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“Don’t ruin the package, you oaf. His Daddy needs him alive!” My vision went blurry as I gripped Ella tighter. The man chuckled. “He needs a little makeover. He’s too pretty.”
Grabbing a broken shard of glass, I jammed it into the guy’s neck. Blood spurted onto my face and chest, the strain of this man’s weight knocking me over. Grunting, I shoved at his body.
The boss took the opportunity to snatch Ella, flipping her up and off the ground and over his shoulder. Her head smashed into the entryway of the door, knocking her out cold. He squished her in his arms, her head lolling to the side. I scrambled out from underneath the lackey, rushing at the leader.
“Ah, ah, ah…” he said, halting my movements when he brought my knife up to Little Shadow’s throat.
“You come with me, boy, willingly and without all this fussing. If you don’t, I’ll slit the pretty girl’s throat and make you watch as I spill every drop of her blood onto you.”
I paled, my options obsolete. I couldn’t rush him because he would have time to kill her. I couldn’t throw something at him because he’d get angry and kill her. I didn’t have a choice if I wanted my Snow White to live.
I had to go with him and surrender.
“Fine!” I said, putting my hands up and watching the knife hover over her neck. “But you have to let her go.”
The man smiled, yellow teeth gleaming. “Oh, on the contrary, little prince….” he said, taking a dangerous step toward me. “I think our king would like to meet the princess, don’t you? Hmm, our murderous little Snow White.”
Waking up, I looked around. Black bars were blocking my vision.
What the fuck?
My world was broken. My reality was so shifted that I couldn’t comprehend anything. Feeling a lump on the back of my head the size of a rock, I groaned. I honed on the noises I was hearing. Was that…grunting? Yes, it was, and a whip.
“Lucius,” I said, trying to snap out of my hazed stupor.
I had to pull myself together and accept whatever was left of myself. I had to think. I had to use both parts of myself to get out of this. Ella would look at it tactically, finding any holes in the structure. Walking around and feeling the wall, I cursed. There was hay littering the area, covering cedar-looking boards underneath me and steel bars. The cell was about ten feet wide and went to the top of what looked like a barn.
I was in a barn?
Okay, so a barn…It didn’t matter where I was. I needed to find a way out. Maybe this box was a part of a stall, but maybe there was something here I could use. The sounds of the whip cracking made my stomach roll. Lucius sounded so pained, so tired, and so close that he had to be on the other side of the wall from me.
“Tell us, Lucius, and this all goes away,” someone said.
Lucius’s resounding “Fuck you” was laced with pain and rage.
Tell him what?
Another time. I had work to do.
Getting on my hands and knees, I shuffled through the hay, scraping my knee on some shattered glass. It looked like an old lamp had been broken. I picked up a piece, and it was the kind of lamp that was filled with oil!
Looking up at a window, I could clearly see the rays of the sun. The light streamed down on the wall. The line was straight and sure. I reached up, hissing when my flesh felt like it was sizzling.
With a smile on my face, I held the glass because this was what Ember would do. I was going to watch this place burn. Reaching up to angle the shard of glass at the lantern’s wick, I put it in the sunlight. Feeling a sense of elation as a tiny whisp of black smoke licked the wick and puffed into an ember, I watched it grow and glow vibrantly.
Hopping down from the little wooden table, I grabbed the lantern and began scooting the hay with my foot to the side of the stall.
The whipping sounds increased. Lucius’s grunts had turned into genuine cries now.
I had to hurry.
Making a small stack of hay toward the back of the stall, I blew on the wick. The embers flickered and fell onto the heap. A small spark popped, burying into the haystack, and a tiny pattern of black smoke began rising into the air.
Kneeling down, I blew more life into the ember. I watched it turn into an orange, a red, and soon a full fire bloomed. The black smoke rose up in a cloud, bouncing off the ceiling and thrown back down. Within minutes, I was coughing, the hazy orange glow making my vision blurry.
“What the fuck?” someone yelled, running as I hid behind the wooden hatch. They opened the cell door, and I attacked. Not thinking, I just threw the man into the flames. He screamed, swatting at his body while I happily watched his face melt.
Horrified at what I had done, I shook my head, bolting out of the cell door and running toward the sound of the cracking whip.
