Two and a half years.

How could that be? I had just been dreaming, I had just left the torture chamber that Nastya and her purple star had created. I could still feel the burn roll through me, feel the heat on my temples.

I stared at her, blinking, as I attempted to speak again, to ask any of the million questions that were screaming in my mind. Nothing made it past the massive tube that had been shoved down my throat, the constant hacking and gasping causing the flesh to burn more.

“Don’t try to speak,” Kaye said as she stepped away from me, toward Katenka. “It will just hurt more.”

Kaye’s face was lined with worry as her and her mother stood by my side, focused on my arm and whatever had been causing the pain. I watched them curiously, my drugged thoughts trying to piece together what was going on.  

Confusion spiked as I lay there, eyes wide as I groaned at her, desperately trying to convey the question I needed answered. At this point, I would settle for the opportunity to understand anything.

“We have to be gone before the hour ends and the guard changes,” she hesitated, giving her mother a look before she turned back to me, pushing her short hair out of her eyes.

She fixed me with a look with so much power, so much knowledge, that for a moment I hadn’t recognized her. I had seen her grow so much before, as we plotted through the night attempting to figure out who I was. To master my magic. Then she was worn in fear, grown in desperation.

Now, there was knowledge. There was power. It was a different kind of war-born maturity that dominated her now. There was a fight that I was sure was a deep part of who she was. She was a different girl than the friend I had seen hours before my magic had exploded and Nastya had…

The panic swelled again and I grabbed her arm, pulling her closer to me as my eyes screamed for answers. I wasn’t going to wait much longer and although I may not be able to order her around or make demands, I was certainly going to try.

The man I was in memory was certainly seeping through.

“I don’t know what I can tell you, Jan,” she sighed, pressing her hand against mine, her thumb rubbing against my skin.

It was then I pulled away, the contact sending me into a roar of frustration.

“Don’t be upset. I want to tell you everything,” I wished I could tell her that it wasn’t her words that had caused my reaction. “I just don’t have time… and I don’t know what they are going to do when they find out you are awake. If you know too much it could hurt both of us. I have my papers now, but I still don’t belong here.”

She sighed, her mother gave her a look

“None of us are safe here,” Katenka said, her voice more pained and haggard than I remembered it.

Her sad eyes dug into mine as she rubbed what looked like an alcohol pad over my arm. I tried to shift to see what was going on, but the drugs made it hard to move, everything around me swimming in an awkward dance.

“We are still trying to get out,” Kaye provided. “I am working to learn all the skills a nurse has, so I can make my papers official and we can get out of here.”

I tried to speak at that, but no sound came out, only a dull burn that ripped through my throat, agitating the raw flesh where the intubation tube was.

“I can’t…” Kaye began, looking between myself and her mother as some internal battle raged. “We can’t stay here.”

I wasn’t sure if she was clarifying or including.

She sighed and tapped her foot. The motion wasn’t in delusion, however, I could see her eyes narrow in contemplation, trying to decide something.

“We don’t have time, Kaye,” her mother whispered, now moving to clean up an array of knives and needles.

“I can’t just leave him…”

“You have to,” her mother snapped, talking about me as though I was not here. The tone filled me with agitation and I slammed my hand against the railing, the loud noise making both women jump.

I was close to just pulling the hose out on my own. I had done it before.

“You need to be careful, Jan,” Kaye pleaded, wrapping her hand around the tight fist that was wrapped around the rail. “They have been torturing you for years… I don’t know what they are going to do to you now that you are awake. I can’t take the risk of you telling them…”

She paused squeezing my hand as her mother clicked her tongue loudly behind her. “It’s my one chance.”

Rage built in me at the dismissal and I roared through the hose, lifting my hands to rip the thing out of my throat, ready to demand answers. The meds were wearing off anyway, I could already feel the buzz of my magic return.

“Stop,” Kaye pleaded, pulling my hand away from the hose. “I can’t tell you anything right now. But I will. Tonight, just like we used to. I need you to trust me.”

I gave her a look, putting as much disdain and accusation into my eyes as I could. Luckily she caught all of it.

“Fine.” I wasn’t sure if it was her or her mother who groaned at that. “I can tell you this. The SSU is still in control.”

She fixed me with a look before she walked to the other side of the bed, giving her mother space to clean something I couldn’t see.

“The hospital is… well, it never really was a hospital, was it? This room is in the only medical wing, in the only medical facility left in the Sovereign Sanctuary of the Ukraine. It also serves as a monitoring station.” She paused, her eyes flashing at her mother and me as the same frightened hesitation covered her features.

I would have given anything to speak right then, to ask the questions, to demand the answers. But I knew better than to try.

“Nastya Klotz is still in control.” Her voice was threatening low as she continued. “She is here… I am not going to tell you what they have been doing to you, Jan. It’s better you don’t remember, and I hope they don’t continue.”

She pressed her lips into a thin line, her hand clenching against my shoulders in an attempt to soften whatever blow was coming. I could see it in her eyes and I clenched. But it wasn’t the mind-numbing revelation I had expected.

“You need to stay strong,” she whispered, her bright eyes digging into me. “I will tell you everything later. But now, stay strong. Don’t use your magic. Don’t let them break you.”

Break me.

The words seemed impossible after the shards of memory I had just recovered, the idea of this person that I was slowly remembering being broken a near impossibility.

I could see a deeper warning in Kaye’s eyes, however, something hidden there that was terrifying her.

It was slowly terrifying me.

“We have minutes,” Katenka whispered from somewhere in the room, her hushed voice filled with the same terror.

Kaye nodded toward her mother, her eyes not leaving mine, before, with one last squeeze of my shoulder she turned, leaving my line of sight so fast I wasn’t sure if she had ever been there.

“Kaye,” The painful word never made it to the surface.

It was blocked by the intubation tube, just as I was. Unable to speak, unable to move much more than a fraction, I suddenly found my own fear spiking, my panic growing at what I had woken up to.

What I was left in.

It had been more than two years since I had attacked Nastya. From what I can tell it was almost six from when Prague fell. From the way Kaye rambled it was clear things were worse.

Attempting to twist myself to see one more time, I fought through the restrictive agony, only to jump in fear as several loud alarms went on as one, a bank of machines near where Kaye’s mother had been working firing up again. Lights flashed, buzzers screamed, and the ever present beeping of my electronic heartbeat sped into overdrive.

The sounds of the machines rattled me, sending me back down to the bed as more alarms began to echo to me from the hall.

‘Code Red, Room E, Code Red, Room E.’

Women and men yelled in Ukrainian before the door slammed open, a severe-looking man with a yellow star on her chest barging in, gun already pointed right at me. Confusion painted his face as he caught sight of me, hands wrapped around the rail as I attempted to sit, eyes wide as I stared at him.

“Komandyr!” He yelled behind him as he cocked his gun, threat and warning screaming from the tip if the barrel. “Get Ms. Klotz! He’s awake!”

The Cleaners announcement sent more panic through the halls, the sound of voices and feet overwhelming the alarms of the machines.

The man kept his gun trained on me as he stepped forward, looking down the sight in a clear willingness to shoot me if I do anything out of the ordinary.

I couldn’t even if I tried. My mind still spun under the influence of the drugs that pumped through my veins, my magic feeling like a slow-moving sludge. The muck bubbled with each step he took, the power surging under my skin in little sparks that flared in a buzz.

The powerful wave was the same as I had felt when I had guarded Ovailia from those men. The same strength, the same need to attack. While my mind screamed that I could attack, I knew better.

Kaye hadn’t told me enough.

I didn’t know enough.

The deranged beeping of my heart monitor spiked before it began to slow, my breathing dragging it down even though the man's twitchy trigger finger wasn’t giving me much confidence that I would survive this.

“Well, well,” a woman snarled from behind the soldier and he jumped, the motion thankfully not sending a loose round into my head.

I clung to the rail as the soldier stepped aside, a tall dark woman stepping forward to take his space.

The heart monitor accelerated again as my fear picked up. The woman smiled, looking from the machine to me as her wicked joy deepened.

“Seems that you remember me,” she snarled, her bright white teeth flashing in a grin. “That’s good, that will make this easier.”

Her face was pinched together in joy, the look accentuated by the way her dark hair was slicked back into a severe bun. The look complimented her posture, the way she moved. The way her eyes glared at me with both lust and murder.

Nastya.

I attempted to swallow away the fear that had risen in me, but the tube blocked the action, leaving me choked and spluttering. The reaction spread her wicked smile further and she stepped toward me, her heels clicking against the linoleum like a metronome.

“Remove that thing and bring him to me,” she said, looking at me as she clearly spoke to someone behind her. “I want him set up in five minutes.”

The mumbled response was barely legible as someone scuttled away, the motion lost in the focus that she had trapped me in.

“I am excited to get to know you more, Jan.” She whispered, not even trying to cover her twisted joy. “I hope you are ready to tell me everything. I hope you are ready to embrace what I have created you to be.”

Nastya took one more step, and I cringed, focusing everything I had on bringing the slow-moving magic forward, on controlling it. On using it.  

Even with all the fear that ran through me, with all the powerful heat that rumbled just under my skin. There was nothing. I couldn’t call the power forward.

Her smile deepened as she reached for me, the lust returning as her ice-cold fingers pressed against my check. Cold trailed over my jaw, following the motion of her finger and I shivered. She smiled at the fearful reaction, her finger continuing its path over my skin before she tapped against the intubation tube, her long nail flicking against my chapped lips.

I cringed, trying to pull away from her touch, but she stayed with me, her free hand an aggressive vice as she cupped my neck.

“You pulled this out on your own before.” I wasn’t sure if she was interested or amazed, but I tensed all the same. “I suppose it’s my turn.”

I couldn’t move, I couldn't scream. Any plea was lost as she wrapped her hand around the tube and with one strong yank pulled it from me.

My throat burned, my chest caved in, everything from torso to nose felt as though it had been ripped apart. The feeling intensified as I began to hack up blood, the red fluid spraying over the blankets and hospital gown I wore.

Gasping for air, I wiped the blood from me feeling my magic swell right to the burn, right to the pain.

“I hope you are ready,” she sneered, the devil peering from behind her eyes before she turned from me, rushing past Kaye’s mother who had appeared beside the door.

“You have 5 minutes,” Nastya said before she vanished, leaving five soldiers to rush into the room in replacement.

The soldiers stood in a line, guns drawn, the tips aimed at either myself or Katenka.

“Move!” One of the soldiers said with a snap, pressing the tip of his gun into the small of her back in warning.

The sludge of my magic bubbled at the altercation, the moment enough to show me what the reality of the world was, what Kaye and been speaking of, and why Katenka didn’t want her to say anything.

Magic and fear began to swell as she shakily walked toward me, her hands shivering as she opened my shirt, quickly removing the monitors from my scarred chest. I tried to get her attention, I tried to glean information from her, but she remained focused on her tasks, jaw set in anger and fear.

My IV was moved to the tall stand on the bed, monitors disconnected before the same arm that had hurt before covered with some foul smelling brown liquid. I only caught a whiff of iodine before I saw her push a syringe into my IV, the same cold rushing through my hand, my arm, spreading all through me.

The sensation was more intense than before and I gasped, my body sagging under my own weight as I collapsed into the pillows.

“Sir,” Katenka’s voice was shaky as she nodded to the soldiers near the door.

“I’m sorry, Jan” she whispered to me as the soldiers came forward, the sound of their steps sounding far away in my now spinning confusion. “Be strong.”

The words sounded like a broken memory as the hands of the men began to wrap around me, rough fingers hitting hard against my wrists and ankles before they were replaced by familiar padded bands.

The pressure on my joints increased as the straps were tightened, the sensation pulling as something cold was placed against my temples, the same bulbs from before immediately following.

I jerked at the addition, looking to the woman who I was now being wheeled away from, a heavy apology in her eyes.

“No,” I growled, the word a burn as it slurred past drugs and the raw skin of my throat. “No.”

The fear I had of Nastya, of what she could do, had never really left. I had felt it in memory as I lay in a coma. I had felt it in Kaye when I had woken, and I felt it now as I was wheeled to face her.

Attempting to fight, I pressed against the restraints, trying to call my magic to me, to awaken the deep tar that had settled in my heart. Nothing happened.

Refusing to stop fighting, I pulled against the bands, watching the hospital lights above me flicker on and off, just as they had on that very first day.

And then they were gone.

The clean walls and the smell of antiseptic was gone. The hospital was gone.

I had seen this hallway before, it was where they had begun to place those that wished to enter the country. Then, it had looked just like an extension of the hospital. The halls full of nurses, the clean space filled with the occasional yell of fear and what I was now sure was pain.

Now it was a hell.

The strip of fluorescent lights now hung from the ceiling by fraying wires, swinging and swaying as the entire space flickered in movement and shadow. Paint peeled off of walls in large chunks that dipped down toward the floor, large cobwebs running from them to the wall, to the ceiling and back again.  

A scream and a cackle echoed through the hall, the sound sending more fear through me as I jerked, fighting against the restraints.

“What is going on,” I attempted to demand, the man I was in memory attempting to break through. He didn’t get far. My words were slurred, the tone so deranged that I sounded more like the laughing woman and less like the powerful man I was.

“There he goes again!” the cackling voice sang, the tune flaring against my paranoia. “Goes to burn. Goes to bleed.”

I attempted to turn my head to the sound. The halo I had been attached to restricted my movement but I still saw the lines of windows, the dirty panes smeared with streaks of red and brown. Seeing them only added to the smell that was assaulting me.

Windows sped by, each one filled with a glimmer of maniacal eyes and crying victims. Their faces pressed against the glass, begging for food and water. Screaming for help. Men, women, I even saw a flash of the sad eyes of a child.

They all pulled at me, pulled at the deep sludge of magic inside of me. I felt the heat in my skin, felt the pulse of power in my hands, but nothing came. Any ability to control it was gone.

I didn’t have the power, I didn’t have the control to get out of here.

Not yet.

Besides, if Kaye said she had a plan, then I would trust her.

Assuming of course, that the plan included me.

My heart constricted as we turned a corner, two of the soldiers falling back as the other two continued on, pushing me through one set of double doors and then another. The space grew darker as the swinging lights were replaced by the flicker of a lone light bulb.

Even that left as more doors swung behind us with a heavy thunk, taking me right into the room that I was sure I would die in.

I recognized the large wall of glass, the room behind still filled with black-suited men, their lapels sporting a rainbow of stars now. But beyond that, everything was unrecognizable. I hadn’t been in here long. But I didn’t remember there being so much blood. I didn’t remember the smell of bleach and iron being as assaulting.

“There he is,” Nastya cooed, as though she was speaking to a long-lost nephew. “My little pet, right on time.”

The bed came to a stop, and with an electric whirl, began to shift, the entire thing rotating on a point as it brought me to face her.

She was so close I could see the tints of red in her eyes, smell the tobacco and mint on her breath. She smiled again, showing me the straight line of white teeth before another white-clad nurse began shifting tubes and hoses around, placing more monitors on my chest. The room filled with the accelerated pulse of my heartbeat as the bed began to twist, the room rotating as I was moved to face the wall of people.

“You may not recognize some of these men,” she began, her voice filled with that exotic eagerness that was so frightening. “But they recognize you.”

Her last words were a whisper in my ear as she leaned into me, the smell that was rolling off her skin making me sick. I fought against the restraints in an attempt to get away, to escape her and her touch.

It was in vain.

The wide bands were so tight I could barely move. I was stuck. It was a realization on both sides and while I tightened my jaw in angry defiance, she smiled, licking her lips.

“What is going on?” I asked, the words slow and slurred. The attempt at defiance only made the woman smile more, the purple star glinting at me.

“Why, we are going to have a little fun,” she cooed, the voice and smile not fitting her as she played with me.

“No.” I tried to yell, tried to fight against the bands, but again nothing happened.

“Now, now,” she said, gesturing toward the man who had been connecting me back up to the machines. “Aren’t you my little pet, Jan? You’ve been so good for me. I want to show you just how good.”

She smiled, the muffled sounds of laughter coming from behind the glass as Nastya turned to our audience, the men looking thoroughly entertained by the conversation.

They stood there, as close to the glass as they could without pressing themselves against it, all dressed in the same black suit, a rainbow of sinister stars on their lapels. It was the only color amongst them, between the white and browns of skin and hair and the black suits, there was nothing there. It was as flat and dead as the rest of this place, as what was waiting for me.

“These men have seen you every day for years,” Nastya said, her tone filling in some nefarious plot that I wasn’t sure I wanted to hear. I no longer had a choice, however. “They have watched every day as I have ripped you apart. As I have watched that magnificent body of yours do the unimaginable.”

Nastya paused, the same look of lust and need coming into her eyes. I flinched at the look, the electric monitor picking up as my magic did, the power pulsing hot and out of control for one minute.

“No,” I gasped, Joclyn’s smile filling my mind before I realized that it wasn’t me that she wanted. It was whatever was inside of me.

Whatever she had been trying to control for the last few years.

“I wonder,” she continued, her intent focus skipping over my outburst. “If you want to see the same. Would you like to see what your body can do? I wonder what will happen if you are forced to see…”

She smiled at me before nodding again to the nurse behind me, the bed twisting and lowering as the men and the room drifted in and out of focus until I was left staring at the ceiling, the peeling paint splattered with blood, dripping with water and who knows what else.

As much as Kaye had wanted to keep this from me, I was still trapped in it. I was locked away with a madwoman.

Kaye’s insistence on telling me nothing made sense. The problem was, I already knew too much. Perhaps not too much about her, but too much about myself.

The electrodes attached to the halo began to buzz with electricity, as she smiled, snapping bright blue gloves onto her hand.

I tensed, fighting again, even though I knew it was a mistake.

“You can’t do this,” I yelled, glad my voice had some force behind it. The drugs must be wearing off. I wasn’t sure if that was a good or bad thing given what I was facing.

I could speak, but I would be feeling everything. It was something I didn’t want given the large scalpel Nastya had just been handed.

“I assure you I can,” she said as she inspected the tip of the tiny knife, the dirty silver glinting dangerously in the dim light. “I told you before, I own you, and whatever is inside of you is mine. I will take control of it. Whether you are awake or asleep means nothing to me. At least when you are asleep you don’t fight.”

I pulled against the restraints harder as she stepped closer, the knife at the ready.

“I would say I hope it doesn’t hurt,” she teased, running her gloved finger over the dark brown fluid Kaye’s mother had put on my arm minutes before. “But I really hope it does.”

The point of her scalpel dug into my arm, bright red blood pouring over my skin before I began to scream. The same pain I had felt before overtook me as she ran the knife toward my elbow in a straight line of widening red that poured over my skin and splattered against the floor.  

“Watch this,” Nastya growled, grabbing my chin as she pulled my face toward my arm, my screams turning to whimpers as the pain began to leave, as I watched the skin slowly knit itself back together.

I couldn’t look away, I couldn’t look past what I was seeing. I had dreamed of healing Joclyn, I had healed Kaye. Now it happened on my own flesh. I could feel my magic, I could feel the heat pool around my arm, but I didn’t control it. Whatever ability that was inside of me did it all on its own.

“Now,” Nastya growled, clearly not talking to me as the electricity buzzed and pulsed through the electrodes.

Little pops of electricity made me jump and jerk as they ran through me, a new pain joining the first. A scream ripped from me at the agony, my eyes shifting into the back of my head as the same darkness threatened to take me.

She wouldn’t let it.

“No! Look!” She screamed in my ears as she shook me, the same spurts of electricity continuing to pulse through my body, through my bones, and sparking in my arm.

In my arm.

She cackled in my ear, my eyes widening in confusion as the power I had seen so often in dreams began sparking from the open gash in my arm. Fireworks of color sparked between the still open ends of my flesh, zig-zagging like bursts of lightning until they erupted into the air in a burst of painful color.

“You see,” she hissed, moving my focus around to her, her fingers rough against my jaw as she caressed it. I jerked away at the touch, but she held tighter, refusing to let me look anywhere else. “I have already figured out how to control your power. If you won’t give it to me, then I will just use you. Awake. Asleep. I do not care. I own you. I control this beautiful weapon…. I control you.”

Her words drifted away as her hands did, shifting down my neck and over my bare chest. Her cold unwanted touch moved over my scars, tracing the lines as Joclyn had done…

Joclyn.

I jerked at the touch, but my exhausted body barely moved. Instead, I sagged against the bed, my mind filling with thoughts and dreams of her. Thoughts that created an escape that was so very wanted right now.

“Now, are you ready?” she asked, her question pulling my focus as much as the glint on the scalpel she once again twirled before me.

“Ready for what?” My confusion was dead, my mind already drifting away to something that wasn’t rooted in so much pain.

“Ready to fight for me? Ready to bend yourself to me,” she clarified, pressing the tip of the scalpel into my arm again. I winced at the pain, but this time I scream never came, only a soft whimper as tears began to roll down my cheek.

I was crying. From everything I had seen about myself, I was not the type to cry. I was not the type to just give in. I was trapped, but I knew I had been in a position like this before, that even with the drugs and the torture, I could control my magic.

That I could destroy her.

I knew I could.

I knew I had the power.

I couldn’t give in so easy.  

Even if right now it was only a glare, only a heavy jaw and the choice to take the pain.

“No.” The word broke out in a snap, loud confident, and obviously just what she wanted to hear.

“Wonderful.”

She nodded to the nurse as the scalpel plunged into my body, the electric shock turning up to eleven.