Page 5 of The Hunchback

I came to lying on my stomach on the hover stretcher. The familiar disinfectant scent of Frollo’s lab filled my nose. Despite the atrocious pain that continued to rack my body, I could have wept with anticipatory joy, knowing that soon, very soon, it would be taken away.

“I should leave you like this,” Frollo hissed, noisily preparing his tools for the procedure. “I should leave you like this through the night to teach you not to disobey me. What the fuck were you thinking?” he shouted, standing before me, his hand fisting the spinal tap needle as if he wanted to stab me with it. “Do you have a death wish?”

I tried to shake my head, but my body barely responded.

“I asked you a fucking question!” Frollo yelled, making my ears ring.

“N… n… no,” I barely managed to answer.

“Have I not told you time and time again what the Citizens would do to a Fallen if they discovered you? And you brought your wretched imps with you. The Maidens and the Anointed have seen the vermin. Imps only become familiars to Fallen.”

Frollo yanked up my shirt over my back in a brutal motion that sent stabbing pain along my spine and down my legs. I cried out and, eyes rolling in my head, I fought to remain conscious.

“Fifteen years I’ve devoted to protecting your sorry ass, and this is how you repay me? It’s one thing to put your life at risk for a pretty Vestal, but you’re okay putting mine on the line as well?”

Frollo didn’t wait for an answer that I wouldn’t have been able to voice anyway. Using no anesthesia, and showing none of his usual care for my discomfort, the Praetor jabbed the needle at the base of my hump along my spine. I thought my face would split from my mouth opening too wide to roar with agony. For a few seconds, the pain further increased—not that I would have thought it possible—and then pure bliss as the pressure faded from my back.

“You will no longer stay in the temple,” Frollo said in a cold voice, removing the full tube of glowing, silver liquid drained from my back, to attach a new one to the needle. “The construction of your cabin is advanced enough to be habitable now. Leave tonight when everyone is asleep. Tomorrow, I’ll have my personal guards bring you the rest of your heavier belongings. See that you remain out of sight.”

My heart ached at losing my room at the very top of the spire. It had been my window on the world, giving me the illusion that, somehow, I belonged. Located in a remote corner of the Temple’s garden, hidden from view by trees and bushes, my cabin was shaping up to be a beautiful home. I had built it myself in my spare time. It was close to the river where I often fished, and near the woods where I occasionally hunted game. Although it would make a lovely home, it would also isolate me more than ever; out of sight and out of mind.

And worse still, it would keep me away from my wo… from Esmeralda.

“I’m sorry, Praetor,” I said in a weak, broken voice. “I had only wanted to listen to the Chant.”

“You could have listened on the day of the Festival, from the safety of your balcony,” Frollo snapped. “Now, you have even lost that! See that you do not lose more.”

I opened my mouth to argue, but he cut me off with a series of questions about my condition. Normally, after thirty days, he only drained two and a half vials of silver liquid from my hump. But right now, he had already drawn four vials, and was working on a fifth. I didn’t know why it had escalated so fast and so soon; only that the Vestal’s presence—and especially her voice—had stirred some kind of energy within me that spurred on my illness.

A troubled look crossed Frollo’s face as he studied mine. It no longer ached or felt stretched to the point of bursting anymore. In a couple of hours from now, I would look handsome. To my shame, that thought immediately conjured up a scene where Esmeralda would get to see my face and find me more attractive than the Praetor.

As if he’d guessed the nature of my thoughts, Frollo’s face took on an angry edge, and he gave me a hard stare. Finished at last, he placed the fifth vial—two-thirds full—on the tray by the hover stretcher I’d been lying on.

“We’re done here. Go back to your quarters, and do not use the lift,” Frollo said with contempt. “You’ve exposed yourself enough for one day. Remember, be gone tonight and stay the fuck away from Mera. I intend to make her my wife, and I will not have her scared off by you.”

Mera.

The familiarity with which he used her nickname triggered a rabid anger inside me. I fisted my hands to prevent my claws from shooting out and shredding his pretty face to pieces. I didn’t know why I felt so possessive of her. Granted, she was stunningly beautiful, but Frollo only ever invited attractive Vestals to Paris. None of the previous ones had stirred me like Esmeralda did. I bit my tongue so as not to tell him that he could never have what was mine.

The Praetor gestured with his head for me to get off the stretcher. Obedient, I complied, my entire body still aching from the violent spasms that had racked it earlier.

“Thank you for helping me,” I said, standing on unsteady feet.

The words scorched my tongue. Although I genuinely was grateful to be free of the pain, he hadn’t done it out of compassion or love for me. I was a useful tool and ‘free’ labor that he exploited in exchange for his ‘protection’ against those who would harm me. But now that I was banished from the temple, did it even make sense for me to stay here, choking under his tight leash? If I were to be isolated, I could be isolated and free in the wilderness of the First Circle.

But then you would never see Esmeralda again.

Frollo harrumphed his acknowledgment of my gratitude, then headed to the wall panel that he opened onto the hidden passage. The lab and his quarters were the only rooms to which the bioscanners would not grant me access. With heavy steps, I padded towards the doorway and into the staircase passage.

“And, Kwazeem,” Frollo called out behind me, “I can only drain you so many times before your spine sustains permanent damage. Disobey me again, and the next time, I will let you enjoy the pain for an entire day… or two.”

Hands fisted before me so he wouldn’t see them, I looked at the Praetor over my shoulder, forcing a repentant expression on my face. “Understood, Praetor.”

Without another word, Frollo closed the secret door in my face. Silencing the resentment in my heart, I focused my energy on climbing the nine stories from the third floor where the lab was located to my room on the twelfth. My muscles screamed in protest, but I ignored them, too.

Nothing, and no one, would break me—least of all, pain.

Chapter 4

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