survive here then?” he says, changing the subject.
Jack lifts a bandage on his forearm, checking to see how it’s healing so far. I only catch a glimpse of the wound, but it’s deep and bright red. Still fresh.
“There is a House of Jester Night,” he says with mock excitement.
“A what?”
Sophia explains patiently, “It’s an event for the Vexamen Breed soldiers a couple nights a week. They send the inmates to the grand hall with a stage…and make us do awful things to entertain their twisted army.”
Niklaus and I exchange a look.
“You mean Fun House Night?” I ask.
“Never heard of that,” Jack replies.
Wow. We’ve traveled so far back, much has changed.
“Do you know what the theme is tonight?”
Sophia and Jack place their guesses to things I haven’t heard of from our parents. Hangman’s Sword, Screaming Fortune Wheel, Organ Grinder, Black Widow Show, Marionette Theater.
“What’s Marionette Theater?” Niklaus asks.
“They take a female prisoner who has too many strikes against her and place her on the stage alone. A long line of male inmates takes turns performing oral sex on her for the crowd. Whichever man brings her to orgasm gets exempt from the next three House of Jester Nights.”
“You’re fucking kidding me,” I choke.
“It’s sickening to watch,” Sophia agrees. “If the sentinels aren’t looking my way, I usually just place my hands over my ears and pray until it stops.”
“Sentinels make you watch?”
“You’ll be forced to take her place if you’re caught closing your eyes.”
I’m going to be sick.
Niklaus pushes his tray away, cursing under his breath in revulsion.
I watch the way he traces the lines over his knuckles.
A simple gesture he only does when something deeply troubles him or makes him nervous.
He does it over and over again as he works something out in his mind with a forehead ridged with tension and clenched jaw.
“Víentezech püvuiz.”
Jack and Sophia diverrt their eyes back down to their trays as a thunderous male voice whooshes over my shoulder. The warm breath is stained with the heady scent of pork and tobacco. I wrinkle my nose and refuse to turn around.
“Or is that not your native tongue?” the rumbling voice speaks again, seeming to command obedience with its baritone.
“Correct,” I respond curtly.
“You may look upon me when I speak to both of you.”
I turn in my seat before Niklaus does. He takes a long sip of his water, then rotates slowly.
The man before me is a thousand-year-old oak tree.
I make eye contact with his belt buckle made of leather and solid gold.
His muscles are that of a statue, protruding and made of stone from the finest sculptress.
And I have to crank my head to stare straight up at him, at least six feet and eight inches from the ground.
“Up. Now.”
I examine the weapons of gold and diamonds hanging around his waist. The man does not wear a shirt. It’s all leather straps and weapons cutting off the circulation in his enormous pectoral muscles.
“Have we done something wrong?” I ask.
The man lowers himself to eye level, boring a set of strange, bloodshot eyes on me. Shiny, bronze skin, full red lips, and hair in a stunning display of braids twirled around a metal headdress on his head.
“You tell me. I do not have any documentation of your arrival. It’s as if you two have leaked in with a breeze through our ventilation system.”
I can’t help but have the urge to cower. His voice is a cathedral, low and ominous, rolling over me like a death sentence.
“We should not be here, you are right. We have broken no laws,” Niklaus responds.
The brawny, god-like man slides his glare to Niklaus, giving him a judgmental once-over.
“Follow me. Willing or unwilling,” he orders.
“Are you letting us go?!” I shove my tray to the side and stand excitedly.
“Now!” he roars, silencing the room.
My adrenaline fires spikes of energy through my spine. Before it’s too late, I lean across the table to Jack and Sophia.
“If we do not meet again, please know that you will both marry. You will both have children. They will be twins. And you will love them dearly.” I savor that little spark of hope that gleams in their eyes. “It…it was so special for me to meet the two of you.”
A hand catches on the inside of my elbow, and I’m towed away from our table.
Chains are hooked and latched on our iron collars.
Our large friend has an impenetrable grip as he hauls us down the long corridor where the music is louder and the stench of human feces and rusty metal is stronger.
I curl my fingers on the inside of my collar, trying to soften the strain as I’m practically dragged across the brimstone floors.
I think about how I’m going to explain to my mom that I met her father in prison.
That what she knows about him isn’t the whole story.
He wasn’t born in Dementia. He lived in Vexamen for more than half of his life.
And Sophia? I wonder if my father knew where she was really from. I wonder if he ever told my mother.
“You speak if you’re spoken to.” The man looks down at us from over his shoulder, curling his lip in disgust. “You disobey a command, I rape your woman and chop your body into tiny pieces.”
I release a startled breath, sticking my jaw out. He’s looking at only Niklaus now, and his expression is unwavering and absolute.
“Yes. Fine. We just want to leave,” I say quickly, before Niklaus can piss this guy off.
The doors open, grinding against the ground, and welcoming a gust of dusty air that sends the stray hairs on my face flying back.
At first glance, I think the figure greeting us in the grand sitting room is a man based on the same lofty height as our escort, but it is not.
The person smirking and nodding at our guard is a rather beautiful woman.
“Désvou niéz?” The woman nods to us, batting her wispy, long eyelashes.
“Yes. But they cannot understand you,” our escort replies, softening a bit for the woman.
She lowers her pointed chin, scrutinizing me with deep-set eyes, and enlarged pupils. Her manicured fingers caress glossy lips, then they return to her belt of gold daggers.
“Do you want my mate to touch you, scrawny woman?” she asks.
“St?evesx, my love. So jealous.” Our escort chuckles, shaking his head.
“No, thank you,” I say, biting my tongue.