III: The Soldier and the Fairy Queen: Red Eve

VIII: Karpov

Her wrists stung. Her neck stung. Her waist stung. Her ankles stung. Her thighs stung. Her calves stung. Her head... her head didn't sting, but it ached.

She choked out a breath and her eyes shot open. She squinted against the blurry light in front of her face. She tried to lift her head, but quit when something bit into her throat. Restaints was the first word to pop into her mind. She tried to move and located tight restraints encircling her legs, waist, arms, and neck.

She attempted to pull away from the bands on her wrists. They didn't give way. She frowned and tried again. Nothing. Strange. She sighed and rested. She observed the room, but nothing remarkable met her blurry sight. A chair sat on the right side of the table she was strapped to, and on the left an IV was leaking into her hand. She squinted at the clear plastic bag. She thought it looked almost empty. Whoever was keeping her here would probably come in soon to replace it.

An unseen entity stabbed long needles into her forehead and eyes. She yelped and squeezed her eyelids shut again. The burning sensation cleared after a small eternity. The air in the room was damp and clingy, doing nothing to help the pain.

She forced her eyes open again. A shiver went up her spine when she saw a face blocking the light. It was close enough for her to see clearly enough without squinting. Something about it's structure reminded her of someone else...

"Hello, soldat. Wonderful day, isn't it?" The face was male, and spoke in Russian.

She started to speak, but her voice caught in her throat. She coughed and started again, "You're Karpov's child." Russian rolled off her tongue. Her mouth felt like it was stuffed with cardboard.

"Da. And I already know who you are, so let's skip the dull etiquette," he ducked out of the light.

She felt her mind translating the sentence into dozens of languages automatically. She pursed her lips. This situation felt startlingly familiar.

She heard the hum of voices and strained to hear them over the blood rushing and the bells ringing in her head.

Karpov spoke, "What's wrong with her leg?"

Another person, a girl, answered with clinical precision, "Observing the x-rays, there appears to be a defect in her patella, resembling a puncture wound consistent with a bullet injury. The presence of this defect has compromised the integrity of the joint, resulting in weakness and pain, most likely."

"Translation?"

The girl sighed, "There's a bullet hole in her knee."

"Can you fix it?"

"Of course I can. It's a minor knee replacement. What do you think I am, an amateur?"

Karpov scoffed and continued, "Can you perform the vision correction surgery as well?"

"Pyotr Vasilievich! Go supervise the squadron. I have this," the girl exclaimed. She could hear the smile in the girl's voice.

"What if I don't want to supervise the squadron? What if I want to supervise you, moya lyubov?" Karpov laughed.

She heard a door close and lifted her head as much as she could to find it. She felt a warm hand on her forehead push it back to the table.

She looked up at the girl. The girl wore a navy blue uniform that barely contained her significant girth. Her smile was bright and charismatic. Her dark hair was pulled back into a braid that fell over her shoulder.

The girl grinned at her, "If you were at your strongest, you would be able to snap the bands without any difficulty. But, as you might have already observed, the restraints are more than enough to contain someone of your weak state. We had to keep you down with something, because, in our experience..."

The girl trailed off and picked a scalpel up off of a little cart. She held it up to the light, caressing it with plump dark fingers. "Well, people can do curious things when subjected to an extreme amount of pain." The girl moved down the table to her legs, "I also strongly suggest you close your eyes."

She looked up at the light, a strange calmness settling into her bones. She did not need to see the blade to imagine it cutting her skin, scraping her bone. The calmness left her when her back arched and she hissed. She clenched her fists and squeezed her eyes shut.