(Eng) Broken - Riverdale FF

25

"Ouch!" A sharp throbbing pain brought me back to consciousness.

"That was more like Cinderella's stepsister than Sleeping Beauty now." Kurtz was kneeling in front of me with my shoe in his hand.

"What are you doing?!", I snapped at him, trying to snatch the shoe out of his hand. "I'm never getting back in there if this bruise gets worse!"

"You're pretty energetic for just regaining your consciousness."

Slowly I remembered what had happened. And I also realized where I was here. "You took me to your place?"

"Should I have left you in the street?" Kurtz wisely grabbed my leg with one hand while he pulled off my sock with the other.

"Ouch!", I screeched again and hit him.

"Hey! Is that any way to treat your rescuer?"

"I warned you," I growled, but tried to pull myself together. He had a point somewhere. "The prince is in trouble with the dragon!"

Kurtz didn't want to, but he had to laugh. "You're terrible."

"Only when I'm in pain." I finally surrendered and sank into the chair. Oh, he had put his clothes away.

For a while I just watched him as he probed my foot with gentle hands and walked over to a small cabinet that turned out to be a refrigerator. "You're lucky. Nothing's broken."

"I know," I grumbled, arms crossed. "It's sprained. But that hurts enough."

"So you know what a sprain feels like?" Kurtz came back with a tube, bandages, and a cold pack.

"And you know what one looks like," I remarked.

Kurtz gave a snorted laugh. "Yeah, but I'm expected to."

With skilled hands, he rubbed the strange cream on my ankle. His cold fingers made the touch just about bearable. I stared down at his rumpled hair. Only when he applied the bandage did a hissed curse escape me.

"Now, now. Such words!" he teasingly admonished me without looking up from his work. He knew what he was doing. How?

"Why do you persist in calling me Princess?" It wasn't the question that burned on my tongue, but it was a start. The last time we had seen each other, he had threatened me. And now he was squatting on the floor in front of me, bandaging my foot.

He was silent until he had tightened the end of the bandage with a pinch. "You're asking the wrong questions," he admonished me again, but this time there was no humor in his voice.

"What would be the right question?" It was foolish not to listen to his silent warning. His dark eyes remained fixed on me as he rose effortlessly.

"The right thing to do would be not to ask any questions at all." And then he pulled a photo out of the pocket of his hoodie. Panicked, I shoved both hands into my front pocket, but there was nothing there. "You may think this is a small, exciting adventure that will get you out of your boring daily routine. But it's not." He walked over to his chemistry lab with the photo in hand. He placed the photo in a shallow dish, poured something over it, and lit it. Immediately, a lurid jet flame shot up, bathing his face in harsh light.

"Do you understand me now?" With slow menacing steps he came back to me. Behind him, the small fire still flickered, framing his outline with a golden glow. "You'd better be an innocent princess and go back to your castle." His hands landed on the armrests to my left and right.

Trembling, I pushed myself deeper into the cushions. This time there was no temptation in his voice, as there had been the last time I had been in his room. I tried to nod convincingly, but his scowl told me he didn't believe me.

"I know fairy tale analogies seem like a game to you. But for us, our names are not a game. Do you know what a ghoul is?" His fingers dug deeper into the armrests.

"A monster," I stammered, trying to find a better definition in my muddled thoughts.

"Not quite," Kurtz breathed, his knee brushing against mine as he leaned down toward me. "We're demons. We lure innocent people into our world and eat them alive." As his fingers stroked my chin, I winced so hard that Kurtz couldn't suppress a laugh. "Now you seem to understand."

But before he could savor his satisfaction at my fear, the door to the room was yanked open. Kurtz whirled around and was about to yell at the intruder when he whimpered in panic, "Serpents! They're here!" before he turned around again and disappeared into the dirty hallway.

"Fuck!" hissed Kurtz, his powerful eyebrows curling menacingly over his nose. "Don't move."
I nodded again, and this time it was my hands that clenched in the old, greasy padding.
Screams drifted into the room from the hallway. Kurtz gave me one last look before storming out into the chaos.