Broken Visions

Chapter 14

“What is this place?” I whisper, staring at the girl who appears to either be asleep or unconscious. She has to be only about eighteen or nineteen, younger than me.

Laylen shakes his head, his eyes skimming the chains hanging from the ceiling. “I have no idea… I’ve never been down here before.”

“Should we…” I motion at the girl bound by ropes to the rack. “Should we free her?”

Laylen looks skeptical but slowly makes his way over to her. I follow closely at his heels. The girl looks dead, eyes sealed, her body still.

“Is she… is she alive?” I ask Laylen as examines her.

He assesses the ropes around her wrists and ankles. “Yeah, I can hear her heart beating.”

“Should we…” I move my hand for one of the ropes that’s around her wrist. “Should I untie her?”

Laylen hesitates then nods, extending his hand for the rope around her other wrist. The rack isn’t stretching her limbs to their full capacity, but her skin is pulled tight and shows each one of her bones. Her curly black hair is matted and looks like it hasn’t been washed in ages. Her blue dress is faded and frayed and she isn’t wearing any shoes.

She remains still as Laylen and I untie her wrists and ankles and she doesn’t budge even when she’s free, her eyes staying shut as she breathes in and out softly.

“Maybe she’s—” I start to say, but then the girl’s eyes open.

She looks at us then pulls her arms in and bends her knees as she leaps from the rack and backs herself up into the corner where an array of whips hang from the wall.

“It’s okay,” Laylen says with his hands up in front of him. “We’re not going to—” She lets out a blood curdling scream and Laylen rushes for her. “Son of a…” Laylen grabs her as gently as possible and covers her mouth with his hand. “We’re not going to hurt you, but you have got to stop screaming.”

The girl’s bright yellow, cat-like eyes scan the room, the rack, the stairway that goes to a door, panting profusely, then land on me. She grabs onto Laylen’s arms and draws them down so his hand uncovers her mouth.

“It’s you,” she says in amazement. “I can’t believe it.”

“Yeah, it’s me.” I give Laylen an is-she-crazy look and he shrugs, unsure.

“You think you know her?” he asks her.

She nods, slipping from his arms and taking a step toward me, but Laylen gets nervous and places himself in between us. “She’s the one he talks about all the time. The girl with the violet eyes—the star.”

“Stephan told you about me?” I ask, peering over Laylen’s shoulder at the girl.

She glances apprehensively at the top of the spiral stairs and then nods. “Yes, the man with the scar.”

“Why are you here?” Laylen wonders. “Does he have you trapped?”

She cocks her head to the side, examining me over with her unnatural yellow eyes. “I’m the half faerie, half Keeper he needs for his plan, so he told me I had to live here.” She motions at the torture chamber we’re in. “This is my home—where I was raised.” She turns around in a circle, looking at everything. “But it’s okay…” she says it as if she’s trying to convince herself. “Because I’m his daughter.”