Page 47 of Unwritten Vows

Derrick

I don’t get to go back to the quaint little room I’ve been staying in while I recovered. When we come back from my day of torture, I get thrown into a cell in the basement.

The next day’s fresh hell starts early. They haul me up and bring me into a dingy old room with an old-fashioned rack. Today’s torture is stretching.

“We don’t want to mangle your pretty, pretty face,” says whoever the man was yesterday who was asking questions through the speaker in the frozen water pit as he binds me to the contraption.

I feel the prick of that needle again, and this time, I just go with it, allowing myself to float along in a haze of pleasantness.

Better take it while I can , I think, and zone out while giving answers to the abundance of questions they’ve asked me.

“So you knew about all of your father’s plans then?” The question takes me off guard, and I shake my head, desperately attempting to remember what I’ve been saying, but coming up empty.

“What? No. I—I didn’t know his plans.”

The man pulls a lever and white hot pain courses through my limbs. I hiss as I feel the angry stretch of nerves.

“Now, now, now. Don’t lie to me, boy. You just told me that you knew he was going to try aligning with Edoardo and have you marry his daughter. So your engagement to Eliza was a scam, and you knew it.”

I shake my head furiously. “No, no, no. I didn’t think it was scam. I didn’t know that my father was planning to betray you before I let the word out about Liza and I! I didn’t mean to make a fool of her!”

“Hmm.” The man turns the wheel again, ever so slowly, and I give an involuntary gasp as my body stretches far beyond it’s limits yet again. “I never said you made a fool out of her. Those were your words.”

“They were my father’s words! Not mine. I told him no.

I told him I wouldn’t marry her. I broke it off with Liza so I wouldn’t hurt her.

But how was I supposed to tell anyone of you that my own father was working against you?

Think of what you would have done to me!

No, I knew it would be a mistake. So I tried to find a way to fix it.

I tried to find a way to blackmail my own father or persuade him that going with you guys would be more beneficial, even though what Edoardo was offering was more valuable.

I didn’t care. I wanted to be with Liza. ”

The man stalls for a moment, but then seems to reconsider it. “I don’t believe you.” He stretches me again, and now the comfort of the drugs has completely left me. Now, I feel every tiny tug. Every stretch and pull.

I groan through my teeth and sweat breaks out on my forehead. “I swear! This shit you’ve got me on wouldn’t allow me to lie, would it?”

“Nothing is one-hundred percent.” He walks around to my face to speak again. “You should have killed your father sooner. You may not have wanted to be a traitor to him, but in making that choice, you were a traitor to us.”

“I was trying to make it work for everyone. Aghh.” I give a strained sigh from the back of my throat, unsure if I’ll be able to handle much more pain than this.

“When you first met Eliza, was she a simple conquest to you? Yes or no. Keep in mind, you’ve already answered this.” He moves back to the lever, grasping it in his hand.

“Yes! But not—stop, stop!” He turns the lever again and my vision goes gray and hazy. He smacks my cheek hard and my eyes flutter open. I grunt out each breath, sounding like I’ve run a 30 mile marathon.

“I’m sorry, I interrupted,” the man says, right in my face. “What was it you were about to lie about?”

“Not lying!” I feel saliva leaking onto my lip and give another angry grunt, hocking it all up and spitting on the floor.

“Everyone—everyone fucking lies at the beginning. In—in our life, we have to sneak and spy. We learn it. I bet you did, too. I bet the Bolyar did it, even though he loved his wife. I had to make sure you were all…” I have to stop and grunt again, but resume a moment later. “All trustworthy, too.”

“Ah, so now you are comparing yourself to the Bolyar. I can promise you that he never hurt his wife the way you hurt Eliza.”

“I hated it! But I didn’t want my father to hurt her worse!” I feel like I’m going to fucking explode. I can’t take it anymore.

“I love her!” The pressure around my heart lessens somehow, and I get my breathing under control.

“I love her,” I say again, far more calmly.

“She made me better. She made me different from my father. So if I have to go through more of this… I don’t care.

I don’t care what I need to do to prove it to you. ”

I gulp and decide to take a crazy chance with my next words.

“Last night you put me in dungeon A1. It’s right next to your only exit tunnel.

I hope this doesn’t get anyone killed, but I have to tell you this part.

The guard fell asleep and I could have left, even with my hands zip tied the way they were.

I’ve looked at the blueprints; I knew exactly where I was and how to escape. ”

I pause to catch my breath, just for a second, and then keep going.

“But instead I slept on that horrible fucking mattress, very poorly because it’s really uncomfortable to sleep with zipties biting into your wrists.

I did it because I knew I couldn’t leave without explaining.

I don’t care if you pull my limbs apart one-by-one, because this will always still be the truth.

So do whatever you want to me, but I’m not leaving here until I either convince you, or I die. ”

There’s a long silence. The man finally seems about ready to speak when I hear the voice from beyond the walls. “That’s enough.”

It’s Liza’s father.

The machine immediately slackens, and with it all of my stretched muscles go limp. Its hold on me loosens and I crumble to the floor very ungracefully.

The Bolyar enters the room and the air goes colder.

The man at the lever stands straighter. The Bolyar strides in to stand over me as my body pools further onto the floor like slow-moving sludge.

“You will be sore for a week. Today you will be unable to walk. You will leave in the morning, dragging yourself out if you must.”

*****

Yaroslav is right when he says I won’t be able to walk, but I tell the men not to touch me until I can stand on my own. They’re fine with that and most of them take their leave.

It takes a full hour for my most injured joints to stop locking and popping each time I move them, and another hour to pick my sorry ass off the floor enough to sit.

Feeling comes back to my limbs, although it coincides with whatever strange drug they gave me, and my nerves scream even further in protest, a persistent ache oozing from my muscles like it’s flowing through my bloodstream.

But as the drug fades, so does the fog in my head. Yaroslav wants me gone. From the way he said it, it sounds like he wants me as far away from his daughter as possible. And I have to admit to myself that if I were in his position, I would, also.

Part of me is defeated, but the other part wants to fight. I want to tell them I’m not going away—that I can win his approval back and that I never lost hers. I know she still cares about me. I know she was falling for me.

The thought fuels me to stand up and walk brokenly. I have to stop every couple of seconds when my muscles freeze up, and the aching is nearly unbearable, but I make it to the door and turn the handle on my own.

I know where I am—I wasn’t lying when I said I know the entire layout of this estate from studying blueprints. I’m still in their dungeon, and I have quite a walk until I get back to my tiny “room.” I fall to my knees soon after leaving the torture room, and I can’t quite get back up to standing.

So I crawl. I pass some of the cells that have bars on the doors and a lock, and I realize that the Bolyar didn’t expect me to hurt anyone while I’ve been here or he would have put me in one of them.

He hates me now, but he doesn’t think I’m dangerous.

He doesn’t think I’m a physical threat. He just doesn’t want me to hurt his daughter, and perhaps his reputation.

But I will win him over again, just like I won his daughter.

Nothing can be harder than it was to convince her to like me.

About half the way to my room, I lose stamina and fall into one of the cell doors.

I can’t get up, so I crawl in determination.

I see a guard and he just watches me with one brow cocked.

Yaroslav must have told him I was harmless, and honestly, he’s right.

The most cutting thing I have right now is my wit, and even that’s suffering.

I ignore him and drag myself the rest of the way.

My legs partially lock up just a few feet from my tiny room, so I roll onto my side, pull myself with my arms, and drag my legs behind me.

Once I make it in, I throw myself onto the mattress and thank the lord that there’s no box spring to worry about.

The mattress is lumpy, hard, and perfect. I fall asleep just minutes later, though my muscles are still screaming in pain.