Page 98 of Revenge of the Forgotten

Her scream vibrated against her ears. Vega clawed at them, hoping she could rip them from her body and stop the high-pitched ringing. She hadn’t begun to beg. Not yet.

“Stop.” Her sister’s voice was monotone, telling Junie to pull back on her current method of torture. “Are you ready to talk, Vega? I can go all day.” Marlena sat in a chair in the corner of Vega’s cell, making herself comfortable. She kicked her feet back against the wall, inspecting her fingernails.

Dried blood caked under Vega’s nails from the trickle out of her ears. “I don’t know how Remus did it! I’ve told you that!” Vega screamed, anger replacing her pain.

“Wrong answer. Junie.” Marlena didn’t look up from her hands, only motioned for the girl to begin again.

The pain restarted, and Vega plummeted to the floor. She wished she could go back to her blissful morning, where she sat and thought about the things in her life that made her happy—distracting from the fact she was the prisoner of a sister who wanted her dead. Junie kept going, kept clawing at her brain with the ability to peel her apart, layer by layer inside her own mind. Junie reached inside the part of her brain in control of pain, and it was like she pushed the On button until Marlena told her to stop again. Junie removed her hands from Vega, taking a step back with a blank expression.

Vega was beginning to see stars, nearing the point of blackout. She retched on the floor from the buzz still bouncing around inside her head. The contents of her stomach splattered all over the cell.

“One last time, Vega… How did Remus curse Romulus and the original gods? You summoned Remus. I know the answer is inside of you somewhere. Think harder.”

This was the information Marlena had given Vega her memories back for… knowledge that she’d never known. Why does she want to know? What could she possibly need that information for?

Vega screamed, incoherent to herself, trying to drown out the pain still bubbling inside even without Junie’s powers dancing around. “I don’t know, Marlena! I. DO. NOT. KNOW!” Vega knew what it felt like to go mad—having Junie inside of her head was unlike any torture Marlena had ever subjected her to. She didn’t know how much she could put up with Junie using her brain against her. Where did they find this bitch?

Marlena sighed and pushed herself up from the chair. “I’ll give you the night to soul-search. We’ll be back tomorrow.”

Vega stayed on the floor, chained to the wall. When she could no longer hear their footsteps, she let herself cry. The tears wouldn’t solve anything, but after everything—all the duress she’d been forced to live through—Vega deserved to cry for all she’d lost, for all she’d become.

Her new guard didn’t speak or bring her food. The last time she’d had anything to eat was when Felix was on guard, and she ate moldy cheese and stale bread like they were a greasy burger from her favorite fast-food place in Chicago. Her stomach growled with a hunger she’d never known.

Her fingernails were chewed down to bloody nail beds—it was all she could do to distract herself from the endless torture.

Nothing felt right, but hey, at least I have my memories…

The chains were tight around her ankles, keeping her confined to a small corner of the already tiny cell. She’d officially lost track of time and was beginning to give up hope that her friends were going to be able to save her. How long had she been here? Four, five days? A week? When would time mean nothing at all?

Vega spun the ring on her finger, fidgeting to keep her mind off the loneliness in her chest. Her cell smelled of puke, keeping a constant wave of nausea rolling in her gut.

She didn’t hear the footsteps until they were right outside of her cell—irreparable damage in her eardrums might surely be the cause of her delayed sense.

“What did you do to deserve no food tonight?”

Bridger.

Whenever her memories took her to the past with Bridger, laying out his never-ending list of betrayals, she ignored the hurt like Khort told her to do. Instead, she focused on the pit of anger bubbling like lava in her chest.

Remembering him drove a stake through her already depleted heart. “Go away, Bridger. Please.” Even her own voice sounded muffled through her ears. She continued to stare at the wall, hoping he would get the hint. Vega didn’t have it in her to have it out with him.

“That’s all you have to say? ‘Go away, Bridger?’ That’s a little tame for the Vega I know.”

She coughed out a laugh, the pain in her throat stinging. It was raw again, drops of blood seeping down the back of her throat when she talked. “You don’t know me.”

“I beg to differ. The Vega I know would be cussing up a storm, pulling at the chains until her ankles bled, and she certainly wouldn’t have said ‘please’ when telling me to go away. In fact, the Vega you were days ago was ready to send me straight to the underworld.”

Vega shot up, head spinning, but she ignored it. “Maybe I’m finally giving up. That’s what you both want, right? For me to finally come to terms with my inevitable death?” She walked to the end of her chains, meeting Bridger’s eyes for the first time since remembering who he was, who she was. “The last thing I want to do before I die is look at you, at the sad, pathetic excuse for a man you’ve become.” She’d once told him differently.

“There she is,” Bridger said.

“Here I am.” Vega rolled her eyes, and the chains rattled as she pulled against them. “What do you want, hmm? To rub it in my face that you’re winning?”

“Winning?” Bridger barked. Vega felt power slip around her, the chains at her feet falling off. He’d thrown a shield around them, keeping their conversation private—Vega could feel his power brimming, making the brand on her wrist tingle. “What makes you think that I’m winning?”

Her body pushed her forward, free of the restraints that kept her in the corner, struggling to hear. “Did you hit your head on the way in?” she asked before continuing. “Look at you, hiding behind that commander’s uniform. You did it so you could win, right? Traded me in for the bigger, badder, and better Caelum sister. Traded me so you could wear the warrior’s wardrobe you’d dreamed of since childhood.”

Bridger looked her up and down, his lip curled in disgust. She could only imagine what she looked like to him—his clean-cut hair, longer in the front than it’d been in her last life, his facial hair growing into a five o’clock shadow, his perfectly pressed uniform. Clean and as handsome as ever. Compared to her own blood-stained body, dirty hair, and the fact she couldn’t remember the last time she’d been able to bathe or use a real bathroom—Vega knew she was an eyesore at best.

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