The White Rosebush

Chapter 13: The Lion's Den

Chapter 13: The Lion's Den

 I crouched behind Ivan with sheer terror as I took in the expressions of the other teenagers in the room with me while trying to cope with my own shock. They varied from surprise to hatred to rather offensive disbelief. Why? Why does this shit always happen to ME? Ivan smiled at me again. It was enough to make me want to slap him across the face; but, somehow, I had a feeling that it wouldn't have affected him very much.

 "Will you calm down? It's not that bad." Oh, how sadly mistaken this young boy was. I looked at his childish face, his glowing blue eyes, and I cursed myself internally for it. Something had changed between us. I must have been exceptionally stupid; any person with common sense would have turn from Ivan and ran after learning what I knew. And yet, I felt more attracted to him than ever before. However, at the moment, annoyance was the only thing I felt for that childish face of his.

 "Ivan," I whispered urgently, panicking, "it is that bad, alright? Why didn't you tell me you were going to do this? Tell them!?" I pointed at the his lieutenants, all of whom were more livid than I'd ever seen them. Even Alfred had a cold glint in this eyes.

 "But I just did, did I not?" He smiled.

 "That's not what I meant," I hissed.

"Perhaps you should be clearer, da? That way we wouldn't have these petty misunderstandings."

 "You know what I meant!" My voice was getting louder.

"Evidently, I did not. You are making nasty assumptions, dear."

"Ivan-" He held up his hand; his trademark way of silencing people.

 "Hush. Just shut your pretty little mouth, da, or I shall be forced to do it for you." I glared at him for a few seconds, wondering what he would do if I did ignore him. His face was emotionless. I opened my mouth to speak again, disobeying a direct order from him, and his reaction was so fast I handn't even realized what he was doing until it was over. I had a scarf, the whitish-pink scarf that Ivan literally never took off, in my mouth and knotted around the back of my head, serving as a gag.

 "Now," he grinned, "use your ears. It's a talent that will come in handy later in life. Consider this to be your first practice." I growled at him, but knew it would do no good; he didn't even glance at me. I moaned interally, recalling the events this morning that had lead to this.

It had been a difficult day to start with; Arthur had shown up in my room first thing in the morning to inform me that I was abusing Ivan's courtesy, or therefore lack of, and that it was time to earn my keep by doing some guard work. I think Arthur was expecting me to argue, but I was honestly glad to get a little fresh air, so I agreed. Rozovyĭ kust was always short on guards; it was an undesirable job that people were forced into as a general rule and, since the bombing, it had become absolutely loathed. I was curious to see why.

I soon found out. I hadn't noticed it when I entered these tunnels, but there was a chair stationed at every single opening that led to the outside. The duty of the guard was to work in a four hour shift, sitting on said chair and making sure nobody without the daily password entered. It was plain to see why nobody wanted to do it. It was boring and pointless, especially considering only Alfred's specifically trained survival agents were even being allowed to leave. And there were only about 20 of them altogether, so I saw nobody and sat in a chair by myself staring at a rock for four hours.

After that, I was almost immediately summoned to Ivan's briefing room to attend another meeting, only to discover that I was the subject of it, much to my horror. It was easily the worst thing Ivan had ever done to me, even worse than the increasing humiliation I felt about being sitting in the front of this room with a scarf in my mouth. After calling the meeting, he had, quite blatantly, informed his top members that I, the newcomer who had been here roughly a month, was to become his second-in-command. They all had the right to be angry at this decision; Arthur and Gabrielle had been with Ivan from almost day one. To be chosen under me must have been a harsh blow for all of them, and I wasn't especially fond of it either. But, as is usually the case with Ivan, my protests got me nowhere. He didn't compromise.