King of the Underworld by RJ Kane

Chapter Ninety-Five

Sephie

The next two days were mostly quiet. The guys were coming and going periodically, meeting various

people, gathering information. Adrik never once left me. If he needed to go somewhere, I went with

him. It might seem excessive, but I was glad for it. I was still struggling with the thought of never seeing

him again. Having him around right now was helping me keep those thoughts at bay.

He was still threatening to call a doctor for the wound on my hip. It was somewhat of a dull, constant

pain now, wasn’t going to tell him that. He had plenty to worry about already and I wanted to skip the

doctor. I was almost finished with the antibiotics, so I was hoping it would start to feel better soon.

but I

We were all in Armando’s gym in the morning when Ivan asked me about my hip. I was still limping

occasionally, despite my best efforts to hide it. He noticed and asked me about it. Before I could even

answer, Adrik said “it’s not healing like it should be, but she’s refusing to let me call the doctor. I might

do it anyway and deal with the consequences later.”

I squinted my eyes at him. “It’s fine. I don’t need a doctor.”

“It’s not fine, princess. You’re limping still when you should be getting better. Let me see it?” Ivan

asked. “I might be able to help. I have extensive experience with healing wounds without doctors,” he

added when I looked at him. skeptically.

“Ok, you’re going to have to expand on that later,” I said. I looked to Adrik, to make sure he was okay

with me basically giving Ivan a view down my pants. He nodded. I pulled Ivan away from everyone, not

really wanting to show everyone the somewhat gaping ho le in my hip, even though I could feel their

curious eyes on us.

I slid my pants low enough that I could peel back the bandage so he could see most of the wound. It

was red and there was starting to be some heat to it as well, which usually means infection. I had to

admit, I was starting to worry a little bit. Ivan bent down to get a closer look at it. He clicked his tongue.

“It hurts you all the time, doesn’t it?”

I nodded, exhaling. “But please don’t tell Adrik. He has enough to worry about right now and he’s

already stressed enough as it is without worrying that my hip is gonna fall off soon.”

Ivan chuckled. “Your hip won’t fall off, princess.”

“You don’t know. It might,” I said, raising an eyebrow at him.

“What have you been putting on it?”

“Adrik insists on cleaning it every day. I think he’s starting to enjoy torturing me if I’m being honest. But

that’s it. Then we just put a fresh bandage on it. It’s like a dull ache now all the time. I cut back on the

superprofen, but I want

to start taking more of that again because it’s starting to hurt more.”

Ivan thought for a moment. I glanced toward Adrik to see that he was watching us, a look of concern on

his face. I looked back to Ivan, hoping he would figure something out so I wouldn’t have to give in and

let Adrik call a doctor. I could see the light bulb moment as he came up with a solution. He glanced

down at me, the corners of his mou th turning up in a discreet smile. “Come with me,” he said, grabbing

my hand and pulling me toward the door.

“Do you have something that will keep Adrik from calling a doctor? Please tell me you have something,”

I asked, following behind him.

“Potentially. It’s an ancient remedy, but it’s worked for me before.”

I followed him in silence as he led me to the kitchen. I looked at him, puzzled that we were in the

kitchen. He smirked at me. “Just wait, princess. It’ll make sense in a moment.” He checked the

counters, then stepped into the pantry, looking for whatever he was looking for. He walked out, carrying

a glass jar.

“Is it snack time?” I asked, somewhat confused.

He was holding a jar of honey. He handed it to me as he walked to me. “No, this is for your wound.

Honey is a very good antiseptic and it has healing properties as well. People have been using it to heal

wounds for centuries.” He lifted his shirt, showing me a particularly nasty scar across his rib cage. “It

healed this,” he said as he dragged his finger over

the scar.

“That looks like it was painful.” I looked up him, my curiosity peaked. “How do you know so much about

this stuff? And about drugs in general? I remember hearing you quiz the doctor when we were up

north.”

He sighed, folding his arms across his sizeable chest. He leaned back against the counter. I could tell

he was lost in a memory and by the looks of his face, it wasn’t exactly a pleasant one. I put my hand on

his shoulder, which made him look at me. I could see the pain in his eyes, clear as day. “Ivan, you don’t

have to tell me. It’s okay. I can see that

whatever it was, it wasn’t good.”

He nodded his head. “I don’t feel pain like normal people. My mother took me to the doctor as a young

boy because I was always getting hurt but never felt any pain. I never cried when I would break a bone.

She thought there was something wrong with me. The doctor referred us to another doctor in a larger

city outside the small village I grew up in. That doctor was part of a secret military group that was trying

to build the perfect soldier. He convinced my mother to turn me over so they could study me. I’m not

the only one that’s ever been born this way, but we’re rare. She was reluctant at first, but they told her

they would give me an education and they would even pay for my brothers and sister to go to school.

We were poor, so school wasn’t really an option. She eventually agreed, because she thought it would

be a better situation for me than what she could provide on her own. My father had been killed in a

mining accident shortly after my youngest brother was born, so my mother was left with four kids to

raise on her own.” He paused for a moment, lost in his memory. I shifted my weight back and forth,

trying to find a comfortable position. while I waited for him to continue. He wasn’t even looking at me,

but he still reached over and set me on the counter. “At first, the people who were ‘studying’ me were

mostly nice. The original doctor saw to it that I went to school, was fed, and was well looked after. That

changed when a new doctor took over the research. I don’t know what happened to the first doctor, but

I never saw him again. The new doctor was an as sho le. He didn’t care about school. He just wanted

to run tests on me all day, every day. He really didn’t even care if I was fed. When I started to refuse to

do some of the tests, he would withhold food from me until I relented. This went on for years. I was 7

years old when I entered the program. I was 9 when the as sho le doctor took over. As I got older and

started growing more, they started training me. I knew every kind of martial arts there is by 13. When I

was 15, I was transferred to a new facility, where I lived with other boys. None of them were like me,

but they all had reasons why they were in the program. It was nice to have other boys my age for a

while, but it didn’t last. Around 16, they started making us fight each other. If we refused, we were

punished. One of the boys I fought almost died because of me. So, I started refusing because the other

boys didn’t have the same kind of training I’d had and they all clearly felt pain, unlike me. They would

starve me, lock me up in a room with no windows, sometimes they’d make me stay in complete

darkness for weeks on end. Anything they could think of to break me. They were trying to turn me into

a killer.