Ashes

by P. M. Briede

  When the sandmen, that’s what I’d started calling them anyway, returned to imprison me within my body again, I heard one of them address Celinda as Ms. Banks. So it seemed she’d used the name of the press secretary. She also referred to me as Charlotte when she answered their questions on whether or not she was pleased with the way they were caring for her sister. As if keeping me as an invalid could be considered care. They did an inspection of my body with her, I’m guessing to show no bed sores or something. So someone had to be coming in and doing some kind of physical therapy with me to keep my muscles from turning to jelly. Bottom line, though any information was better than nothing, the best piece I learned this visit was that wherever I was my name was probably Charlotte Banks.

  The next time I saw Celinda, she was furious and I paid the price for it. I could only assume some part of her plans had fallen through or Wesley and Olivier had done something they absolutely weren’t supposed to. She entered the room with a man I didn’t know. He picked me up and strapped me to a chair then proceeded to beat me ruthlessly. Not saying a word Celinda stood there, watching and filming my abuse. True to her word the sparkle in her eye and the glee in her countenance confirmed she found my pain exceptionally gratifying.

  Though I couldn’t move to defend or protect myself due to the neurotoxins that still claimed ownership of my body, I could feel every excruciating blow and its aftermath. I didn’t need a mirror to know I was no longer going to be a healthy, peachy color but black and blue and bloody. When it was over I expected them to depart and the sandmen to enter. However, I was put back in bed disappointed when just the man left. Celinda sat in the chair I’d just been beaten in, fiddling with her phone.

  After a few minutes it rang. She answered, didn’t say a word, and then hung up. The bed was angled so I was sitting and could see everything about her and what she was doing. Her eyes were malevolent yet bemused by whatever was going on now. Since this was the first time I’d found myself not lying down, I peered through my swollen eyes to take in the rest of the room. The walls were padded. The window was not to the outside but to the hallway and was closed off by blinds. There was a small, barred window in the door and a slat that resembled a mail slot. The bed was the only piece of furniture. Celinda and the man had brought the chair with them and I suspected it would disappear when she left.

  The phone rang twice more and twice more she’d listen for a moment before hanging up without a word. Immediately when she hung up the second time it starting ringing again. “Ah, I think we’ve made our point,” Celinda commented while looking at me wickedly. This time when she answered I could hear the voice on the other end.

  “What do you want from me?” the disembodied voice reluctantly inquired. It was Wesley.

  “First,” she answered with a sharp laugh, “from now on when I send you a message, you respond. I have other ways to talk to him if I wanted to.” I assumed “him” was Olivier. My guess was he’d been the one calling and whom she’d been hanging up on. When Wesley agreed, Celinda continued. “So what did you think of the movie? The art direction could use a little work and the lighting was bad but I think the overall message came through. Don’t you?”

  How could she be so damn casual? She’d had me beaten and sent the video of it to Wesley who had obviously shared it with Olivier. I found it unfathomable that one being could be so demented and evil. But Wesley held it together. He didn’t let her dispassionate critique of her own direction feed his emotional response. He remained calm, not casual, but calm. “How do I know she’s still alive? That abuse could have been deadly. Plus, it could have happened anytime since you took her. We asked you for proof of life not proof of death. You have yet to give it. Until you do, I’m done meeting your demands.”

  The hard line Wesley had taken had not been an outcome Celinda had anticipated. More for my benefit than his, her face held a mask of calm but I saw the miniscule shift in her carriage that bespoke of her trepidation. She’d expected the video to cow at least Wesley. I knew Olivier, though it would pain him to do so, would allow them to kill me if it meant stopping their rebellion and killing everyone. He knew I expected it of him. Of the three of us, Wesley was the most likely to sacrifice everything just for me, and here he was not doing so. “Have it your way,” she said, her lips curling in a sneer. “Just be aware you are the one signing Charlotte’s death certificate. I’ll start shipping out body parts to you this afternoon.”

  Afraid Celinda’s threat would cause Wesley to cave I was proud when it didn’t. If anything it seemed to fortify his resolve to get what he was after. “Proof of life, Celinda,” he growled, “or no deal. Body parts in boxes prove nothing. A video proves nothing. If you want me to act, you give me proof of life! If all you want to do is make idle threats which will garner you zilch, than this conversation is over.”

  Finally there was an emotional response from her. She jumped up from her chair to come hover at my bedside. Aiming her phone at me, she hit a button. “There are you happy now?! You can see your precious Charlotte. You can see I mean what I say. Continue to disobey me, Wesley, and I’ll kill her! You have my word on that. But I’ll do it slowly and as painfully as possible for her. I’ve had millennia to watch you measly humans torture each other so I know what works and what doesn’t to prolong her inconsequentially wretched, little life.”

  Wesley swallowed his fury but it still seeped into his tone. “Charlotte, I need you to say something.” I wanted to answer him. I was desperate to put him at ease. But there was no way I could. With only silence as an answer, his voice roared out the speaker. “That is it, Celinda! No more games. Her battered, prostrate body lying in a bed unmoving is not proof of life. Your window is closing on what you want done. The choice is yours.” Then the line went dead.

  Celinda absolutely lost it and I hoped it would mean the end for me as well. It sounded like Wesley wasn’t going to cave to her demands and I had no interest in meeting whatever torment she could concoct. Everything she’d already put us all through was more than enough for me. When the raging screams and furiously spoken threats ended, in the blink of an eye her appearance shifted back into one of flawless serenity with every hair perfectly in place.

  She opened the door to leave and the sandmen finally made an appearance. But she put up a hand to block their entrance. “No more medication for that one. Let’s see if the treatments have tamed my sweet sister.” At the reminder that the chair in the room was a breach in their protocol, Celinda let one of the men enter. As he retrieved the chair he glanced in my direction and I thought I caught a hint of sympathy in his blue eyes.

  However long it was from when Celinda left to when she reappeared, it was filled with agony. Without her there to focus on anymore, all my mind could process were my injuries. Everything ached, everything was sore, and when she’d said no more medications that must have included whatever they were doing to keep me nourished as well. I quickly grew hungry and nauseous on top of everything else. There were no visits from the sandmen. In the beginning, I’d tried to rally my courage and not break to the pressures. However, I was weak. Weak from spending all this time since the wedding lying in a bed. Weak from not having had any food or drink pass my lips. Weak from the beating I’d endured on her last visit.

  Though I’d spent most of my time in a drug-induced slumber, I still found myself surrendering to sleep. What else was there to do? When I awoke the first time, I cried from the mental and physical hardships I’d been subjected to since being taken captive. After the next nap I censured myself for my pathetic pity party. While everything hurt, my mind was clearing. This may turn out to be a blessing because I was now being afforded time to actually think through all the observations and information I’d catalogued from Celinda’s visits.

  If I ever got the chance to communicate with Wesley, Olivier, Paige, or Tristan, I needed to be able to tell them where I was. Still fairly confident in my earlier assessment that wherever I was I was under the name Charlotte Banks, I
set about putting the pieces of my location together. The sandmen wore scrubs and had been administering constant medication and medical attention, so it was probably some sort of medical facility. The size of the room and hospital bed seemed to support that idea as well. Yet it didn’t narrow down my location very much. I could be in a hospital, nursing home, hospice, rehab; the list could go on and on. But the padded walls and lack of, well, anything in the room other than the bed really solidified for me that I was being held in a mental facility. Now as to where that facility was, I had no answers. With my mind now exhausted from determining what little I felt I had, I went back to sleep.

  My next waking hours were spent trying to figure out what to do next. Maybe my kidnapping had been a blessing in disguise. I’ve now infiltrated Celinda’s sphere. If I could keep my head I might be able to play into her belief that I was a creature beneath her overall concern and continue to garner the information we needed. And there was so much. We needed to know about Abigail’s origins. We needed to know where the Wyatt’s daughter’s remains were. And we needed to know the plans of the rebellion, more than just the chaos they were trying to incite among the humans. I was in the envious position to get all that information because for some inconceivable reason Celinda liked to tell me things. My hunch was it made her feel superior, like she was enlightening me. I was willing to use that arrogance against her anyway I could. If I could turn Celinda against herself without her even knowing it; if I could keep my true self hidden from her, my strong, fighting self; I might be able to save us all. I could be a cowed, scared child.

  Satisfied with my plans, I rolled onto my side to ease the ache in my back. Wait! I rolled onto my side. That meant the neurotoxins had worn off and I had control of my body again. It hurt but I made myself roll back in case Celinda came in. The fact that she’d denied me sedatives might mean the denied neurotoxins had slipped her mind. However, I couldn’t help but indulge in wiggling my fingers and toes until I drifted off to sleep.

  Her voice pulled me out of the first dreams I’d had since the night of Paige’s wedding. “Wake up, dear sister.” The words were sweet, the tone was stone, and the sneer was deadly. Her sinister face, which was nose to nose with mine, startled me. On instinct I scooted away from her until I felt the bed railing at my back. “Good, you can move. Now can you speak?”

  In order to gather another piece of vital information, I responded, “Satisbene. Quid?” Well enough. Why? Had I not needed to know if she spoke Latin, I’d have barked at her. Many people lose languages when they don’t use them and hopefully that went for angels too.

  “Gracious, did all the medications addle your brain? Seriously, I need to know you can speak!” she countered in a clipped tone. She could be playing me for a fool but it seemed she truly didn’t have any idea I’d actually spoken rationally to her. That boded well if I ever got the chance to speak to Olivier again. It was a risk I was willing to take.

  Since I’d decided the best course of action was to play the meek, broken captive, I lowered my eyes. “I’m sorry, Celinda. I don’t know where that came from. Odi te. Yes, it seems I can speak. Inhonoratus es.” Trying to play up her proffered excuse of an addled mind for my initial statement, I threw out Latin phrases as if I had Tourette’s syndrome. Because it was the only weapon I had, they weren’t anything nice. Plus it also let me double check her Latin. Multiple vile comments about her, if she recognized them, would eventually penetrate her well-polished veneer and she’d lash out.

  Celinda rolled her eyes at me and sat on the bed. Now instead of looking at me like a tool she looked at me like a broken toy. “What is that nonsense you’re spewing? Do you even know?”

  “Morietur. I don’t. I’m sorry. Please don’t be angry.” I flinched away for effect. She needed to think I wanted to please her, that I wanted to be her pet.

  “Oh, sister, no need to be afraid.” She pulled me into what, I’m sure, she thought was a warm embrace but was actually quite chilling. Olivier had always been so warm. Celinda was ice cold and not just because of her demeanor. “It’s unfortunate you’ve taken to speaking gibberish but all they wanted was proof of life. They didn’t request you remained in the same condition in which I took you.” Her spindly fingers were more like ice picks when they met my chin to lift my eyes to hers. Petrified she was going to invade my mind I held my breath. “We have a call to make, Charlotte. This is the first test to see if I can keep you as a pet, dear girl.” There was no melodic quality to her voice so I felt confident that she wasn’t inside my head. “Don’t try anything tricky. They’ll ask you some questions I’m sure but no codes, you understand me? Tell them you’re alive and healthy, no need to lie and say you’re happy. But anything else and the beating you received two days ago will seem like a mild scrape in comparison to what I’ll give you.”

  I nodded my head eagerly, agreeing to behave while calling her scum. It appeared we were waiting for Wesley and Olivier to call which struck me as odd. Celinda never seemed the type to not be in control of a situation, so the fact Wesley and Olivier were calling this shot spoke volumes. Not wanting to waste the time in silence, I set about trying to learn things. “Sister, how long have I been in your benevolent care?”

  There was a slight squeeze from the arm still draped around me. “That’s a good girl. Other than when I beat you the other day, which was their fault, you must believe me on that, I have taken good care of you.” God, what a narcissist! “Well let’s see, the redhead’s wedding was, what, middle of October?” Was she really so busy and important that Celinda didn’t readily know how long she’d held me prisoner? I nodded confirming the time of Paige’s wedding. “About two and a half weeks.” Well that was actually good news because it had felt longer. It did mean the election was over.

  “Did you win, dear daemon sister?” I choked on the Latin word for demon since the syntax was actually quite close. With a little cough, I peered up at her through my eyelashes and shrugged contritely.

  As she stroked my hair Celinda started to shush me in a soothing manner. “We did. I’m sorry you missed the celebration. Too bad Wesley was too depressed to enjoy it. It’s quite a feather in his cap. Alexander has been asking for you but we’ve all told him that you are away on family business. I’m sure that’s the same story Wesley and Olivier are using for the rest of your life as well.”

  Just then her phone sounded and she put a finger to her lips before answering. “Yes, she’s right here. Are you both there? We are only doing this once.” Her attitude was back to that casual, devil-may-care façade she’d been wearing during every other visit I’d had with her. The way she’d responded to my mock meekness, though, confirmed for me that she was lonely.

  When Celinda got whatever verification she was looking for on the other end she handed me the phone. On the screen I saw their faces; their beautiful, worried faces. I almost lost it right there. But I steeled my resolve and took a deep breath. With my Latin phrases already sorted out, I began. “Animi facilitate.” Mental facility. “Hello.”

  Wesley eyes widened and looked panicked. Olivier’s narrowed and looked thoughtful. He instantly had some idea I was going to be talking more to him than anyone. I heard a snapping as Olivier’s eyes darted to the side. “Good God Celinda! What have you done to her?” Wesley bellowed.

  Perturbed by his impertinence, Celinda reminded them they had a limited amount of time to talk to me. She didn’t say how long it was and that’s when I noticed the time. I was confident I was in a mental facility somewhere but I didn’t know where and had no way to know. But if I could give Olivier and Wesley the time at least we could narrow it down to a time zone depending on the time where they were. I took a risk and broke in. “Sister, wasn’t I supposed to have lunch at noon? Primum nomen meun.” My first name. “It’s an hour and a half past.” That confirmed Olivier’s suspicions and I got an infinitesimal nod in approval.

  “I’ll look into it when this is done.” She fluttered her hand at me indicating I s
hould get back to my phone call.

  “You haven’t fed her! Celinda, she has to eat, and regularly!” Wesley looked crazed. I had to get him to settle down or I wasn’t going to be able to tell them all the information they needed.

  “Peius reliquos.” I’ll survive. “Don’t worry, Wesley. Celinda has taken good care of me. As long as I’m good, non putet necabo.” Don’t think she’ll kill. Wesley opened his mouth to say something and I tensed while I awaited it. But something captured his attention, his eyes grew wide, and when they met mine again through the phone they were somewhat relieved. Olivier must have found a way to clue Wesley in. “I heard you won the election. Ultimum nomen eius.” Her last name. “Congratulations.”

  Wesley stuttered before accepting my congratulation. “Thank you. We were very excited. Sorry you missed it.” While he was no longer concerned about my mind the conversation through the phone was beginning to take a toll on him. His jaw line was tense, his eyes were hard, and I didn’t need to see his hands to know they were fisted. His gaze shifted to the side and at first I thought he was looking at someone on his end. But when he spoke I comprehended his implication. “I’m looking forward to being Chief of Staff and helping Alexander helm the country.”