Page 20 of Wrathful King

Blood dripped from her wrist in an oddly rhythmic tempo. Like some horror soundtrack.

“It means that one day, they’ll come for you. But you’ll be strong, won’t you, my little queen?”

My heart shuddered and I tapped my chest, hoping to extinguish the suffocating feeling inside my lungs. I swallowed the lump in my throat, but it only grew bigger and bigger.

“I will,” I breathed weakly.

“Keep yourself and your sister safe, my girl.”

Soon, her face turned crimson, sending terror through me.

“Mamma!” I screamed as blood filled the bathroom until I was drowning in it. I opened my mouth to screech for help when horror rushed in and I gasped as I was jerked down into a pool of blood.

My eyes shot open from the nightmare—no, not a nightmare, but a memory twisted into a nightmare, and instead of red, all I faced was darkness.

My heart raced in my chest, hammering against my ribs.

I couldn’t move, couldn’t even turn my head to the side. Each breath seemed to demand energy I didn’t have.

It had to be the drugs.

I was sprawled on the cold floor, the smell of urine permeating the air and overwhelming my senses. Slowly, my eyeballs shifted in my skull and I strained to study my prison. An old mattress. Metal door with thick bars. Metal floor. I even tasted metal.

The familiar rocking registered, along with the faint sound of waves slapping. I was still on the boat, then. Judging by the pain in my limbs, I must have been thrown into this cage. Or maybe whatever I’d been injected with caused this hollow ache.

A groan vibrated in my throat and I had to blink furiously through the pain. I felt it everywhere. My bones hurt. My muscles even more so. Ice shot through me, immediately covering my skin in goosebumps.

I had never felt like this before.

“It’s the withdrawal.” I slowly turned my head, my skull feeling heavier than ever, and locked my gaze onto a girl lying in the cage right next to mine, alone just like me. A mane of blonde hair hid her face. I opened my mouth to say something, but my throat was too dry to form words.

“They’ve been tube-feeding you,” she explained. “And shooting you up with heroin. You’ve killed six of their best men since you got here.” I blinked. I didn’t remember it. Any of it. “They want to make sure you don’t kill them all by the time we hit the docks.”

“D-docks?” I rasped in a voice that didn’t sound like mine.

“Brazil,” she added. “Another few hours and we’ll be put on the auction block at Porto Alegre.” She made it sound like we were meat, cows about to be slaughtered. How long had I been out? “That’s when our hell will start, definitely nothingalegreabout that fucking town.”

Fear obstructed my airways and the buzz in my brain harshened. Her lips moved, but I couldn’t hear a single word that left her mouth.

Something burned in my arm, and when I looked down and traced the canvas of needle marks, panic crashed into me, drowning out every other emotion. But that wasn’t the worst part. It was the flimsy material clinging to my body.

“Who put this nightgown on me?”

“I did,” she murmured. “I’m sorry. It was either me or one of the guards.”

Relief washed over me, my eyes burning with tears while my whole body started to convulse. “Th-thank y-you.”

She shifted and crawled closer, reaching her hand between the bars to clasp mine. I winced when she squeezed it, but her soft golden eyes stayed focused on me.

“When we get there,” she whispered softly, “don’t look at any of them. Don’t catch their attention, whatever they say or do. Stick by me.”

It sounded like good advice, and I couldn’t help wondering how she knew these things. She knew where we were going… Had she been here before? “Okay.”

“What’s your name?”

I met her golden eyes. How could she be so strong when I was falling apart? My skin itched, screams bubbled in my throat, but I jerked a terse nod anyway. “Reina.”

She nodded. “I’m Liana.”