Cursed Hearts

Chapter Twenty-One

Chapter Twenty-One

Sage

It's been about a month in this prison.

   The days have been long and dreadful, I don't think there's any way I can live the rest of my life like this. But I have to. I'll be in here until I die.

   My cellmates are an odd combination of people. A wolf to my left and a middle-aged man to my right. There are others in the cells, dwarves, ex-witches, and even a fairy whose wings were clipped.

   But I don't speak to them at all. In fact, I don't even speak to the guards who hand me my food.

   The cell I'm trapped in is made of iron bars and the single wall made of cement has a barred window that gives me a clear view of the Charming Kingdom. My bed has a thin mattress and old, crusty sheets. It's so uncomfortable, I haven't slept well since being here.

   The only interesting thing in the cell is a carving the previous prisoner wrote. It reads: "Long Live the Queen."

   I don't know which queen it's referring to, but every time I read the words, I think of the queen I could've been.

   King John and Mom's words haunt me every single second. They so easily lured me into a trap and took away everything I had been working for. I believed that if I had the kingdom and killed my stepfamily, Mom would finally love me and see that I wasn't the child she wished she never had. But she knew that my plan to kill the White family and take over the kingdom would be a one-way ticket to this awful prison.

   It was her plan all along.

   Every single day I get carried away in my own thoughts, and my hatred towards the Snow Queen grows stronger and stronger.

♡♡♡♡

The sun rises and it's the start of a new day. I know it'll be full of boredom, just like every other day has been.

   "Let go of me!" a voice yells, coming from the opposite end of where my cell is.

   Footsteps come closer and I see a woman around my age being tossed into the cell opposite of mine. Her face is wet and I can tell she's been crying. I don't blame her though, I was an absolute mess when I first arrived here at the Pied Piper Prison.

   "Welcome to hell," a raspy voice says, coming from the wolf who occupies the cell to my left.

   I've never heard him speak before.

   The girl laughs at him and for a second, I see a smile on her face, but it disappears once she realizes she's locked up and there's no chance of escape.

   "So what are you all in here for?" she asks.

   None of my prison mates have ever spoken but I assume everyone who's stuck here has done something terrible. I let the boys next to me do the talking, I'm still in denial of what I've done.

   "Well, I'm a wolf so obviously I'm here because I've eaten grandmothers and children," the raspy voice laughs. "I'm Clawd, by the way."

   "Colette," the new girl says.

   She looks at me and my other direct cellmate, but neither of us speaks up.

   I don't bother to pitch in my name. I really don't care about theirs, why would I give them mine? I've enjoyed the silence and not knowing the other horrible murderers who have kept me company in the cells.

   Finally, the man to my right speaks up. "I'm Chandler," he says. "But don't expect me to tell you what all I've done. I enjoy the silence."

   "Me too," I speak up, these being the first words I've said since I've been here.

   But that's all I say. I won't offer up my name, I'm humiliated at what I did, and since Colette is new, she's probably heard of what I've done.

   "Wait a minute, you're Sage," Colette says.

   Shit. She does know who I am.

   "The Snow Queen's daughter?" Clawd says.

   I nod.

   "So you're a witch? Then why the hell haven't you poofed us out of here?" he scowls, showing us his sharp teeth.

   "Don't you think I would've if I could?" I say. "My sister stripped me of my magic before I got here."

   I try my best not to think of the moment when Calliope took away the one thing that gave me confidence. If my magic was stronger, I could've killed all of them, the Beautys, the Charmings, all of the stupid happy royals. I would've even killed my mother if I had the chance.

   But no.

   That wasn't her plan for me. She set me up for failure and I'll never forgive her for it.

   "Damn," Chandler says and plays with something shiny.

   I look closer and it looks as if he has a hook attached to his hand. There's no way the prison guards would've allowed him to keep that.

   "What's with the hook?" Colette asks, observing the same thing I was.

   "I lost my hand in a sword fight," Chandler replies. "Thought the hook looked cool, so now it's my hand."

   It doesn't look cool, it looks ridiculous. But to each their own I guess.

   Although it seems that none of them want to, the three of them share why they got stuck living the rest of their lives in the Pied Piper Prison. I guess the silence was starting to bore them.

   Clawd did in fact eat a grandma and the woman's granddaughter told a huntsman about it and the huntsman turned him in. I wouldn't be surprised if the huntsman was Cameron.

   "I'll never forgive myself for thinking I could eat the bitch with the red cloak," the wolf scowls.

   Colette is stuck here because she went on a killing spree after hearing of her mother's death. She reveals that Queen Ella was the one who caught her. By the way she talks about the Charming Kingdom's queen, I can tell she has a lot of hatred toward her. I do hate Ella, but clearly not as much as Colette does.

   Chandler got into a lot of fights and contributed to the fact that Neverland was such a mess. The Charmings locked him up out of spite. He tells us all about how he was the captain of a ship.

   "I was Captain Hook, feared and hated by everyone in Neverland," the man says proudly.

   "So how did one of Crystal's daughters end up in this hell hole?" Chandler asks, and I can feel all three of them staring at me.

   I don't look up, I'm too ashamed.

   "My mother set me up. I married the White King and became the queen. Then I killed my husband, tried to kill his daughter, and turned his son into a frog."

   Laughter fills the cells. "Imagine having your own family hate you!" Clawd says.

   I roll my eyes. "You don't need to rub it in," I say, still not looking at my cellmates.

   Do they not know that it's all I've been thinking about this entire time?

   Knowing that not a single person in my family cares about me has haunted me this past month.

   "So do you guys think we'll ever get out of here?" Colette asks full of hope.

   I haven't been here long but I'm not stupid. Of course, we're not getting out of here. There's no escaping this hell. I'll be rotting in this cell for the rest of my life.