Page 8 of Queen of Vengeance

“Why are you here?” I questioned him without even looking in his direction. “The Ransoms? I can’t imagine who else.”

“You’re a sharp one, Lea. You know, I wasn’t sure if you were the one I was looking for until now. You just created a healing salve from some scrap material given to you by a guard you bribed.”

“That did me a lot of good. He was one of the nice guards, but he was dumb enough to get caught selling contraband to prisoners.” I threw my head back and let out a dry laugh. “Wait, how do you know about that? Who are you?”

A small smile pulled into the corner of his mouth as he raised his pointer finger to his lips.

He didn’t plan on telling me who he was, but there was one thing for sure:

I needed to keep a close eye on him.

The adrenaline dissipated.

The pain from the torture I underwent remained.

I should have saved some of the potion for myself. No matter. At least Dineta will heal.

My vision went blurry, and my body felt cold.

I just need to lay down…

My eyes closed first, and I heard my skull crack against the stone floor as I fell over.

My eyes opened slowly to a brightly lit room.

I was even lying in a bed.

Did I die?

I tried to move, but my whole body screamed in pain.

Yeah, right. Death wouldn’t hurt this much.

“Oh, good. You’re awake.” A grainy, familiar voice spoke to me.

My eyes slowly cascaded to the side of me. I saw a face I recognized, but that was it.

“Eniko?” I whispered in confusion.

He was one of the newcomers to my cell, or so I thought.

Now, I see him dressed in a fine grey tunic with a symbol of the Bureau of Potions Regulations on his sleeve.

“Who are you really?”

“Allow me to introduce myself properly. I’m agent Eniko Lee. You can still call me Eniko. I planted myself in your cell because I thought you could help me, and I wanted to see what kind of person you were.” He gave me a gentle smile, but it didn’t quite reach his eyes.

“Did you get your fill of whatever you needed to see?” I nearly spat the words out at him.

“Very much so. I discovered you are not the kind of person that should be in prison. Which leads me to question how in the hell you got here.” He leaned forward, pressing his elbows into his knees.

“What do you want from me? If you’re here to try and make me sell out one of my cellmates, I won’t do it. You’ll have to kill me.” I wasn’t stupid.

Most of the people imprisoned here didn’t belong here. So, what made me so special?

I thought back to a conversation I had with my parents when I was younger.

They imprisoned people for political reasons under the guise of innocuous crimes.

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