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Chapter 2
My heart pounded so hard I feared my chest wouldn’t be able to contain it. Dizziness struck me with tremendous force.No. Not now.I scratched at my throat, desperate for air, sucking in breaths, but it wasn’t enough.
Not the executioner. That was not the way my papa dealt with criminals. He always tried to rehabilitate them through jail, counseling, and then provide them with a fresh start, usually working in my father’s orchards. What was I going to do now? I’d envisaged the witch keeping me imprisoned for the rest of my life and making me suffer, but not putting me to death.
Terror plugged my throat, blocking my voice. I had to get out of here and fast. The strength in my body faded from not having enough air. My breaths came short and fast. I was barely holding on to consciousness.
“She can’t breathe,” Rumi said, shaking the cell door. “Let me in. We can’t have her die here. They need her.”
Who needed me? What was she talking about? If I was so important to someone, then why leave me here for nine moon cycles to be tortured every week? To face starvation each day? I’d lost so much weight. My hair had fallen out from malnutrition. Blemishes covered my skin. I was constantly plagued with fatigue. It was a wonder I’d gotten as far as I had digging that tunnel. Only my hope, my grief, and my quest for vengeance had kept me going.
One of Rumi’s masked companions held out a set of rusty old iron keys. Had they taken them from the guards outside the dungeon’s main door? If so, they had to have incapacitated or killed the men. I felt no remorse over their fate—as far as I was concerned, those hired thugs deserved slow, agonizing deaths.
Rumi took the keys and shoved one in the lock, but it didn’t give. After two more tries, the third key finally turned, and the lock clicked open. Rusty hinges creaked as the caped crusader yanked open the door.
Instinctively, my muscles tensed, and I scrambled backward. Only bad things came when that door opened. If they were rescuing me, then what dark fate awaited them if they were caught? I could not bear the thought of anyone else dying because of me.
My gaze darted down the hallway, as I was expecting another lot of guards to turn up. Dark crevices danced with shadows from the firelight. Blood dripped from the sword one of the caped men carried, staining the bricks. My gasps drowned out the crackling of fire.
Rumi hobbled across the cell to me. Purple blood vessels pressed out of her pale, wafer-thin skin. Weight had dropped from her once heavier and healthier frame. The skin beneath her eyes had sunk in. What had happened to her on that banana plantation? How had she escaped? Had the same people who wanted me freed saved her, too? So many questions I needed answered.
She reached for me with shaky hands. I recoiled and whimpered as her fingertips grazed my shoulders. Being touched meant enduring pain—or so I’d come to learn since the torturer’s first visit to my cell… Painful bruises covered my body—and before one set had a chance to heal, that evil man always returned to deliver more—but that wasn’t the only reason I feared being touched. While the old Snow realized Rumi meant me no harm, the new Snow—the one born of a need to protect my battered soul—felt the urge to avoid all human contact. Unable to bear Rumi’s gesture any longer—or my painful memories—I crawled back across the floor toward the door.
“Oh, my dear.” Rumi pressed a hand to her sunken chest. “Look at you. In such a state. What did they do to you?” She ran her frail hand down my cheek.
Fire scorched along my skin, and I brushed her away. “Don’t,” I said, shaking, the panic rising up inside me again. “I don’t like it.”
She pressed me. “Did they hurt you?”
I didn’t want her to see me this way. Filthy, emaciated, wretched, and bruised. Emotions welled up inside me like a firecracker about to explode. I nodded, unable to get out a single word.
Kelvin started to mumble the same phrase he’d been repeating these last few days—the only thing he ever said, it seemed. “Trap her in the mirror.”
Each word drummed inside my skull.
At this, Rumi glanced at her companions.
“It’s all right. I’m here.” Slowly, Rumi kneeled beside me, as if trying to win my trust… Approaching me the way someone would a trapped and scared animal. And I supposed, after everything that had happened to me, I was one.
Rumi might have been able to protect me as a child, but I was an adult now. My father was gone. A wicked bitch was in charge of the land my father and I governed on behalf of the sea king. No amount of love Rumi bestowed could strip away the scars this cell had imprinted on me.
When Rumi brushed an oily, dirty lock of hair out of my eyes, I gasped. Any unexpected motion set me off. Alarm bells chimed in my mind. Panic coursed through my veins. Despite my repeated resistance and shifting away, she persevered, stroking my shoulder, slowly building up to wrapping me in her arms.
“There, child, there,” she said.
I cried in her embrace, feeling both trapped and comforted at the same time.
Those words and the way she cradled me to her chest reminded me of the times when something had upset me as a child, and she’d consoled me. Rumi wasn’t just a maid to me. She was like my second mother. Always there for my father and me.
Oh, how I’d missed Rumi and her comforting arms. I used to draw strength from her touch, and comfort from the company of someone warm and genuine who did not intend me harm. The torturer had spoiled that for me, leaving me shaking and unable to relax in Rumi’s grip. In the back of my mind, I was scared she’d hurt me, too, even though my heart knew she never would.
Immense hatred sparked inside of me. I wanted to hurt my stepmother for what she’d done to my father. For what she’d done to me!
“Touching reunion, really,” growled one of the caped crusaders accompanying Rumi. “We mustn’t linger long.”
“Can’t you see the child is distressed?” Rumi’s tone told me she was in charge of this little band of rescuers.
Had she paid the two men? Who were they? Were they loyal to my father? I couldn’t handle any further betrayal from men and women I’d once trusted…people who’d become minions controlled by my stepmother.
