𝐒𝐖𝐄𝐄𝐓 𝐃𝐑𝐄𝐀𝐌𝐒

014. dead man, deadly woman

NAOKI, BOUND AND GAGGED. Naoki, alone, all on her own. 

Naoki, raging. 

The gag around her lips did nothing to silence her wrath, with a gaze as roiling dark as the Queen of Shadows herself. The Damia avoided her, unused to such unpleasant company that neither cowered nor grovelled. 

Instead, she fumed, she boiled, she screamed. 

Her fury was not quiet nor tame. She yelled every chance she got, she refused to move when they transported her, and forced them to carry her full dead weight. She would not let them feed her, and instead glared at them with sunken eyes, her stomach screaming its equal savagery at them. 

They had made a horrible mistake, taking Naoki Mae as prisoner. 

For a week she had been their ward, and for a week she ran on nothing but pure seething passion. She drank their water to keep her head, but the gnawing hunger in her belly kept her lean and mean. The anger was amplified by her starving stomach, and she would not let her rage die. 

If it did, she would have nothing left. 

Instead she thought of Illias. Of Dexter and Paris. Of Theo and Xandra. Of Kiernan and the Keepers. Of her mothers, Mima and Mum. Of her brothers, Jem, Atticus and Laurie. Of everybody that the Queen of Shadows dare try to rip her away from. Of everybody that the Queen thought would lose everything for her. 

The Damia brought her into a new room, not massive storage container they had repurposed into a cell, but a room that smelled of plastic and fabricated material. The fluorescent lights had been smashed, glass shattering the cold grey room like bits of broken hearts. 

Their mangled hands brushed her skin as they set her down, and Naoki did not repress a repulsed shudder. She snarled at the Damia, and they drew back. All but one, who reached forward with needle-like fingers, and shredded her gag. 

"They won't come," she said confidently, the first words she'd spoken in weeks, her voice raw and raspy and true. "Nobody will come for me. They'll blow this place to hell first." 

The room rumbled, and the temperature dropped. 

Suddenly, the Damia were gone, whispers of smoke that blew away in the breeze. The temperature dropped. Naoki's breath made white puffed clouds in the dingy room, dissolving into the air, frightened. She pressed her back to the wall as the floor shook, glass rattling and lights swaying. 

The shadows around the room seemed to meld, pooling and rushing into the centre of the room like water down a drain, swirling and congealing into a shifting mass. 

The Queen of Shadows herself. 

The figure's long legs stepped forward, and with every gained foot, the shadows parted to reveal creamy legs, soft skin, and big black eyes. She was beautiful, the way death and graveyards were pretty. She stopped before Naoki, with pink nails gently scratching her own scalp. 

"Naoki Mae." The world seemed to reverberate as she spoke, the rumbling of the world shaking with every syllable. 

"Queen Bitch," Naoki said pleasantly. "Good to see you in the flesh for once, as opposed to you hiding behind your shadows like a cowardly little boy." 

"Flesh, no," the Queen smiled, though her eyes remained frozen, and reached out to Naoki. She flinched back, but the Queen's hand only passed through her, rippling like the surface of a pond. "But coward, perhaps. It's all in the perspective, isn't it?" 

Naoki eyed her warily. "I already told you. They're not coming for me." 

The Queen laughed, like thousands of bat wings beating at the air. "Oh darling, I never wanted you for them. I wanted you... for you."