Regal Queen by Ivy Mason

Two

I took in deep,even breaths as I struggled to make my way towards the small ice box in the corner of the room. Opening it, I leaned inward, a small smile gracing my face at the feel of the cool air. It was a small relief, but appreciation for minor things in my new world was essential. After a few moments, my fingers grappled with a plastic bowl, pulling out the last few blocks of ice. Wrapping them in a washrag, I winced as I put them to my cheek.

“You okay?" The gruff voice of Ivan interrupted the pain pounding in my head.

Sighing heavily, I nodded, plopping down in the lone chair on the room. “Yes."

Every day, Dimitri drug me from this room, kicking and screaming down the stairs that led into the cold basement. It was so frigid down there, I could barely stand to walk down the long corridor, passing rows of cages filled with men and women.

Pale and haunched over, they shook with the cold, their dead eyes staring but unseeing.

These were the army of dead that Dimitri employed, wanted for their secrets, or possibly merely for his amusement.

It was a tactic used to scare me, of course. If I didn’t give him what he wanted, then soon I would be in one of those cages. However, instead of it scaring me, I searched for Knight, Coulter's goon who'd ran after us after the shooting began. Somehow he’d made it through them unscathed and his valiant effort to rescue was met with a gun whip to the head.

As soon as we entered Dimitri’s estate, they'd separated us, and I hadn't seen him since. But I never stopped looking for him, feeling guilty because it was because of me that he was here.

If he hadn't come running after me, he'd probably still be bathing in the Vegas heat.

And, every day, the bodies became a blur as his face escaped my notice.

I knew I was lucky.

I had a somewhat decent room, with my own dirty mattress on the floor and a thin blanket. There was an old, wooden table and chair, and even a small fridge where I stored what little food they gave me. The ground was a cold, dirty concrete, the walls made from a grey, concrete brick.

It was no resort, it was a thousand times better than the men and women held in the cages. I even shared it with someone, so I didn’t spend these months in solitary.

Ivan was a scientist Dimitri had kidnapped. HIs drug was the one currently being pushed in the markets, and even though Dimitri could make it without him now, Dimitri kept him prisoner so that he wouldn't share the formula with anyone else.

It had been two months since I'd been here, and I'd discovered the real reason why Dimitri bought me.

He wanted to know Aster's location.

I still didn't know why she was so important to him, but there must be some reason why I'd been taken prisoner and then tortured for information about her.

I wasn't an idiot.

Keeping my mouth shut was the only thing keeping me alive.

That was my true value. It had never been my virginity, as I'd once thought, but the information inside my head.

Something that even my father couldn't give him.

Aster's father had insisted on it, that the journey to visit her kept secret from him, and now I was grateful for it. Because I genuinely believed that my own father would give that inforation up, and he wouldn't even need to be tortured for it.

Just offer him enough money, and the information was yours.

But I wasn't like him.

I didn't care what Dimitri did to me.

Even if he locked me up in the ice cold basement without a blanket.

Even if he canned my feet and cut me so much that I bled out on his floor.

Even if he ripped off all my fingernails and cut off my toes, I wouldn't give up my sister.

The secret would die with me.

I wasn't worth much in this world but I was loyal, and guarding her location was so ingrained in me, I would die before I gave her up.

Ivan stood from the mattress on the floor and came towards me, his lips curled down in a frown. Here," he grunted, his clear blue eyes betraying his disapproval as he waved his hand at my feet. "Put them up. I'll take care of them."

I didn't have the energy to disobey him.

I placed them on the wooden crate, still keeping the melting ice on the cut on my face, and Ivan grabbed the ointment he'd managed to smuggle in through the guards and kneeled before me.

I winced as the ointment burned through my cuts but Ivan only pressed his lips in a firm line, tenderly rubbing it in. "You should give them what they want."

He had a deep Russian accent and sometimes I struggled to understand him, but this time, his voice was clear and filled with judgment.

I didn't answer him; we'd had this conversation so many times it was becoming redundant.

Instead, I closed my eyes, biting down on my wince as he spread the ointment over the pads of my feet. After a few minutes, he finished, and then his hand went to my ankle and he squeezed it.

"Rose."

I opened my eyes to look at him. There was something in his eyes, something different. A fire I hadn't seen before.

"You are good person." His accent was heavy on the word ‘good.’

I shook my head. "No, not really.”

"Yes." His voice was a growl, his expression stern. His long, white hair and bushy beard made him look even more wild. “Good person."

I could only stare up at him; I didn't know what else to say. I suddenly wondered things about him I'd never allowed myself to wonder before. A knot formed in my throat. "What about you, Ivan? Are you a good person?”

"I am…” He tilted his head, thinking and waving his hand. “So-so. But not like you."

I shook my head, putting my feet on the floor to place my hand on his shoulder, squeezing it. “You take care of me. We all do what we can, and nothing more."

He kept my gaze and, for the first time since I'd been here, a glimmer of hope shimmered in his eyes. Then he nodded, pulling back, and my hand fell to my side. "Yes, you're right. We do what we can." When I didn’t answer, he stood, wiping his hand on his dirty pants then screwed the top back on the ointment. “Keep your feet off the floor, it will only make things worse."

I put them back on the crate and he turned, opening the fridge to look at the meager food inside. After a second, he pulled out a few pieces of bread and some baloney. He began to make two sandwiches, not looking at me but continued speaking. "Rose, there is something I must tell you."

My eyes narrowed in on him and suddenly my heart picked up. All this… weird behavior was leading to something. "What?"

“There is something I noticed," he turned, crossing the room back to me. He handed a sandwich to me, then scooted the crate closer, sitting down and biting into his sandwich, not speaking for a moment, and I realized that he was trying to keep up a facade.

There were video cameras in our room. I'd destroyed them several times but they kept replacing them, no matter how many times I smashed Ivan’s big boot against them, so eventually I'd given up.

I leaned backwards, my ears prickled but pretending I was only interested in my sandwich.

After a moment, he spoke again, mumbling quietly into his sandwich. If I hadn't been listening out for it, I would've missed his words.

"Every night, there is a flicker in the lights. At the same time, every time.” He frowned. “I think is the same time.” His chest hitched as his eyes locked on me. “I think this is a sign."

I drew my eyebrows together in confusion, whispering. “That’s just how they are.”

He shook his head. “I’ve been here much longer than you, it never happens like that. Two times, each time.” His face was serious, his eyes betraying his solemnness. “Two.”

I nodded, then looked away, casually eating my sandwich even though my heart was racing. After I’d been here for two weeks, I’d given up thoughts of rescue. I didn’t even know if Bourbon or Coulter were still alive. It was too hard to wake up each morning with the crushing sensation that I was still in Dimitri’s estate. I had to push all those thoughts away in order to survive.

And even though I still dreamed of them at night, their soft caresses, whispered words, the way they shared me between them, I refused to think of them in the day.

I had to push down my rushing thoughts even now, with the mere mention of flickering lights. Could it be them?

I didn't answer him, or ask any more questions. My whole body ached and I needed a long fucking nap.

In the beginning, I'd been kept in a room down the hall from Dimitri. I'd tried escaping exactly four times before he moved me to this room, switching from trying to get information from me in that room to using the basement as psychological warfare.

I'd tried escaping from this room too but it was almost impossible, even though Ivan was slowly making a hole in the concrete block near his bed with the butter knife. It was still slow going.

After finishing my sandwich, I thanked Ivan for making it, then hobbled my way over to the mattress, collapsing on it. Even with my thoughts racing, I fell asleep quickly.

The next few days were especially brutal. It was all I could do to land on my mattress each day, barely acknowledging Ivan's minstrations, rolling over onto my side when his muted voice told me that he was done.

The next day, I came back without the tip of my finger. He managed to bandage it before I cried myself to sleep that night, the pain was so intense.

The darkness was beginning to win, especially after a brutal session that left a ringing in my left ear and a spinning of the room around me. I couldn't hear very well from it after that.

Still, I vaguely remembered Ivan's brushing my sweaty hair from my face, mumbling softly. He put a cool cloth to my face that night.

I think I had a fever, my finger was probably infected, even though he'd used up the rest of the ointment on it.

One day blended into the other, and soon, I didn't know how long it'd been since I'd arrived.

It didn't even matter anymore.

I’d given up on escape, given into the fact that I wasn't getting out of this place alive.

I just had to hang on to my secret, it was the one and only thing that made me brave.

Aster’s childish face, her bright innocent eyes with blazing red hair and a bright sparkly personality to match it. Her dark green eyes, the same color as mine, were so ferocious. She was wild and untamed.

She didn't end up with a father like mine. Her dad wasn't in the mafia but a wealthy governor and she was the apple of his eye. She owned that place as if she was the mistress, and I would never, never be responsible for extinguishing that fire.

I would go to my fucking grave with my secret.

A deep rumble woke me. I blinked my eyes; it was dark, with only a small lamp lighting up the room.

The rumble happened again but this time I acknowledged the moving of the ground that came with it.

Ivan scrambled to his feet, coming over to shake me to make sure I was awake, his voice too muted to understand.

I shook my head, trying to hear him. He grabbed my face, turning my head so he could speak in my good ear. "Get up. They're here to rescue you."

Then he let me go, and I fell to my hands and knees, scrambling off the bed even though my whole body was in agony.

Ivan was running around the room and soon, he was shoving his clothes in my hands.

"Put these on, the boots first."

"What about you?"

"Don't worry about me, my little flower. I will be okay." At my rebellious look, he fell to his knees, grabbing my feet and shoving my feet into his large boots.

Giving in, I helped him put on the other one, then he yanked me to my feet.

My body protested at the movement, my bones and muscled screaming at me to lay back down. Ivan wrapped me up in his thick coat and began pushing me towards the window.

"Stop," I hissed, "we can't get out there. We already tried it."

The ground shook again with a resounding boom. There was yelling and screaming outside our door.

"I figured it out." Ivan was urgent as we reached the window. He gripped the iron gate covering the window and tugged. For the first time, I noticed that his fingers were torn and bloody.

I squeezed my eyes shut, biting down on my tears. He'd done this for me, tore his fingers up to figure out a way out of here.

I'd been so out of it, I hadn't even noticed. Guilt strummed through me at the fact that I hadn't been coherent enough to help him.

At the large boom right outside our door, I jumped into action to help. Finally, the grate fell to the ground with a clatter, too heavy for us to hold it for long.

Grabbing the only blanket Ivan had, he wrapped it around his hand and smashed his fist into the glass. The fighting sounds grew louder and Ivan grew more desperate.

My own heart was pounding. I felt alive for the first time in days.

Glass shattered around us and blood drained down his arm. But he kept at it, smashing through the glass until there was a hole big enough for us to climb out.

Panic shot through me at the sound of the door unlocking. Ivan twisted and grabbed my waist, heaving me up onto the windowsill. I grasped the side and pain shot through my hands as the glass cut into my palms. Using all my energy, I heaved myself out the window.

It was a short drop but my body was instantly encased in ice as I fell into a snow drift.

I struggled to climb out of it, scrambling to get out of the way to make room for Ivan.

There was a muted banging noise and I yelped, looking upwards. Ivan was in the windowsill, his hands clutching the side, his eyes on me.

"Get out of there,” I screamed, waving my arm. "Come on."

He shook his head, and his fingers dug into the windowsill even more. What the hell was he doing?

He croaked out three words, a single phrase that broke me in two. "Run, my flower.”

It was then that I noticed the red blossoming on his chest.

Bullets.

Oh God. They’d shot him, but he was holding onto the window for his dear life, holding them off for me.

My breath caught in my throat, tears burning my eyes, but I turned and began to run.

It was like pushing a boulder up a mountain. The snow was thick and I was too sluggish, but I gave it every thing I had. All I had to do was make it to the woods.

That was what Ivan had always told me.

If I could make it to the woods, there was a sewer big enough for me to hide in until I could escape the guards.

I ran with my heart in my throat.

I ran until my feet gave out from under me and I was crawling on my knees in the snow.

I didn't know why no one was chasing me, why no one was shooting at me to try and keep me from escaping, but I wasn’t going to turn around to find out.

After a few minutes, I managed to get back on my feet and kept running.

My whole body was numb, my only clothes the large shirt and pants Bourbon had given me, and Ivan's boots and coat.

My finger was throbbing and the others were numb, including my toes, but I made it to the tree line, exhausted. It took me only a few minutes to find the grate and the lid gave in easily, groaning as I opened it and dragged myself inside.

Then I ran some more, hurtling through the darkness until I literally couldn't lift my feet any more.

And then I crawled until my knees and hands were bloody.

Until my body wouldn't move another inch, and all I could do was huddle against the cold steel wall.

And when Dimitri's men finally came for me, I screamed and clawed at them until finally, I was too tired to fight any longer.

I'd already known my life would end up like this, and maybe the darkness at the edges of my vision would bring a happiness with it.

I would see Lily again, right?

I gave in, and the blackness took me just as I collapsed in someone's arms.