Queen of Nothing

Cecilia

Ihadnoidea how long I had been locked in here now, maybe two weeks?

I couldn’t really be sure; everything was split into four to five-hour blocks. We were rewarded with food and sleep after a few hours of enduring whatever bullshit way they came up with to physically exhaust us. It didn’t seem like there were any windows on this floor, at least not where I could see. We went back and forth between the two kennels, some days they kept us all in what they called the “torture” kennel and some days they worked on us one at a time, individually.

More than anything, I was just glad I committed to the birth control implant in my arm last year that was keeping me from having a period. This was possibly the last place on Earth I wanted to be while I was bleeding all over the place. I saw what they brought the other three during their cycles and it was dollar store commodities at best. If I was being one hundred percent honest, that was the biggest form of torture anyone could have put me through.

It was pretty clear there was some sort of tactic there to keep us from forming any bonds with each other. Not that I had any intention of cozying up to the two Russian twats who whispered back and forth to each other all hours of the day and night. I definitely wasn’t looking for an alliance with the Asian chick who gave me constant evil side eyes anytime she was awake. I didn’t need friends here, I just needed to last long enough to convince Santo to help me get out of this country. At this point I had a feeling relying on Ronan was a waste of my efforts.

Whoever he was now was a far cry from the man I knew, and the only thing left between us was stale hatred.

They had wanted to break me, that was for certain.

What they hadn’t realized was that they would have to do a lot more than just pluck away at my petals if they wanted me to wilt and die. I wasn’t a flower; I was the bronze fucking cow made in the shape of God in the heat of scorching fire. I was the statuette that mere mortals kneeled for reverence in hopes of a rainy day, and I was that same rain that bathed away their sins. I had forgotten the Queen that I had been molded to become, so I would have to thank Ronan for the reminder.

It was time these fuckers dropped to their knees and worshiped.

Twice a day, Santo came in with plates of hot food for me and sandwiches for the others, and of course this only created more evil looks and animosity. I wasn’t sure if he was setting me up, trying to get these girls to kill me off, or if he was honestly being kind. Sometimes I pushed my plate in the direction of the Asian one, Chiyo I think was her name, but she seemed afraid to eat anything that wasn’t given directly to her. There was also a good chance she didn’t speak any English, but then again, the smarter move was definitely pretending you couldn’t understand anyone, so who could be sure?

Half the time I didn’t even touch my food, hunger just wasn’t at the top of my list of things to satiate anymore. There was a sadness breaking me open, threatening the dam I had been building for the last thirty years to crumble and allow all of me to pour out through the cracks. I was ashamed of the person I had become, a mess of lies with a fabricated past and no family left to mourn me when I was gone. Even now, I couldn’t speak the words that would free me, I dug my grave too deep and there was no one strong enough to bear the weight of my bullshit that could lift me out.

Ronan came in two or three times a day as well, sometimes with Fletcher, or someone named Ethan. He would take the girls to some area where I couldn’t see past the kennels for hours at a time. They always came back crying and clinging on to them like they were their only hope, and I could only imagine whatever he was doing to them was working. I didn’t know what the end goal was, but I could imagine they wanted these girls mindless and willingly.

Ronan always did his best to avoid me, even when he was stringing me up to the wall he didn’t so much as look at me. He and Mateo would do their worst to get any crumb of information from me in whatever way they thought would work, but my mind wasn’t some fragile thing waiting to collapse from the weight of his semi-barbaric tactics. I knew them well because my Papá taught me them. When you were born to be Queen of something that was covered in blood, violence, and money, well let’s just say even your personality wasn’t left up to chance. Even now at thirty, I was exactly the woman my Papá had planned me to become, I just didn’t have the ruthless army to back me.

Their methods were effective though, don’t get me wrong.

Just not so much on me.

You isolated someone from anything and everything – luxuries, freedom, comfort, even the ability to choose their clothes and what they eat. After enough time the person would eventually crack, and this would allow for the brainwashing to start. Provide your captors with small acts of kindness or gifts and soon they would reveal all their little secrets like the rats they truly were. My lips were sealed though, and I had the scars to prove there was nothing in this world that could make me crack under any amount of pressure. I was a fucking diamond when it came to my secrets.

Santo tip-toed his way into the kennel, softly shutting the barred doors so that they barely made a sound. His quiet efforts weren’t wasted as my cellmates didn’t stir from their naps at his entrance. I sat myself up on the bed and smiled at him, the incredible smell of the Torta hit me before he pulled the plate from behind his back returning an over-exaggerated smile that was all teeth.

He sat on the edge of my bed and offered me the plate, raising an eyebrow at me in curiosity to see if I would take it. I reached for it like a starved animal and let out an unrestrained moan when I took that first bite, letting the delicious flavors combine in my mouth and roll across my tongue before I chewed and swallowed.

“I wish you’d eat everything I brought that way,” he said with amusement in his voice.

“You sound like an Abuela,” I joked, “Keep bringing me my favorite foods and I might take you up on that.”

“It only took me a couple weeks to remember your favorite, not bad right?” He confirmed how long I had been their captive, while raising his chin proudly at his own accomplishment and I couldn’t help but laugh at his ability to soften every difficult moment.

“Thank you,” I said gently as I reached for his hand and squeezed it. Maybe he knew what he was doing, or maybe it was the guilt eating at him for being a part of this, but Santo was the only thing that kept me feeling human most of the time in this cage.

Santo was nearly as tall as Ronan, but he was leaner, and his light brown skin matched the color of his curly chestnut hair that grew wildly out of his head. His hazel eyes were full of a sadness that reminded me of my own, it was the only part of him that gave away the joyful, carefree mask he kept putting on. I think that was my favorite part about him though, there was a tragedy buried so deep inside of Santo that the only way he knew how to heal it was to keep others from feeling it too. His easy-going façade was how he coped with his mistakes, and amusingly enough it was completely polar to my cold-bitch exterior I had to use for the same purposes.

“Do you remember that time we got caught with all that ecstasy?” He asked me with a mischievous smile on his face.

I couldn’t fight back the grin as I recollected the memory of some of the best times in my life.

“The time where you hotwired that McLaren and we drove it off the pier, or the time where I had to bribe the cop?” I asked him, raising an eyebrow as I remembered too many occasions where we got caught, but we always had a way out of it.

He let out a roar of laughter and squeezed my hand, “No! The time where we ran into that strip club while the cops chased us, and you got on stage and started dancing. The owners didn’t even care that you didn’t work there!”

“I made two hundred dollars during that dance too!” I laughed with him until my sides hurt and we remembered some of our favorite jobs gone wrong. There were so many times we should have ended up in prison or dead, but yet here we were despite the stupid mistakes we made as kids.

He let go of my hand with an awkward air about him, and used it to scratch his head before he reached into his pocket and pulled out a milky-way chocolate bar. He shook it in front of me and my eyes widened as I reached for it, but he pulled it back and shook his finger at me in a teasing way. He put his index finger to his lips to signal me to be quiet and turned his back to the camera completely while he unwrapped it and slid it over to me.

I all but choked on my food laughing at his ridiculous attempt to sneak me a treat, in these insane conditions. It was absolutely outrageous, considering the circumstance but it was also probably one of the sweetest gestures I had seen from Santo. I happily ate my chocolate in secrecy and handed him the wrapper when I was done, giving him the sincerest smile I had probably given anyone in ages. You want to mess with someone’s mind for real? Deprive them of chocolate and sugar. Santo left just as covertly as he entered, and I was once again reminded of the destitute situation I put myself in when I realized I forgot to ask for a bathroom break.