Hellbitch was there, watching him. From across the room in a padded chair, hands resting on the arms. Queen Feline on her throne.

Cat's caught the rodent and what was mousie going to do now?

That is how she watched him. With those patronizing "I win" eyes.

PhaHks felt like a gerbil thrust back into his cage with nothing left to do but run the squeaky wheel.

He was losing his mind.

When he tried to sit up, he couldn't.

Then felt his nakedness beneath the thin sheet. "Fulgh." His speech was slurred and the swearword came out like sludge.

"You would have died out there, you know." she announced.

He shook his head once. Lay back. Gave himself a rest from the eyestrain of staring at her from the horizontal.

"Howth grrl?"

"She has a headache but is otherwise unharmed." He seemed relieved.

Veexow frowned. "You strike her down, then ask after her well being. What a contradictory creature you are."

"Sh'uz t'do m' rmm nice."

"Oh?"

"Tha'zall. Sh' dint help me'nite. Y' don'av t' punizher."

That angered Hellbitch. He could tell.

"Everyone has a place, PhaHks. Everyone has restrictions."

"So 'v'notssed."

"I refuse to play Battle of Wills with you."

"But arenn ye' gon' punssh me?" That was better.

"Is that what you expect?" She rose and walked over until she was hovering over his face.

"Yrr p'ticlrr brnnd, yeh'." Her face floated above him like a grotesque Halloween mask. She'd completely stoned him on something.

Junkie-Madam and her goddamn drugs.

The jack-o-lantern mouth moved in slow motion. His head swam.

"I think you have punished yourself enough, PhaHks. The reason you cannot move is because there are tiny bacteria multiplying in your bloodstream as we speak. From there hey enter the cells of the central nervous system and paralyze the victim. The doctor believes you will recover, he has already treated you for it."

She seemed pleased to report the next bit, he thought.

"But it will be several days until you can sit up or eat or walk or relieve yourself without assistance."

And the next...

"You see, you made the mistake of falling asleep upon a bed of dead fall over a nest of burrowing Reed worms. Their bodies carry this particular bacterium. It is, by the way, deadly to us. You are fortunate you are human, this time it has saved you, you seem to have a natural defense against it. The worms only come forth during the cool of the night. Of course, by the time we had arrived, they had covered you."

PhaHks felt even more like shit now, from visions of being swarmed alive by worm-lice.

Woman or not. Big tits or not, he wanted to knock that victory smug off of her vampire fucking face.

"I knew you would try to escape once I allowed you access to my home. But I had not supposed your human ignorance would get you into trouble so quickly."

Condescending cunt.

"When you are well, we shall try once again to get along. From my observation, you really have no choice."

**

Stir crazy.

Two weeks locked away in his own "dwelling". One room, ten by ten meters and no windows to ease the boredom. No views of sky, lake or land to keep him sane.

Only "activities" during his recuperation.

A computer unit programmed with hundreds of tests which she ordered him to do and which, for that very reason, he didn't.

At least not for the whole first week of being locked in his one room and denied access to her the Great Hall and basement pool.

Then, after his brain screamed at him for a whole day to provide it with entertainment, he sat down and started to do the bitch's tests. Hundreds of mathematical, spacial, emotional response and logic questions. Some he could answer, some he couldn't. Some he didn't.

Some he answered dementedly, just to see if he could piss her off.

For days he did the hated quizzes until his head pounded. But M'Lady, after her initial visit to inform him of his confinement during which time she would be occupied with "unavoidable visitors", and "since he was healing anyway", informed him he would be unable to roam about the mansion and his meals would be brought to him in his room.

His prison had become temporarily smaller.

Two weeks and he was ready to climb the walls.

This day he'd spent pacing, itching to crush to bits the test unit if he'd had the strength to. He'd done all the tests over and over until he was fairly confident he could puke the answers up alphabetically.

When his evening meal arrived he welcomed, not the food, but the distraction of seeing another living creature, however brief.

The servant girl, a new one, entered and he retreated to the other side of the room.

Sitting on his bed, he'd watch her, look away. She'd stare, look away, stare again. But today the distraction made him feel tired and shitty.

And fucking depressed. He could be losing his mind and not know it but since there was no one he could ask who would know one way or another, he let the thought slip away like so many others.

Visitors. That's what his thoughts felt like, little brain ghosts that floated around in his head, moaning their protests and then fading away.

He was fading away maybe.

He rubbed his eyes and face, felt wetness slide from the corners of his eyes to wash his face in salt.

The servant said something in her incomprehensible tongue and he opened his eyes, startled to see her standing before him.

Stared up at her. She was standing a foot in front of him, gesturing back towards his table. He looked and saw the new tray sitting beside the old one still piled with untouched, drying out food.

He guessed she was asking about that. He shook his head.

"No."

Had no idea if she understood but she made no expression one way or the other.

During his confinement, he'd eaten his meals obediently but the shit hurt going down and burned when it got there. Daily he ate it until he could choke it down no more. Now it was pulpy cubes and dry flavorless husks that, hungry as he might be, turned his stomach over.

It smelled of them and its taste was prison.

The servant girl said something else and he shook his head to let her know he didn't understand her, sighing heavily and rubbing his gritty eyeballs. What he needed was conversation and it was typical of HellBitch to send a servant who couldn't speak a letter of English.

Without warning, the girl reached out and touched his face, the wetness that still hadn't evaporated.

He froze.

Her curious hand moved to his hair which had regained its shine now that he'd returned to near his normal weight.

She touched him the way a small child would want to touch a fluffy dog if she had never seen one. What does it feel like? Stretch out fingers. Stroke.

It felt nice, that small contact. She couldn't have been more than twenty. Not pretty.

Not Sunshine.

He didn't think she was making a try for him because there was nothing sexual in her touch. And, though he'd had no woman in longer than he could remember, he didn't want her. Not because he didn't feel the need, in fact his penis stirred under this unexpected gesture, but because she was too foreign looking.

Too alien.

He hoped, however, she'd continue for a moment or two. In his intolerable existence, it was a tiny reprieve. To have fingers gently raking his hair was transfusing the numbness.

She leaned closer to see his eyes. Her blank, ugly face registered the slightest surprise at the colors she found in them.

The servant girl didn't have time to even turn around when the door to his chambers slid aside, revealing two beefy guards and HellBitch behind them, barking something in her impossible speech.

Without a hitch in step, the two guards unceremoniously grabbed the servant girl and began half-carrying, half dragging her to the door.

He felt her touch leave and it hurt. A cold severing.

"Huh, wha...?" he looked at Veexow's furious expression as she turned on him.

"Silence!" then she barked something to the guards who hurried their pace out the door.

By the girls cries and the quick exit of the guards PhaHks didn't need to understand the language to recognize the implications of what was happening.

"Wait! She didn't DO anything." He stood and went to Veexow, careful to stay out of striking distance.

Veexow was venomous. "She was to serve meals. That was all."

Her anger was a shock. "All she did was touch me. She was just...curious!" He tried to explain.

"She knew the rules and disobeyed. And she is older than you, PhaHks." Veexow turned to leave but he quickly placed himself between her and the door, facing her down.

"What are they going to do to her?"

"She will be punished of course. Executed." Stepping around him.

"WHAT?!" He snatched at her arm. "No - why? - please, *PLEASE* don't do this. She was just trying to communicate, she didn't mean anything. It was nice and-"

It had been the only emotional and physical gesture of kindness he'd received in an eternity. It had been a precious gift and they were going to destroy the offer-er.

He knew he was begging but had nothing else to try.

"-nothing would have happened!"

At his raised voice, unsolicited words and daring to touch her so roughly, Veexow, face twisted in rage, backhanded him. Not hard enough to kill but plenty hard enough to do damage. He spun around from the force of it before landing on his hands and knees.

One minute he was having a conversation - of sorts - the next he was on the floor trying to shake the ringing out of his ears and figure out which part of his head hurt worse, his brain or the skull that encased it.

As quickly as her anger had arisen, it vanished seeing him on the floor and gasping in pain. She moved to help him to his feet but he forcefully shook her off, pulling away.

Staggering to his feet, he belligerently faced her, unwavering. She could see the purple bruise already darkening his cheekbone and the blood seeping from the cut above it where her ring had caught.

"I did not use my full strength PhaHks. You will not speak of this. You will not be leaving this room until I decide it's time."

His voice shook. "You vindictive bitch!"

Without a twitch of warning, she struck him again, lightening fast.

Hard.

On his other cheek.

This time he did not get back up, just stayed down and gulped for air, holding his hand to the side of his head. He glared up at her, savoring his growing hatred which was quickly becoming his constant companion.

""*Trust* you"??" he mocked, "What a goddamn joke!"

"You WILL learn to cooperate!" She yelled.

"Or you'll what? - hit me? You'll sure as fuck never get me to bend my knee any other way." He coughed. Spit blood.

Her eyes narrowed. "Eat, PhaHks, you're getting thin again. Eat or I will have it liquified and poured down your throat." She moved to exit without a backward glance.

"You're FUCKING insane!" he screamed after her retreating back.

PhaHks got himself up off the floor. His jaw ached and he wondered if it was broken. Moved it around. Still worked.

Hellbitch had been more than just angry at the servant for breaking a rule, she'd been angry that the girl had touched him, and furious with him for allowing it.

The blows had been his punishment.

He was dizzy and went to lie down. Sleep it off.

But the image of what that HellBitch was going to have done to that young girl....

Maybe she wouldn't kill her. Maybe it was all just emotional manipulation to - what? - get him to be more docile (Hellbitch's favorite word)? Hell of a way to gain obedience.

It wouldn't work either.

He was used to it.

Thirty years ago, he'd logged in plenty of it. A decade of it.

In the lessons of painful humiliation, Hellbitch had nothing on dear, old dad. He had taken it to a fine art. A regular goddamn professor.

Hellbitch didn't realize he could slip into the victim role like it was a used coat and then just shrug it off again. Get knocked down, get up, spit blood.

Spit back.

Practice makes perfect.

Kill someone because they were curious? Kill them for lingering? Kill them for being young and inexperienced?

Those were the choices.

Something had lit her fuse and she had come through that door prepared to explode.

Why?

And her face had changed during that two minutes. >From tightly reined-in indignation to absolute-

-jealousy!

Her twisted rage at his comments, had said it all. He'd just missed it at first because they were dragging that screaming girl away to be guillotined or whatever the hell it was they did here.

He was Hellbitch's pet and hands off?

Christ, that's why she'd had Sunshine taken away.

If that's what he was...

It was a bit of insight that might prove useful though in what capacity he wasn't sure. For a man out of options it was maybe an opportunity.

He'd do a bit of manipulating himself if his theory proved true.

If he was correct and played it right, maybe it could get him home.

---------------------------------------------------------------------

**

Only sometimes did Veexow declare the pool off limits.

The rainy season that would come twice yearly to wash torrents of dark waters into the Rhemu valley.

The pool, being as it was fed from the filtered streams of the nearby hills, would systematically rise and fall. The basin would become murky and violent as the flooding advanced and receded.

The feeders, the inlets and outlets, that normally flowed with gentleness out of regard for its fleshy visitors, would rush in. The brown, icy sludge sucked out again along the deep underground flutes. Any creature clumsy enough to fall in, would be taken away with it to die.

So one night, as PhaHks wandered the endless passages of Hellbitch's mansion, he was surprised to see his little servant girl, the one he had cold-cocked in his failed escape attempt. And it still hurt to think about it.

Another did his rooms now, an older woman who ignored him completely if he happened to be there.

He'd gone through two servants so far. One Hellbitch had had murdered for the terrible crime of curiosity. And the other was Sunshine.

Disappearing through the narrow entry to the underground cavern...

...there she was, and she was almost grown up. Even taller than the night of his botched escape into the countryside.

Still a skinny little thing but filled out. Her face was no longer cast in the impishness of girlishness. It now held the expression of young womanhood with its questioning exploration.

And seeing her brought it even more home to him how much he had missed her smile every morning.

Her giggles and her little orphan Annie ways that just made his heart ache with compassion. And joy too, for her ability to have been so purely child-like in her bleak existence.

Protectiveness. That's what he felt too. Still.

His little Sunshine.

She was going to the pool, nothing else was down there, and he had a pretty good idea why.

More than curiosity compelled him to follow. He followed at a good distance. Did not want to give Hellbitch any reasons for punishing her.

He was lonely, wanted to speak to her, but no sweet kid was going to literally lose her head over his mistakes ever again.

Quietly she descended, unaware of her tag.

He heard voices and sat near the bottom of the stairs to listen.

Sure enough, a young male voice mixed with Sunshine's and sounds of clothing being shed and fumbling in the dark.

There was no lantern lit and the blackness was nearly impenetrable. He could see shapes and that was all. How they were managing in near total dark he didn't know but evidently they were as sounds of lovemaking replaced breathless whispers.

Yes, she had grown up.

Flesh slapping flesh and groans of pleasure washed over him, sparking memories that hurt.

A jerking fist had nothing on real, warm muscled depths, kneading fingers and sweet tongue. Then he felt ashamed because he was imagining it while eavesdropping on his little girl.

A cry of surprise followed by a thick splash shook him out of his guilty porn moment.

The adolescent stud must be showing off.

"OteesaH!" The voice of the male youth trying to yell but not so loudly to arouse the household and Hellbitch's wrath. PhaHks didn't blame him.

Splashing...

Another splash. Then lots of splashing, hands striking water. A large splash. The male had dived in.

PhaHks could see nothing.

PhaHks heard nothing for long seconds. Then a surfacing. "Oo-teee-sahhh!" No answer came from the girl.

PhaHks jumped up from his hiding place and was at the water's edge. The youth gasped, but didn't follow when PhaHks dived in.

Her name was OteesaH. Pretty. Like sunshine.

Under the silty liquid, he could see nothing. For one second he ventured to open his eyes and had them stinging like fire. He dived deeper, groped blindly, and did not find her. The mineral basin was deep, nearly one hundred feet, Veexow had told him.

Coming up for air, he inhaled and exhaled, big ones, then held and dived again. Deeper this time. Forty, fifty feet down, the first outlets tugged on his strong swimmers body.

During one rare vacation from the Bureau, he had taken Free diving. On his best dive, the deepest he had gone was eighty-five feet. Excellent for a beginner. But that had been with benefit of mask, snorkel, fins...

The second inlets/outlets pulled him deeper, he hardly had to kick now to descend.

PhaHks knew the depth of the outlet but only a vague idea where on the cavern wall it was located.

The pull on his own body was strong.

Seventy-five feet, he calculated. Part of Free diving was a good grasp of speed in relation to fathoms.

Just a few more feet would be all he could do. The need for his lungs to exhale was becoming overwhelming, the water pressure squeezing his rib-cage.

Sunshine. OteesaH.

Sweet, smiling Sunshine. His little girl.

Arms outreached, moving in circles, he felt for solid form.

Then a foot, flailing spasmodically, brushed his hand. PhaHks missed it the first time. The second time, he latched onto it and didn't let go.

Wrapping both arms around two legs he kicked furiously toward the surface, lungs screaming.

The ascent was worse with the pull from the outlet, the extra weight and his own near exhaustion.

Ten feet from the surface, he could no longer stop the reflex to exhale. Once all the bubbles from the oxygen depleted air left his lungs they immedietly sucked in. He couldn't prevent it.

Sucking and gasping, he swallowed gritty water, inhaled it but did not let go of his burden.

Finally the surface, and hands wrestled the limp body from his. PhaHks was left to pull himself the rest of the way to safety.

Resting on his hands and knees for a moment more, He coughed until water came up. His chest burned like fire.

When he saw the girl laid out nude and not moving, he crawled over to her. The boy had lit the lantern and was crouched beside her, speaking to her, patting her face but doing nothing else.

PhaHks shoved him aside, taking her slack jaw in one hand. Pinching her frothy nose he began breathing for her.

Blow.

Blow.

Blow.

Then he found the correct spot on her rib-cage and compressed it an inch with the heels of his hands. Rhythmic downward thrusts for eight seconds.

Blow.

Pumped. One, two, three...

Blow...

With one ear to her chest, he listened for a sound.

Nothing.

"What are you doing?" The boy asked.

"What does it look like?"

The youth roughly shoved PhaHks aside, "Don't touch her!"

PhaHks sprawled. He scrambled back as the powerful youth stood guard and, searching in the pockets of his discarded clothing, found some sort of tiny transmitter, (PhaHks guessed), speaking into it. He was summoning the doctor.

With the youths attention momentarily diverted with the doctor's response, PhaHks resumed his attempts to revive his drowned girl.

The youth yanked PhaHks to his feet and bound his arms behind him, holding him immobile.

"What the hell are you doing? I'm trying to save her!"

"You are human. You're trying to kill her!"

"Why would I risk my life to save her from drowning just to kill her!?" He yelled, twisting, trying to free himself.

"The doctor will be here and he will save her. Your human intervention isn't welcome!"

"Let me go, goddamn it! She's dying! She'd DYING!!" PhaHks yelled, twisting this way and that in his attempts to shake off the much stronger youth.

Rhengar suddenly was there with a portable light and began swiftly administering his healing ways.

Veexow also arrived in time to see Rhengar shake his head at the anxious boy.

She arrived in time to see the youth let go of PhaHks' arms without warning and watch PhaHks fall to his knees.

He was freed too late.

Veexow was in time to watch PhaHks crawl slowly over to the girl. Her petite face was blotched yellow and she saw only with dead eyes. Strands of brown soaked hair splayed across her cheek and PhaHks brushed them away with trembling fingers.

Veexow had arrived in time to see PhaHks close his eyes, his face twist up and silent tears inch down reddened cheeks. His eyes were shut so tight, he might be beseeching a god. It was painful to watch.

PhaHks held her tight. Her expression in death had been one of surprise just as had been her youthful desire in life.

A life that *Should Have Been*.

He wanted to hug back to life her smile and laughter.

Sunshine had been so tiny, so perfect. So goddamned innocent!

He could have saved her.

PhaHks' eyes pooled and he screamed at the boy.

"Why didn't you let me save her?!" PhaHks' eyes burned holes through to the grieving youth.

Then turned back to the girl OteesaH, Sunshine. She hadn't deserved this! She was just beginning. Once upon a time, she'd cleaned up his messes and had brought bright, pretty eyes every day to his loneliness and desolation.

He hadn't even known her real name until now.

OteesaH. But to him she would always be Sunshine.

"PhaHks."

Veexow rested one hand on his shoulder.

He slapped it away. "Get off me!"

But Hellbitch was there beside him and he laid the dead servant back down, gently.

Ever so gently.

He had no opening for retaliation to anyone or anything for her death.

Hellbitch was going to take him away from his mourning of her.

He would not be allowed even that.

Veexow gripped his arm and lifted him to his feet. "PhaHks. Come with me now."

Rhengar ignored the commotion, gathering up his things.

PhaHks rose and followed Veexow up the stone stairs.

*

PhaHks paced, eyes darting everywhere. Veexow thought that he was looking for something but what she did not know.

"PhaHks, there was nothing more you could have done. Or any of us."

"I could have saved her. If he'd released me, if ANY of you had helped!, she'd be alive right now."

"You do not know that. In fact,.." she went to him and stood in front to stop his restless movements.

"..in fact, it is doubtful what you were attempting would have benefitted her. She was...different than you."

He swallowed. Nodded. She seemed to have distracted him.

"But," she continued, "neither would it have hurt."

In her own way, she was thanking him for trying.

"You should rest now."

He nodded but made no move toward his bed. She, instead, moved to exit.

"PhaHks."

"Yeah?" He sounded spent.

"Why do you distress yourself so over her? She was just a servant girl."

Cold, heartless female.

"You mean easily replaceable? Expendable? Cheap property? Like the one you had murdered?!" Bitch!

"Be careful, PhaHks."

"Why? Or you'll kill me too?"

"Don't be so dramatic. Things, people die every day. The rest of us have to go on."

"How enlightened. Maybe some of us don't want to."

"I don't believe that and neither do you. You are no killer, not even of yourself. I knew it then."

She seemed to be waiting for some response.

"Is that what you thought?" he asked dully. Too tired to keep up the fighting words.

"Yes." She turned back to him. Considered. "If you had the opportunity to leave, to really escape,.."

She was absentmindedly rubbing her hands together, her face wanting truth.

"...would you have killed me to take it?"

She saw his eyes flick from side to side, then at her.

He always looked at her directly now. Gaze to gaze, having somewhere along the line conveniently forgotten her rule of never doing so. A rule she had quickly discarded.

"In the beginning, yeah." Fuckin' Aye!

She carefully controlled the odd sensations those words incited in her chest. "And now?"

"No."

"Why not?"

"Because,...because *here*,...now, you're all I have." He rubbed his tired face. "That isn't saying a hell of a lot about my life, is it?"

She nodded, one of understanding if not agreement, but since she had no reply for him, didn't answer.

No words would change the reality of his world as he saw it.

"Goodnight, PhaHks."

******