Nastya’s machine buzzed, electricity bursting through my veins, and running over my skin in waves that made me convulse. Even in my dreams, the torturous energy ran through me, reacting with my magic until it broke from me in crackles of lightning that sparked and sputtered.

With each explosion the dream lit up, pulling me from one memory to another so fast they had begun to blend together, everything about them becoming nothing more than a blur.

A teen falling from a cliff face as we climbed, his haunted face screaming up to me as he fell.

A woman in a forest, dressed in an elegant gown as she seduced me.

Myself tied to a tree as Ryland sobbed before me, a man who could have been his much older twin yelling at him before Ryland plunged a dagger into my side. Ryland's mournful scream followed me in an echo before the memory faded to the same woman from before. A joyful laugh painted her youthful face as she sat with the towering man that I had seen follow me before, all signs of the seductress gone.

The seductress returned with a bright flash of red, the same woman clinging to me as she begged, her words nearly indiscernible over the sound of electricity and magic that rumbled through the dreams.

“He killed her!” her sobs exploded as she fell to the ground, the embroidered tunic I wore shifting under the change in pressure.

One after another they came, moving in double-time as my tortured mind released them, each one growing more and more twisted and terrified. I tried to hold onto them, to slow them down, to remember. But my mind was caged. Trapped with the electric explosions of magic and torture.

Forced to watch confusing moments of my own life, the electricity grew as the memory shifted with a shout.

“No!”

Panic clung to the word, the emotion lingering against my soul as the new memory came, that of myself sitting next to the same green-eyed man I had seen destroy my sister.

The same man I had seen chant inside of the cave.

The dark-haired man sat beside me, twisting his hands in agitation as he bounced on the edge of the cement fountain. The town square from Ovailia’s chase stretched before us, but everything about it had changed. The cathedral was built, the long spires touring over us in their journey toward the sky. The surrounding buildings were the same, but the architecture was different, there weren't as many rough-hewn rocks. If it wasn’t for the familiarity of the place, and my mind whispering a million other memories I couldn't see, I wouldn’t have recognized it.

“Perhaps he will not grant me her hand,” the man asked, his voice distant and far away as my tortured mind distorted it.

“I believe he will, Sain,” The mention of his name sent a jolt of anger through me that didn’t quite match the memory.

I felt the emotion, but I only continued to sit in eager anticipation, watching the man’s hands writhe together. “My father is a man of reason…”

“And I am a worthless Drak,” he cut me off, the word easily known to me, although I did not know why.

I couldn’t even focus on it, the knowledge of his name was still a roar. Anger mixed with the electricity until my magic sparked in a pop, the eruption of light turning the memory white and removing it from me.

“Please no,” my own voice again, the sound so distorted from where I sat in memory that I barely recognized it. I wasn’t sure why I was begging. Shouldn’t I be laughing?

Something told me I should be laughing.

Instead of my own defiant chuckle, however, another laugh responded to my plea, the sound followed by a touch that pulled me right back to reality.

“Please?” Nastya sneered, my vision leaving the flashes of memory as she slid back into focus, her three heads shaking and jumping around in front of me. “Are you begging me to stop, Jan?”

“Please,” I gasped again, the taste of blood now clear in my mouth. I spit it out, attempting to let the glob fall right on her face, but I couldn’t get enough strength and instead it dribbled down my chin. She laughed as it slid over my skin.

“My, my,” she cooed, the false concern barely clear through her mockery. “Do you need some help there?”

Attempting to avoid her and the blood-stained cloth she held, I pulled to the side, head rocking violently as everything began to spin. Windows, door, muck-covered walls, they all blended together and for one minute I thought I saw her.

There standing in a corner.

I saw her, ready to save me.

“Silnỳ…” I began, needing to call out to her, needing her to protect me this time.

She was right there. She could protect me. She was the Silnỳ.

No, she was just Joclyn. I didn’t know what that other name meant, I didn’t know what any of it did.

“Silnỳ?” Nastya asked, the beautiful name sounding like poison as it dripped from her. “What is that? Is that your name?”

She asked the question and I began to cry, the electricity that surged through the bulbs at my temples only making the emotion worse. I jumped in expectation of another jolt.

Luckily, one of the three Nastya’s held up her hand, stopping whatever was about to happen as she stepped right up to me, her face inches from my own.

It was only then I realized the bed had been moved to upright again.

“Is it what you are? Is it where you are from? A city? A planet?” She asked the questions in turn, watching me intently with each one before she stopped, eyebrows arching high before she vanished, leaving me staring at the hundreds of men who were swimming behind the glass.

“Now,” she said from behind me, and the electricity from her machine exploded.

I screamed at the pressure, at the pain, my spine twisting as it threatened to break, my mouth filling with blood as my teeth clamped down on my tongue, leaving me to writhe in silence.

The torture chamber faded as the electricity pulled me back into memory, an image of Joclyn and I walking hand in hand over the beach, followed by that man, Sain, from before. An unwanted joy washed over me as I stood beside the two of them. Joclyn turning toward me with a smile, her body flickering to her covered in blood and back again.

The scent of iron and salt followed me back into reality as the electricity stopped, my own heaving breath shaking room and body as blood dripped from my mouth and onto my bare feet.

“No more,” I pleaded as my head flopped to the side, giving me a perfect view of the corner of the room, and the beautiful woman who stood there.

My heart pulsed as I heaved in air, the need for her was so strong, but the pain of knowing it wasn’t her was stronger.

“Silnỳ,” I whispered through my heaving breath, and she smiled, the use of the name confusing me. It wasn’t her name. It wasn’t who she was. She was “Jos…”

“Is it her?” Nastya snapped, interrupting me as she shoved one of the many images at me, the photograph of Joclyn and I fighting together beautiful to me now.

Beautiful because she wasn’t just a mystery that I longed for. Beautiful because I knew her. Because I knew her strength. Because I knew her soul.

I stared at it as her joy and determination filled me, listening to my breath, listening to my heartbeat. The tortured organ pounded against my chest, screaming that I couldn’t stay here.

I couldn’t put up with this anymore. It wasn’t me, and even though I didn’t know all of who I was. I knew that.

I could feel that in the way my muscles tensed and my magic flared, the slow sludge barely responded, but still, it was there.

“Silnỳ."

Nastya’s smile spread wide as she stepped back, looking from me to the photograph as if she had won the jackpot.

As if she had won her prize.

The slow drudge of my magic dripped to my fingers at that look, it swelled and buzzed, wanting to explode. Trying to. I kept it there. I held it in, heart pulsing from the effort as I willed it to grow.

“Hello, Silnỳ,” Nastya cooed to the photograph, her fingers running over the image gently.

Caressing her face.

The slow sludge of my magic sparked in its own anger. In its own need to protect.

To protect her.

It had been months since I had felt it so acutely, since I could grab it. So, as she turned toward the men in the glass-framed room - I acted.

An angry flood of power expelled from me in one prompted burst of white light. The restraints turned to ash, a shower of grey falling to the ground as I did, my legs barely able to hold my weight.

Screams echoed around the room, the men, the technician, everyone erupting in panic as the weapon Nastya had spent years perfecting escaped. Their anger fueled me in a way I hadn’t expected, the power roaring underneath my flesh just like the electricity I had spent so much time being infected with.

Releasing the power in a rush, everything began to shake as a strong wind circled the room, my magic erupting around me in fireworks of color. The wind grew into a torrent, explosions firing alongside my magic as light fixtures broke away, bed and machines slamming into walls. With a twist of my wrist, the wind shifted, my magic picking up the demented woman, lifting her off the ground and sending her into the glass wall with a snap. The windows cracked beneath her at the impact, the men’s look of fear increasing as they ran for the exit, eyes flashing between me and the door in obvious fear.

With one pulse, I flung her around to face me, limp body sagging in the air as I held her there. The genuine fear I had expected to see was replaced by a mask of pure joy.

“Beautiful, Jan,” she said as she smiled, her response only fueling my eruptive magic more. “Beautiful.”

Before she could even get the final word out, I let my power fly free, the magic shooting from me in a ribbon of purple that slapped against her face, knocking the smile from it and sending her screaming to the ground.

Her pain blossomed through me in an exhilarated joy and I hit her again, this time in the chest. The colors of my attacks sparked in the tiny room, casting the dark corners in colorful shadows that only made it, and its blood-stained walls, that much more sinister.

“Leave her alone,” I screamed as I attacked her again, and again. The dark strips of my magic cut through her like knives, the action causing more screaming. More yelling. Until it didn’t.

Until there was only silence.

My magic froze in expectation, ready to see her dead on the floor. My heart swelled at the possibility, only to shatter as she began to laugh, the delirious sound echoing hauntingly around the space.

Ice ran through my veins as she began to pick herself up, joints twisting as her head snapped to me. I lifted my hand to her, ready to end her. To end all of this and get out of here.

The magic never came, however, it stuck inside of me like sludge, held back by the ice that ran through me. It was not the ice of fear as I had thought it was. It was not the cold chill I would get before death.

It was the ice of her control, of the chill of her power as it ran through me.

As it controlled me.

Her magic.

The icy power surged as I crumpled to the ground, realizing just how much of a fool I had been.

“Did you really think you would escape,” Nastya sneered as she crawled her way over to me, a wide trail of red left behind. “Did you really think you could end me?”

She was inches from me, the tiny cuts on her face healing over as she stared at me, specks of blood flying over my face with every word.

"Yes," I hissed, the word slurred behind my destroyed tongue. "I will."

“You foolish man. You have only made things worse for yourself,” she taunted, the acid in her voice making my heart seize. “You gave me her name. Now I am going to find her, and kill her in front of you.”

I was sure she expected the same reaction she had gotten before, the scream of heartbreak that always occurred when Nastya used her as a weapon. But instead of the outrage, instead of the panic, I only laughed.

The sound had the same result on Nastya as it had on me, and her anger grew. It grew past the awed fury and became a torrent.

“Destroy him,” she hissed as her magic rushed me, electricity surging through me as she clamped her hands against my head.

Although I tried to call my magic up to numb the pain, nothing responded. Nothing came, and all of her magic hit me like a live wire, destroying me. Everything shook and rattled as I screamed, jolts of fire moved through me.

The shocks increased as she laughed, as blood filled my mouth, as the sound of laughter slowly began to take over.  

It was her laughter the followed me into the dark, the laughter that rattled my soul and pulled me into a memory that left my heart aching.

A tiny girl with long hair and the darkest eyes had ever seen ran down a beach, her feet working hard as she sprinted through sand and brush, laughing as a man with short brown hair chased her. The woman I had seen before followed behind them, smiling as her bright red dress blew in the wind.

“What do you wish to do, my lord?” A hushed voice buzzed behind me from where we hid in the brush, the hulking form of the man who always seemed to be following me only slightly recognizable in the shadow. I didn’t turn to him, I remained focused on the tiny family, my heart constricting painfully.

“There is no sign of loyalty from my brother?” I asked, that same regal sound plunging through my voice.

My focus shifted to the man on the beach as I spoke, the same bright blue eyes I had cementing the familial relationship. The tension in my heart grew, although I wasn't sure why. I got a distinct impression that something bad was about to happen. That these three were in trouble.

“None, my lord.” the man beside me whispered, shifting his weight in obvious discomfort. “And none from Wynifred either.”

“You are sure your intel is correct?” I hissed, my heart restricting more as I saw the little girl’s eyes.

I had known there were black, but this close they were clearly as dark as her mother’s. I was amazed she was as old as she was, that he hadn't destroyed her yet.

It could only mean two things; Wynifred was protecting her daughter, or my father was using them all.

It was the latter that brought us here.

“We don’t have anyone on the inside, this came to me by pure coincidence,” The man said, ducking lower in the brush as they got closer.

“She is a child, it is worth the risk, either way.”

My magic stretched away from me, although I knew it was dangerous. If they moved much closer Wynifred would sense us. No matter how well we were hidden she would feel us. I wasn't interested in being burned to a crisp today.

The thought confused me until her eyes snapped to me, her anger clear as she scowled right into the brush we were hidden in.

“Fly, Talon,” I hissed to the man, his bulky form disappearing at once, just as Ovailia had with the same command so many memories ago.

I, however, stayed still, my magic surging as I lifted myself from the ground, heat beginning to radiate from the sand beneath me.

I smiled at the woman before she rushed to me, reaching the brush just as I too vanished, moving into a black nothing with the slightest pop. The hollow sound echoed as my scream did, rippling from a life so far away I wasn’t sure what was real anymore.

Light vanished as I opened my eyes, the same beach I visited every night igniting in my vision. It was so similar to the one I had seen moments before. Except the laughter of the child was gone, everyone was gone. It was only the sound of the waves as they crashed nearby, only the hot and cold feel of the breeze, only Joclyn’s fingers as they brushed over my face.

“Wake up, my love,” she soothed, her voice a calm whisper.

I shivered at her touch, shivered at the breathy whisper of her voice.“

“My love,” I repeated the phrase with a sigh, reaching up to place my fingers over hers. A deep part of me wished that she would say my name, that she would give me that tiny piece of who I was, the piece that I was missing.

Hearing myself spoken about in such a way was enough of a treasure, the simple admission soaking into my bones and lifting me up. I sighed again at the name, at the touch, and with one swift movement I swept her up, rolling over in the sand as I held her against me.

She was so warm, her skin such a strong heat that for the first time the breeze that swelled off the surface of the ocean was wanted. It was comfortable.

Pressing her into me, I nuzzled her neck, sending her into a fit of giggles as she squirmed, the motion making me laugh right alongside her.

We wrestled in the mirth until sand was everywhere, the joyful laughs ending in a sigh as she lay down on top of me, her head nestling into my collarbone.

“I love you, Joclyn,” I whispered, running my hands up and down her back as she settled into me, her breathing moving to match my own.   

“I love you,” she responded, her fingers moving to run through the stubble of my hair. “Not just in here, either. I love you out there. Your memories show you that. You know that.”

“I do.”

Joclyn propped herself up to look me in the eyes, so close that for a moment I was sure I was going to get the kiss I had dreamed of for so long, that I was going to feel her lips against mine.

I prepared for it, ready to make the move and steal the kiss I had longed for.

“Then wake up, and find me.” Joclyn, teased, leaning towards me as my heart accelerated.

“I will,” I promised, every nerve ending alive in expectation as I closed my eyes.

And waited.

And waiting.

Instead, the sand vanished into hard stone, the sound of the waves faded into screams, and the bliss shifted to agonizing pain.

My deep sigh of relaxation became a shuddering breath of the purest sorrow as the dream left. Although I felt a hand run over my back, I knew it was not hers. It was not the one I wanted.

“Wake up, Jan.”

Kaye whispered above me as the soft touch turned into more of a shake, the motion hesitant.

“You need to wake up.” Her voice broke with desperate tears as the shake became a little more abrasive, the movement a rough rock now. “Please don’t leave again. Please don’t give in. We will find her, I promise.”

Her tears were falling in earnest now, I could feel them on my face as the sobs broke her voice up in little gasps. The sound was heart-wrenching, but it was only barely distinguishable from the sound of sobs that was echoing around us.

“Please Jan,” She pleaded, abandoning her focus on my back to clench my hand as she tried to rouse me.

It took all my strength to squeeze her hand back.

She gasped at the pressure, still holding tight to my hands as she shifted her weight, slowly moving my exhausted body over the impossibly hard surface.

“You’re alive,” I was sure the use of the word was incorrect but given with how I felt I was sure that it wasn’t. “Please be okay. Please.”

My head moved again as she shifted it into her lap, the odd positioning making my already pained bones twist further, and I grunted, the soft noise like a lifeline to her.

“You’re here.” She gasped, running her fingers through the stubble of my hair now. “You’re alive.”

I wasn’t sure if she spoke more to me, or to herself, or to whoever was sobbing in the room, but it didn’t matter, and right then I didn’t care. Her joy at my existence was enough.

My face ached as I slowly began to force my eyes open, the subtle motion sending agony through every tiny muscle from the crown of my head through my neck.

“Hi there, My. Blue Eyes,” she whispered, her fingers continuing to run over my buzzed hair. I tried to smile at the words, at the exact phrase her mother had used so long ago, but I couldn't make the motion come. I couldn’t even drum up enough emotion to do so.

It was only agony, it was only hot tears as they rolled down the side of my face.

Even though my eyes were open, I saw next to nothing. The world that drifted above me was a mass of color, splotches of red obscuring most of it. I could see the shape of Kaye, I could see a stream of light from somewhere above, a blinking light of what I assumed were my monitors off to the side, but everything was a faded mass of color.

“Where am I?” I could barely get the words out, each one stung and burned as the warm sludge of my magic attempted to react.

“They moved you to the north wing,” Kaye said, her voice choked with something I didn’t recognize. “I don't have much time. They are still trying to get the camera online after we cut them. I can't be caught in here.”

“I don't understand…”

My words shook as the world continued to shift in and out of focus, the pain that hung from my body making it hard to see for long. Everything wobbled in smears of color. I attempted to focus on one spot in the hopes that it would stabilize, but it only shook more.

“The north wing. The hall before Nastya’s torture chamber,” she hesitated. “It’s where they keep the ones they use.”

She didn’t have to elaborate, I already knew. I knew from the hard floor and the smell of urine and mold. I knew because I had heard the sobbing child echo through the halls as I was wheeled by them, same as now.

“I need to get out of here,” I groaned, trying in vain to lift my body from her lap.

My agonized body screamed with every attempt, the sound beginning to seep from me as bones and muscles began to twist in threat of break, my entire body erupting in waves of electric aftershocks.

“Shhhh,” Kaye whispered me as she held my head still, trying to calm me down as I continued to writhe. “Shhh. You must be still.”

It was a plea bound in fear, her panic dripping from her words as I continued to twist in pain.

“Remember that beach you told me about once,” Kaye whispered desperately as she continued to sush me. The words caught me off guard, thankfully giving me something else to focus on other than pain that one movement had created. “Remember how you get to see Joclyn there. Think of that. Focus on her.”

Joclyn came right to my mind, snapping in place at the prompting. I could see her. I could almost breathe her in. I gasped in air as I closed my eyes, blocking out the red and grey and the stained walls of my prison and bringing the beach right back.

The touch of Kaye’s hand became Joclyn’s, the way she quieted me became a familiar hum in my heart. The pain in my body eased as the sobs that still echoed against walls and air became the gentle pull of the waves, the sound of the wind through the grass. In my mind, it all became real, and my magic reacted to the fantasy in a warm buzz that shot through me, numbing the last of the pain before it too began to fade, taking the moment of calm and the beach with it and leaving me in the cold damp room, my magic as cold and dead as the misery around me.

I opened my eyes. The smeared world of before had left, my magic healing me just enough that I was left to stare at the peeling paper and swinging light of a new misery. The box in the corner that I had thought was monitoring equipment was only one large box, a grey IV tube trailing from it-- right to me.

“What have they done?” I asked as I stared at the machinery, tracking the tube towards its destination, toward the arm that was locked in a brace. To keep the tubing in, I realized.

“You are severely drugged, Jan,” Kaye whispered, my head jostling as she shifted her weight, looking at something behind her. “It’s something different than what they were using before. A mixture of several different drugs; ethanol, morphine and a few others that have no place in a hospital. I don’t know what it will do to you. It has done different things to the others.”

She faded off, her words losing some of their power as the honesty behind them dug into me.

I wanted to ask what she meant, to ask what was coming, but I didn’t need the answer, I could already hear it in the way the child cried out. Besides, it wouldn’t change anything. It wouldn’t take me out of here and away from whatever they were doing to me.

Only one thing mattered.

“I need to get out of here,” I repeated, the words firmer as my vision continued to focus, the red slowly leaving. “We need to get out of here.”

“I am working on it,” Kaye reassured, placing her hands on either side of my head, looking down at me from above.

“How?”

I had spent months tied to a hospital bed, years trapped in comas that showed me the powerful man I used to be. Right then, however, I didn’t feel powerful. I felt broken. I felt like a man already dead.

I wanted there to be a way out. I wanted to fight it. Laying in this woman’s lap, unable to move, unable to think clearly thanks to the drugs, nothing seemed possible.

I needed to know there was something to hold onto.

“I’ve been in receiving for almost a year now.” She said, matter of factly, her face in focus enough now that I could see the determination there. I, however, didn't see how that helped.

“I’ve met some people there,” she hesitated, looking around as if she expected someone to be behind her. “They have a plan. Now that you are here I will try to get transferred. I won’t leave you alone.”

“You have to,” I hissed, my eyes and soul growing hard with what I was about to tell her. “It’s not safe, Nastya…”

“I know,” She interrupted me, obviously trying to calm me.

“No.” I stopped her with the single word, the hard snap catching her guard. “No, you don’t. Nastya… she’s like me.”

She froze, eyebrows arching as she tried to work through what I had just said. “I don’t understand.”

“She had magic,” I clarified, the look of horror that crossed her face the same as what was dwelling in my heart. “You have to get out of here.”

She stopped, swallowing hard as her focus drifted to something on the other side of the room, her jaw tight. Tension filled the air, drowning us the longer the silence lingered until it was a smothering weight.

“Kaye?” I asked as the steady rhythm of her fingers through my hair came to a stop.

I wished I could sit up and face her, wished I could dispel whatever had just taken over her, but I was trapped below her, looking helplessly at the only lifeline I had.

“I can’t leave yet,” she whispered, her hand soft against my scalp. “I still have things to do. I’m not leaving you yet.”

“You need to leave.”

“And I will,” she promised, her eyes hard as she looked into me. “But it’s not bad for me yet. You just need to hang on until I get transferred.”

“Hang on?” The words were confusing, but it could just be the drugs that infected my veins.

“I won't be able to come back here until then,” she finally said, her words increasing the tension into a hard rock in my stomach.

“Until you get transferred?” I asked, she only gave me a single nod in response. “How long? A month?”

She shook her head, “I don’t know when I will be able to come back, Jan. It could be a month. It could be a year.”

The phrase caught in my chest, swelling into a panic that was rising up. I tried to shift again, desperate to look her in the eye, but the slightest motion sent the world spinning and I froze, letting my agonized body sink back into the hard floor.

“I will get back here,” she said, squeezing her hand around mine. “I just don’t know when. There are some things I need to do first…”

“But you will return.” I cut her off, the strength of my voice rising to meet hers.

“I will not leave you behind, Jan.” She promised, her eyes determined.

“That’s not my name.”

“You let me know when you figure it out,” she teased, a light joy leaping from her eyes before a loud noise from the hall caused both of us to jump.

The sound repeated itself in another loud jump before the sounds of sobs and screams followed behind. Doors. Someone was opening doors.

“I have to go.” Kaye groaned as she began to shift her weight, carefully placing me back on the floor again. “I am out of time.”

“Kaye…” I whispered, knowing that there was nothing I could do to stop her.

“Stay strong, don’t give up.” She said as she stepped toward the door, the rhythmic thunk-thunk of doors opening and closing growing closer. “I will come back.”

“Promise me we will find her,” I gasped, the words choked with tears as I lay on the cement, watching her disappear behind the heavy metal door.

“I promise.”

It was the last thing she said before she left me alone.

Before she was gone.