Free Web NovelThe water fell over Matt's face. He closed his eyes and let the stream hit his forehead, his cheeks, his chin.
The water was warm. Not hot. Not cold. Warm, as if someone had adjusted it to exactly the right temperature for comfort.
Matt pressed his right hand against the shower wall. The tiles were white, smooth, and cold under his fingers.
Matt's arm was shaking.
'Pathetic.'
That was the word that came to mind.
Pathetic.
He couldn't stand in a shower without leaning on the wall.
Matt took the soap with his left hand. It was a rectangular bar, white, unscented. He rubbed it against his skin with slow movements. His left arm was trembling too. The muscles weren't responding the way they should.
Every movement cost more effort than it should.
Matt soaped his chest, his shoulders, his neck. Moved down to his abdomen, then back up his arms.
The water kept falling, and Matt let his mind go over the plan.
The plan he had discussed with Noxx in the mental world before waking.
If he was going to escape, it wasn't going to be a simple escape.
It couldn't be.
Because a simple escape would be pointless.
Matt rubbed the soap against his right arm while water ran down his back.
The queen had his family's location. His mother. His sister. His friends. Every person Matt had known on Earth.
The queen knew where they were, who they were, and how to reach them.
That meant that even if Matt managed to defuse from Noxx, leave her the guns and the vampiric body, and escape to the real world with his original body…
It would be pointless.
The queen would figure it out. Sooner or later, she'd figure out that the Matt in front of her wasn't the same.
And when that happened, she'd go looking for him in the real world.
On Earth.
At his home.
Or worse.
She wouldn't go looking for him.
She'd threaten his family.
Use his mother, his sister, anyone Matt had ever cared about as a tool to force him back. To force him to work for her. To force him to do whatever she wanted.
Matt tightened his grip on the soap.
It couldn't be a simple escape.
He had to fool the queen.
Fool her into stopping paying attention to his family. Convince her they no longer mattered to him. Make her lose interest in using them against him.
Or kill her.
Kill the queen.
And Iris.
Because if Iris was still alive, she'd do the same. Iris knew his identity. Iris knew where he came from. Iris could do exactly what the queen did with his family.
Both of them had to stop being a problem.
One of those two options.
Deceive or kill.
There was no third.
Because if he didn't do one of those things, he was going to be trapped here forever.
The water hit his face. Matt closed his eyes harder.
Forever.
Those two words weighed more than the weak body he was in.
"Hey, hey! Master!"
Matt opened his eyes.
The blonde's voice echoed inside his head with the same noisy energy as always.
"I can help you with that! If you need to kill someone, I can—!"
"Shut up."
"But—!"
"Shut up."
The blonde went quiet.
Two seconds.
"…Okay."
Her voice came out low, in that scolded-puppy tone she used whenever Matt told her to be quiet.
Matt ignored her.
The water kept falling.
Matt finished soaping himself, let the water wash the soap off his body, then turned off the faucet.
The stream stopped.
The bathroom's silence wrapped around him.
Matt stood there for a few seconds, water dripping from his hair and body, propped against the wall because his legs weren't reliable enough to stand without support.
He breathed slowly. Then stepped out of the shower.
The bathroom was large — larger than any bathroom Matt had ever been in. The floor was dark marble. The walls had white tiles with gold edges.
There was a bathtub in the corner, separate from the shower, big enough for ten people to sit comfortably.
Beside the sink, white towels were folded and stacked with unnecessary precision.
And at the far end, a mirror.
Matt grabbed a towel. He dried his body with clumsy movements. Every time he lifted an arm, the muscles protested. fгeewёbnoѵel.cσm
Every time he leaned, his legs trembled.
He wrapped himself in a white bathrobe hanging behind the door. The fabric was soft. Too soft.
Matt walked to the sink and the mirror was in front of him. He looked up, and there it was.
The face that wasn't his.
The reflection showed a girl. White hair, long and wet, falling down her shoulders and sticking to her cheeks.
Pale skin. Fine features. Thin lips. High cheekbones. A face anyone would look at twice on the street.
And the red eyes, glowing.
Much brighter than before.
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Matt remembered his eyes from before. The real ones. His. Brown. A normal, ordinary brown with nothing special about them.
And his face.
His real face.
A boy with a wider jaw, rougher features, short black hair that barely reached his ears. With an expression that almost always looked annoyed or bored, even when he wasn't.
That was his face.
That was Matt's face.
Not this one.
Matt looked at the reflection for a few more seconds. The reflection looked back with those eyes that were too bright.
Matt looked away to the right.
His bathroom at home.
He remembered his bathroom at home. Small. Narrow. With old tiles that were peeling at the corners. A shower that sometimes ran cold. A mirror with a stain in the lower right corner that nobody had cleaned in years.
His mother used it to put on makeup in the mornings.
His sister monopolized it in the afternoons.
And he showered in ten minutes because it was the only time nobody bothered him.
'How is mom doing?'
The thought appeared without him looking for it.
'How is my sister doing?'
And after those two, came another.
'How is that idiot Clara doing?'
Clara. His friend. The one who had believed the lie about a role-playing game when Iris kidnapped him on Earth. The one who didn't notice the difference. The one who accepted a ridiculous explanation without questioning it.
Matt almost smiled. Almost.
But then he thought about what he was going to do with Noxx. The plan. Noxx replacing him. Taking his body. Living his life while he escaped some other way.
That lie of Clara's, the one about the role-playing game…
It wasn't so far from reality now.
Matt exhaled through his nose.
Then he closed his eyes, clenched his fists, and concentrated.
'Come on.'
Matt tried to suppress his vampire powers. Push them down. Crush them. Force his body to go back to what it was before.
To be a boy. To have his face. His eyes. His body.
He pushed.
Nothing happened.
He pushed harder.
Nothing.
His reflection in the mirror didn't change. The white hair stayed white. The red eyes stayed red. The fine features stayed fine.
Nothing.
'It's not working.'
"Matt."
Noxx's voice sounded inside his head, calm and serious.
"You probably won't be able to go back to being a boy."
Matt opened his eyes.
"The queen gave you a lot of blood while you were sleeping. Too much. Your body absorbed it all over weeks. The vampire transformation settled in completely."
Matt looked at the reflection.
"Before, you could change because the transformation wasn't so pure… there were still parts of you that were human. That resisted. But now…"
Noxx didn't finish the sentence.
She didn't need to.
Matt let out a long exhale through his nose. The air came out warm and heavy.
"Hey! Hey, hey, hey!"
The blonde's voice exploded inside his head.
"If you give me time, I can figure out a way to help you! I'm sure I can! Ego weapons have a direct connection to the bearer's body, so if I study how vampire blood works and how it interacts with your original body, maybe I can find a way to reverse the process and—!"
"Stay calm and quiet."
"But—!"
"Calm. And quiet."
The blonde went silent.
Matt looked at the mirror one last time.
He didn't need to go back to being a boy right now.
Not yet.
Noxx was going to take his place soon.
Was going to replace him in front of the queen.
For that to work, Matt needed to keep this form.
Needed the queen to keep seeing the same person.
If he suddenly went back to being a boy, the entire plan fell apart.
So for now, this was the face he had to use.
Matt turned the sink faucet on. Cold water came out. He splashed it on his face.
Once.
Twice.
Three times.
He rubbed his eyes with his fingers, then braced both hands on the edge of the sink.
His legs trembled.
'Damn.'
Standing was costing Matt something.
It wasn't just weakness. It was the feeling that his legs had forgotten how to hold a body up.
The muscles were there, but they weren't responding properly.
It was like trying to walk on someone else's legs.
Matt looked up.
To the left of the mirror was a window.
Small, rectangular, with a gray stone frame. And the glass…
Matt moved closer.
The glass was reinforced.
Not normal glass.
It was thick, dense, with a visible pattern of internal lines indicating some kind of magical or structural reinforcement.
Matt touched it with a finger. Solid. Cold. Immovable.
Matt laughed.
A short, dry laugh, without humor.
The queen had reinforced the windows.
Of course she had. Of course. If Matt had been in her position, he would have done the same. She had a prisoner who had already escaped once. She wasn't going to leave the windows open for him to try again.
Matt shook his head.
Then let out a sigh, stepped away from the window, and walked toward the bathroom door.
The distance from the sink to the door was about six meters.
Six meters that felt like sixty.
Matt took a step. His legs held. Another. They held. On the third, his left knee bent slightly.
Matt grabbed the edge of the bathtub. Steadied himself. Kept walking. Braced against the wall. Two more steps. Leaned on the doorframe.
Six meters.
Thirty seconds.
Matt opened the door and walked out of the bathroom.
◇◆◇
The queen's room was the same as before.
Large. Dark. The enormous bed in the center. Thick curtains covering the windows. Dark wood furniture against the walls. And the queen, sitting on the edge of the bed, looking directly at the bathroom door, waiting for him.
"All finished in there?"
Her voice came out calm. Friendly. The tone of someone who asks out of courtesy but already knows the answer.
Matt didn't respond.
He was standing in the bathroom doorway, wearing the white bathrobe, wet hair dripping on his shoulders, one hand against the wall to keep from falling.
The queen looked him up and down.
"You can find new clothes in the wardrobe."
The queen gestured with her head to the left. Against the wall stood a dark wood wardrobe, tall, with two doors and iron handles.
"There are plenty of options."
Matt let out a sigh and released the wall.
His body swayed. The left knee gave slightly. Matt reached out and grabbed the edge of a dresser between the bathroom and the wardrobe.
Steadied himself.
One step. He held the corner of the dresser. Another step. He let go of the dresser and grabbed the wall.
Another step.
The wall.
Another step.
The edge of a chair.
Another step.
The wall again.
Each step was an exercise in balance between his weak legs and whatever furniture he could use for support.
"Would you like help?"
"No."
Matt's answer came out immediately. Sharp. Without pause or hesitation.
Matt didn't look at her. He kept walking toward the wardrobe.
Three more steps.
Two.
One.
He arrived.
He opened the wardrobe doors with one hand while the other held the edge of the wooden door.
Inside was clothing.
Quite a lot of clothing.
Shirts, trousers, jackets, boots. Everything organized by color on wooden shelves.
On the left, light tones. Whites, grays, creams. In the center, medium tones. Blues, greens, browns. And on the right…
Black.
A lot of black.
Black shirts. Black trousers. Black jackets. Black boots. All the same shade, all the same style, all exactly the way Matt liked.
Matt looked at the black section of the wardrobe.
Then looked at the queen.
The queen looked back with that smile that wouldn't leave her face.
Matt said nothing. He grabbed a black long-sleeved shirt and a pair of black trousers. He pulled them from the shelf and turned around, putting his back to the queen.
He got dressed without removing the bathrobe first.
It was a complicated process.
Threading his legs into the trousers underneath the robe without it falling open.
Pulling the trousers up to his waist.
Fastening them with one hand while the other held the robe closed over his chest.
Then sliding the shirt underneath the robe, pulling his arms out of the robe's sleeves, putting his arms into the shirt's sleeves, and finally letting the robe drop to the floor once the shirt was on.
All without the queen seeing anything.
Matt knew she was watching. He could feel her eyes on his back. But he wasn't going to give her the satisfaction of seeing him undressed.
Not voluntarily.
Not while he could avoid it.
"I'm impressed," said the queen.
Matt buttoned the shirt.
"You really managed to bathe on your own with your body this weak."
Matt tucked the shirt into his trousers.
"I don't need you for anything."
The queen laughed.
Matt heard the bed shift behind him. The creak of the mattress. The sound of the sheets sliding.
The queen had moved.
When Matt turned around, the queen was sitting further back on the bed, legs crossed, arms resting on her knees.
She was closer to the side of the bed where Matt had slept.
Behind him.
She was watching him from there, her red eyes glowing softly in the dimness of the room.
"Would you like something to eat?"
Matt looked at her.
"A hamburger." The queen tilted her head to one side. "Or a pizza. Which do you prefer?"
Matt frowned.
Not at the question, but at what the question implied.
"Are you planning to keep me locked in here with you?"
The queen smiled.
"You're quite sharp."
Matt let out an annoyed sigh.
"For how long?" frёewebηovel.cѳm
The queen looked at him for a few seconds. Her eyes moved up and down, evaluating him. Watching his posture. How he held the edge of the wardrobe with his left hand.
How his weight was on his right leg because the left one couldn't be trusted.
How his shoulders were tense from the effort of staying upright.
"As you know, you were asleep for almost four weeks."
Matt didn't respond.
"Your body needs to recover. The muscles, the coordination, the stamina. All of that is lost when you don't move for that long."
"How long?"
"A week. Maybe a little more." The queen took her hands off her knees and placed them on the bed. "A week until you're fully ready to go out into the castle."
A week.
Locked in here.
With her.
Matt looked at her.
The queen looked at him.
Matt let out a long, tired sigh. It came from the bottom of his chest and emptied his lungs.
A sigh that said more than any words.
Then he turned around, walked toward the bed — leaning against the wall, then the dresser, then the edge of the bed — and lay down.
He lay on the side opposite the queen. As far from her as possible within the same bed. He turned onto his side, putting his back to her, and closed his eyes.
"…Matt?"
He didn't respond.
"Don't you want to ask me anything else?"
"No."
"Nothing?"
"Nothing."
Silence.
Matt kept his eyes closed.
The pillow was soft under his head.
The mattress was firm but comfortable.
The black clothes were light and didn't bother him.
His body was tired. Exhausted. Bathing, dressing, and walking around the room had used up all the energy he had.
He didn't want to talk.
Didn't want to think.
Didn't want to do anything.
He just wanted to sleep and talk more with Noxx.
Behind him, the queen watched.
Matt couldn't see her, but he could feel her eyes on his back.
Matt didn't move. Didn't open his eyes. Didn't change his breathing. Didn't turn over. He just stayed there, lying still, with the relaxed expression of someone who couldn't care less about the other person in the room.
The queen watched that back for a while.
Then looked at the nape of his neck. The damp white hair falling over it. The relaxed shoulders. The slow, regular breathing.
The queen laughed.
It was a silent laugh. Just the air leaving her nose and her lips curving upward.
'Indeed…'
The queen tilted her head.
'I am taming him.'
