and reeked of disinfectant, but every layer made me feel a little better.
“This is your blanket and towel.” The man showed my number stenciled at the bottom of them. “If you lose them, sell them, or they get taken, it’s your problem. You get one blanket and towel. You have been warned, so no bitching if you ‘lose’ them.”
I nodded, taking them from him.
“Your kit is replenished every six weeks. If you run out before, that’s also your problem.” He handed me a clear bag filled with toiletries: toothbrush, toothpaste, comb, and soap.
His words registered, but numbness left me blank of a response.
“You missed dinner.” He whirled around and strutted for another door across the room, going through it, leading me out into a dim cave-type passage. “Wake up is at 06.30. Breakfast is at 07.00. Lunch at noon. Dinner at 18.00. Otherwise you are either in your cell, or you’re working. The more you work and follow the rules, the more privileges you get. Like first in line for food or better jobs.”
“What kind of work?”
“Cleaning. Cooking. Sewing.” He paused. “This place runs like clockwork. All humans contribute here. Or you go into the pit.” Leaning into me, he sneered. “And believe me, you don’t want to go in there. You won’t make it out of there. Not without wishing for death first.”
I kept my face neutral, pretending his words didn’t scare me.
The fae took me up a few flights of stairs, walking me past occupied cells.
“Hey, sweet thing. You can bunk and fuck me.”
“Come here, fishy, fishy.”
“Watch yourself, human.” A woman spit at me.
“I’ll fuckin’ kill you.”
“You will die chokin’ on my dick.” A huge, beefy guy grabbed his nuts, sneering at me.
Catcalls, insults, threats. They barreled at me, hitching my heart back up into my throat, my teeth sawing down on my lip. The roller coaster of emotions and the trauma my body had gone through made me feel like paper. Every slur tore at the house of cards I was standing on.
Against my will, my lip started to quiver. Dipping my head, my hair fell over my face, hiding my misery from their view.
Don’t let them see any weakness. Keep it inside.
The fairy stopped in front of an empty cage. A six-by-eight-foot box, it was smaller than my shower back at HDF. No bed or any furniture, only a hole in the ground you could piss in.
The door squealed as he opened it, jackhammering my pulse, flooding my throat with acid, my feet stepping back. Fear had been with me every step of the way, but it wasn’t until this moment that I understood true terror. I stepped into this cage, and my life was over.
My head started to shake back and forth, tears building behind my lids, fear convulsing down my limbs.
“Kicsim,” my father’s voice whispered in the back of my memory. “You don’t get much say in the way you die, but you can choose how you do.” His fingers brushed my chin up, his bright blue eyes staring down at my nine-year-old self, his face filled with adoration. “Always hold yourself with honor. Especially in death.”
“Go,” the guard’s voice snapped, tearing me out of my reverie.
Lifting my head, I stepped across the threshold, the slam of the door behind me jolting through my entire body. I jerked around to face him.
“Welcome to the House of Death, 85221.” He winked at me, strolling away, slipping out of view. “Sweet dreams.”
I stood there, hugging the scratchy wool blanket to my chest, the howls and screams echoing off the walls, cocooning me in distress.
Fear had wiggled deep into my stomach. There were so many words to describe what I felt: terror, shock, anger, panic, isolation, and heartbreaking loneliness. All I wanted was to go back to that night—stay up on the perch high above the world and make love to Caden.
Unrolling the blanket, I set it on the ground and curled up on it. I stared out at the other cells across the way and cried until my despair took me from the conscious world.
Chapter 11
Sleep held me for brief moments in its mouth before spitting me back out again, raw, chewed up, and brutalized from the nightmare inside and outside my head.
The cries, bangs, and movement never stopped. It would quiet down enough to let you fall into a false sense of sleep before something would jolt you awake with a gasp. The four sides of the building rebounded noise across the courtyard like a