Page 1 of Roma Queen
FIRST
The room has no windows.
Inside the room, there is one small cot.
One blanket.
One pillow.
One bucket.
One door.
And one boy.
Naked, he shivers, crouched in a corner, staring at the door, knowing it will open at any moment and the nightmare will begin again. It’s impossible to mark the passage of time in here. It’s easy enough to read the sky: if it’s bright outside, it’s daytime. Dark, and it’s nighttime. Inside the windowless box, though, a permanent state of limbo exists.
Sleep is ill-advised. If he closes his eyes, even for a moment, then exhaustion will claim him, and he won’t be prepared. He won’t be ready and waiting to fight when the time comes. Because it will come. He will come, and the pain will start all over again, and even though fighting is futile, and he always overpowers the boy, it’s important to fight because, for a few more precious seconds, the boy remains untouched, unharmed, unsullied, and those extra seconds count for something.
Inside the box, the boy wonders when his parents will come. They left him at home and promised to be back soon, but they didn’t return. How long has it been since he’s seen them? Days? Weeks? Months? It’s hard to tell, but they must be wondering where he is by now. They must be looking for him.
In his mind, the little boy fantasizes of his father hurting the man. His father is so strong. So powerful. His hands are like shovels—big, scooped palms, and thick, meaty fingers. The boy saw his father hit someone once, and the other man fell down to the ground, bleeding from his nose. If his father can do that with just one punch, then he can probably do a lot worse if he keeps on hitting. That’s what the boy wants—for his father to hit the man and not stop hitting him until he’s on the ground, bleeding and crying and begging to go home.
It wouldn’t do him any good, though. The boy had cried, and begged, and pleaded to be taken home, but the man had just sneered at him. Slapped him so hard his ears had rung. If the boy’s father came and hurt the man, it would be the same for him in the end. His father would be merciless. And the boy would stand and watch, and it would make him feel better to see the man bleeding for once.
The boy chews on stale bread, but it hurts his mouth. His teeth feel loose. When he probes with the tip of his tongue, the cracked, jagged surface of his molars feels alien and wrong. His front teeth had felt the same way, before the man finally knocked them clean out of the boy’s head.
Absently, the boy remembers birthday cake. The smooth, silky texture of icing, and the ache of something sweet delighting his taste buds. Birthday cake is the boy’s favorite. Not chocolate, or red velvet, but carrot cake. His mother always calls him her little bunny rabbit, because he loves carrot cake so much. The boy used to love being his mother’s little bunny rabbit, but now he wishes he had been her big bad wolf. Maybe if he’d learned to be tougher sooner, then he might be able defend himself now.
As it always does, the door to the room finally opens without warning. The man is a faceless black silhouette in the yellow rectangle of light that burns at the boy’s sensitive eyes, and for a moment the boy allows himself to believe. Could it be? Could it be his father, come to take him home?
And then the man speaks. The boy can tell from the fevered, excited hitch in his voice that today is going to be particularly bad. “You know the drill, you little shit. Turn and face the wall. Get those legs apart.”
All hope flees the little boy.
Any maybe that’s a good thing.
There’s nothing crueler than hope.
One
ZARA
Fear.
It will either galvanize or break you.
People fold under the pressure of fear all the time, crumpling in on themselves, making themselves small, hiding from the dark, cold fist that wraps itself around their hearts. There are also those who rise up to face fear, straightening their shoulders, bracing themselves to face the object of their terror head-on.
I’ve always been a rise-up-and-meet-fear kind of person. I’ve never allowed another person or a situation to claim power over me before, and as such…I suppose I’ve felt impervious to the notion of truly being afraid. If you can look your greatest fears in the eye, stand tall, refuse to back down, to quit, or wilt, then you will overcome the roiling emotion that would otherwise destroy your hope and eat your dreams alive. It’s liberating, realizing how far a little courage can take you.
Right now, though, I am sapped of courage.
Right now, for the first time in my life, I am reallyscared.
Beside me, a man with raven’s wing hair and glittering green eyes takes my hand and squeezes it tightly, as if he can sense just how scared I am. The smile he sends me looks a little worn around the edges, but it bolsters my confidence a little.
“Won’t be so bad,” he rumbles. His voice has haunted my dreams, breathless and lust-filled for years, and hearing it now, out loud, as we stand together in the rain on the corner of Delongpre and Cross Street in one of the most disreputable neighborhoods in Spokane, the sound of it sends a shiver racing down my back. Pins and needles bite at the tips of my fingers and my toes, and my breath catches at the back of my throat, because it’s real. His voice isreal. Pashaisreal, and he managed to find me.
