Ronan turned a potato around in his hand. It was a little soft. He placed it back in the basket and didn't pick up another. It wasn't as if he really needed it, or any of the produce at the morning market for that matter. Amir had made sure of that.
Immediately, his nose started to sting. He shut his eyes tight. Haven't I cried enough?
He had wept all through dawn. He had wept, ugly and messy on his floor, until his knees ached and his head throbbed and sunlight streamed through the living room window. When the crying stopped, he had taken one look around his house and hated it enough to stumble right out the door. His legs had started automatically for the farm, but then he imagined the confusion and sympathy on Sadie's face when he returned so soon after their perfect night with tear-stained cheeks.
He couldn't stand being home, and his usual escape was out of the question. Ronan had very few friends.
So he scoured the market instead, only half-present, dragging his feet to take up time. He picked up apples and carrots and bread then put them all down because he didn't need them. He was running low on lard, at least, so he didn't leave empty handed.
His head remained resolutely down. He hadn't done more than wipe his face with his sleeve on his way out; he was sure he looked terrible, and he didn't care to see pitying looks on the semi-familiar faces of the market-goers. If there was anything Ronan was good at, it was going unseen. So he didn't raise his eyes, and nobody noticed him, and he didn't notice the posters.
It wasn't until he turned onto his street and almost ran into an awning post that he realized he'd been walking home in a haze. His sight refocused and he made eye-contact with himself.
Or, sort of himself. The flier on the post depicted a young man with monolid eyes and a gentle face, but the features were too vague to be particularly his. The hair, though, could only belong to Ronan.
He staggered back as he took in the rest of the poster. He read the word WANTED and a number with four zeros before he ripped the poster down.
Past it, he saw policemen. A whole swarm of them, collected right in front of Ronan's corner of the street.
A crowd had gathered around them, but their attention was on an old woman who pointed insistently at Ronan's house. He recognized his neighbor and had an instant to regret not making an effort to befriend her before he was turning on his heels.
"There he is!" someone yelled, and Ronan bolted.
There were shouts and footsteps thundering after him as he kicked into a sprint, veering back the way he'd come and skidding around a turn. He cut across the road and down the next block – left turn – then another – left again, past the old locksmith's – bursting back into the market.
He was forced to slow somewhat to avoid collisions, but no one could shoot at him in a crowd like this. A woman yelped as he barreled past her. There were curses and grunts as he dodged and weaved (and shoved) his way through the crowd, even more so when his pursuers joined the fray. They shouted orders and demanded space, but they only fed the crowd's anxiety. Ronan cut a path for himself through the chaos.
Muttering apologies, he upended crates of produce behind himself and didn't stick around long enough to see if an officer slipped on a tomato. He ducked into an alley and took advantage of the winding streets, dipping onto backroads and cutting corners until he couldn't hear the cops.
In a stinking corridor behind a dilapidated apartment building, he paused to catch his breath with his hands on his knees. Not for long, only a handful of seconds, but long enough for sound to catch back up to him.
"Split up!" he heard and spat a foul curse. The alleyway had two mouths, and he didn't fancy being blocked in where it reeked of human shit.
The shout was too distant to pinpoint which side it came from. Ronan looked all around for a way out and got a potentially terrible idea.
After a moment spent glaring at an open second-story window, he wagered that things couldn't get much worse and took a running start toward a window on the first floor. There wasn't much room on the sill, but he used his momentum to push himself just high enough to grasp the metal grating around the open window. He could hear footsteps again as he grabbed on with his other hand. Three figures appeared at each end of the alley, converging the moment they spotted him.
Shit. Six was a lot.
Someone yelled for him to give it up. Ronan nearly rolled his eyes as he hauled his weight and threw himself into the apartment.
"Sorry!" he said uselessly to the pair of children in the corner, cowering behind their mother. She screamed. "Sorry, ma'am, I just need to..." he scanned for something useful. There was a tiny brown pin cushion on the only chair in the small space. He plucked two thick needles and hurtled through the door with another, "So sorry!"
Instead of running down the stairs and into the cops' open arms, he tore across the hall and shoved his needles into the lock of the furthest door. Pin tumbler, light work.
The ancient man in this apartment was either deeply asleep or dead. Ronan drove open the window and didn't give himself a chance to think before vaulting through. Given the size of the rooms, the fall wasn't awful, but his ankles still burned in protest as he propelled himself onto the next street. There was shouting again, but he outran it.
He turned into an alley and met a sort-of dead end, a brick half-wall that just might save him if he could get himself over it before anyone saw him here.
That was when he heard barking.
Overdue panic started to set in as Ronan raced against the sound. It was alarmingly close by the time he had four fingers over the cusp of the wall. His feet scrambled for purchase to get a better grip, and the growling bark hit his ears with sudden clarity.
The flimsy hold he got with his second hand fell away as several points of pain ignited around his calf. Ronan cried out and tried to pull his leg away, only to feel the teeth dig in deeper, threatening to tear.
His knife was in his other boot. He could get to it, probably. He looked down at his legs, at the black shepherd pawing haphazardly at the air as it clung to him, and couldn't muster the resolve.
Ronan crashed, hard.
He couldn't hear the cops closing in over the ringing in his ears, but he could feel their footsteps reverberating against the concrete. Someone pushed him onto his stomach. Shackles were locked around his wrists. At some point, the dog had let go.
"Ronan Hastings," said a gruff voice. "You are under arrest for the kidnapping of His Royal Highness Prince Rainer."
Ronan was not brought to a prison.
He didn't know until he got there. The carriage was windowless, and the officer riding with him wasn't any more receptive to his questions than he'd been to his protests.
When he was finally hauled out of the carriage, he was in a vast courtyard surrounded by sandstone walls. It was so unlike what he'd been expecting, dotted with gardens and bustling with people in servants' clothes, that Ronan squinted through the sunlight like he was staring at a desert mirage.
He hadn't planned on coming back to the castle so soon. Or ever.
"Move," grunted his keeper. He was handed off to three guards in his least favorite shade of purple. They steered him away from the activity and the rather dirty looks the workers were sending him, into a hallway that he may have seen before. It was hard to tell; the archways looked different with light pouring through them. The chandeliers reflected little rainbows onto patterned parquet. It would have been pretty under different circumstances.
As it was, Ronan's leg burned with every step, his wrists were sore from his futile initial struggle, and he was dizzily aware that he'd hit his head in the fall, so fuck the glittery floors.
He was led, memorizing every turn by habit, to an unusually plain room with a handful of small beds. An infirmary, by the looks of it. Only one guard remained to keep an eye on him by the doorway. After everything that had happened in the last six hours, Ronan had the insanity to feel offended.
A hand on his shoulder shoved him onto the bed. Unnecessary, considering the last thing he wanted to do was stand any longer.
"Your bedside manner is ghastly," Ronan grumbled.
After a few minutes of stilted silence, a young nurse entered. He was not alone.
"Cozy cell," Ronan sneered.
Prince Nicholas gave a magnanimous smile, clasping his hands together as if in welcome. "I do hope you can recognize kindness when it is offered," he said as the nurse took a stool at the bedside. He was dressed more formally than before, in a silvery tailcoat with copious embellishment. "If you choose to cooperate, this can be the closest to a cell that you find yourself."
The nurse pulled off Ronan's boot and took a pair of scissors to his trousers, cutting them to the knee without ever meeting Ronan's eye. The wound was grisly: four jagged punctures within a wide ring of smaller pricks, oozing.
"Is this what you call kindness?" asked Ronan. "Falsely and publicly accusing me of kidnapping?"
"It is a means to an end."
Reason #16 I can't stand the rich: Collateral damage is just another thing they are entitled to.
"And what is that end, exactly?"
Instead of answering, Nicholas tossed two rolled-up papers onto Ronan's lap. The first was the poster, with its shitty illustration and the word "ALIVE" printed in large font above the reward.
"Those are still being distributed around the city as we speak," said Nicholas.
"You've already caught me."
Nicholas ignored him and flourished a hand toward the second paper. Ronan unfurled the front page of that morning's Daily Divine, clenching his teeth as an alcohol solution was daubed around the bite.
The story told of an unidentified young man who had kidnapped King Hector's poor, feeble third son. According to the paper, the prince had been recovered safely, but the culprit was still on the loose.
There was no way this could have been printed and distributed in the time between the run-in with Nicholas and now. Unless you were royalty, Ronan supposed.
"More lies," he acknowledged as passively as he could manage. "Speaking of which, how did you spin this to your family? Or did you boast to father dearest that you failed to capture your runaway prince even with a sword and two armed guards–"
"Watch your mouth," Nicholas warned.
"Oh, but that would also require you to admit you were returning home in the middle of the night with a mere two footmen. Tell me, does your wife know where you've been?"
The nurse reacted to none of this as he laid gauze over the wound. Ronan hoped Amir had asked someone at home to wrap his cut with a real bandage. Felix wouldn't say a word if he was asked not to.
Ronan doubted it still. At best, Amir would try to dress it himself.
"Charmed as I am," Nicholas said lightly, though his eyes hardened. "You are not in any place to make threats. You tell me, do you have any inkling as to what the punishment for kidnapping a prince might be?"
Ronan's blood ran cold.
"If it is beyond you," Nicholas continued, smiling now, "I will bring you tomorrow's story, and you can find out for yourself. I pray the journalist goes into every embarrassing detail of your capture."
Ronan understood, then, the point of the posters and the newspaper articles. He tried not to respond outwardly, even as frost spread up his spine. Rage, panic, fear – all of them, ice cold.
"He won't come," he said hollowly. "You can't fool him."
Nicholas chuckled. "This goes far beyond me. I already told you, my father will expedite Rainer's return at any cost. A man of his standing cannot waste time on empty threats, and your life holds very little value. My brother knows this well."
Reason #57, Ronan thought helplessly. It wasn't as if he had his journal to write it down. They have the power to place value on a life.
"Your house has already been searched, to no avail," Nicholas said, coming to stand at the foot of the bed.
Ronan couldn't stop the way he jolted. He thought of the bag of spoils in his room, the untouched remains of his share from the masquerade stashed beneath his bed, and worst of all, the fox mask tucked into one of his drawers. He would have very real crimes to answer to if those were found.
But Nicholas made no sign that he knew more than he let on. With luck, the search had ended when there was no sign of their charge.
"If Rainer does turn up, there will be police stationed outside."
Please don't be stupid, Ronan wished in vain like Amir might hear him, around the painful awareness that Amir was unfortunately very stupid.
"This will all be made much easier if you tell us where to find him," said Nicholas. The nurse smoothed his hand over the bandage, then left.
"I don't know," Ronan said.
Nicholas sighed like he'd expected that. "Fourteen days," he intoned. "Starting today. Do you understand me?"
Ronan tried to swallow and nearly choked. He understood just fine.
Nicholas explained anyway. "If you tell us where to find the stray, you will be released with a healthy sum of hush money. Your only hope if you refuse is that Rainer is half as protective of you as you are of him. Otherwise, you will be executed in one fortnight."
Those were the simple facts, and Ronan sagged under the weight of them. He fought to keep his head high. "What are you going to do to him?"
Nicholas had the nerve to look affronted. "My father isn't a monster. He won't be harmed."
"Only caged."
"Better than dead." It was a threat, or a reminder, like Ronan could forget. "I ask again: where is he?"
"I don't know where he is."
"You won't die a martyr."
Ronan might've laughed if his head wasn't throbbing. That had always been Vito's thing, anyway.
"That's alright."
"Do not be a fool!" Nicholas suddenly snapped, face twisting in frustration. "Where is he?"
Frowning, Ronan tilted his head. "If I knew, I'd tell you," he lied blatantly, just to see fury paint the prince's face purple-red.
If he had eaten breakfast that morning, he surely would have thrown it up all over his lap by now. He didn't show it, determined not to let Nicholas have the satisfaction, but it was hard when bile rose in his throat and his vision blurred.
Luckily, he didn't have to keep up the act. Nicholas stormed from the room without another word to Ronan, just a seething order for the guard. "Show him to his cell."
Ronan was led out of the infirmary and downstairs. The basement was less ostentatious than the rest of the castle, with undecorated cobblestone walls and scarce lighting. There were several rooms, probably where the royal family's shadier dealings were handled. They bypassed them all until they came upon a curved wooden door with a small window. Beyond it, the space was even dimmer and palpably dingy. It carried a distinct lifelessness; Ronan could tell at once that they were the only people there.
It was a dungeon, one that probably hadn't been used since the castle was a medieval military base. What an honor.
The guard removed Ronan's handcuffs before throwing him into the first cell. The door was slammed behind him and locked with a key on a ring of many. The guard disappeared, but Ronan was sure he didn't go far.
Ronan's knees gave out. Through thinly-spaced iron bars, he could only see the wall. The ache in this leg was sharper now that there was nothing for his other senses to take in.
He tried to breathe through it, but the air was musty and made him cough. He tried again and realized the air wasn't the problem – his lungs simply wouldn't work the way they were meant to.
His breathing grew shallow and frantic, and he allowed his body to careen sideways onto the floor as he rode out the panic.
Ronan was not afraid for his life. There was no need to be.
Amir would throw himself at the castle doorstep the moment he understood. Ronan would not be executed, he was certain, because Amir would give up his freedom. Ronan found he really did not like how it felt to be a bargaining chip. It was suffocating.
The stone was cool against his burning cheek, at least. He clung onto the feeling and used it to ground himself as his breathing gradually evened out.
For hours, he lay there. Or, he thought it might be hours, but time was hard to gauge in a space with no windows. He measured it in the dwindling ache in his leg and the growing one in his stomach.
The guard returned eventually to slide a meager bowl of gray porridge beneath the bars. Ronan realized belatedly that he should be angry. He had been chased and bitten and locked in a cell with a thin straw bed and a hole in the corner to relieve himself, where he would be fed cold mush and breathe in centuries of dust, and it was Amir's fault. Amir had gotten him into this mess, Amir had allowed Ronan to get in over his head without knowing. Ronan had been right not to trust him, not that it had helped. He'd landed in a cell anyway.
It was hard, though, to be angry, when he knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that Amir would not hesitate for a single second to save him, even if it meant returning to a life he hated.
And if that wasn't trust, Ronan didn't know what was.
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Song for this chapter: Biting Down by Lorde