Heart attack, p.1
Heart Attack, page 1
HEART ATTACK
BRITT VAN DEN ELZEN
CONTENTS
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Epilogue
Acknowledgments
About the Author
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2023 Britt van den Elzen
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or used in any manner without written permission of the copyright owner except for the use of quotations in a book review.
First edition
Cover Design by Maria Spada
ISBN 978-9-0832-0969-2 (hardback)
ISBN 978-9-0832-0968-5 (paperback)
ISBN 978-9-0832-0967-8 (ebook)
Published by New Dam Publishing
www.brittvandenelzen.com
To the people who don’t give up
when things get hard
PROLOGUE
THE YEAR 2163
OSTRA, BORZIA
General Zander walked through the royal palace with purpose, an even deeper scowl than usual marring her fine-featured face. She clasped her fingers around a newspaper in her hand as if it was the neck of an enemy. Going by the frightened expressions of the staff, it was likely war would soon rain upon them.
That guess wasn’t far off, as the paper in her hand was Ardenian.
“Move,” she barked at the soldiers in her way, who fell in line quickly. Not even a brush of clothing touched her as she stormed past.
The guards opened the large wooden doors and let her through without hesitation.
King Sergei looked up from his morning tea, his eyes narrowing as he tried to decipher her expression. “What is it?” he asked stiffly.
“This,” General Zander hissed as she threw the newspaper on the table, looking like an animal narrowing in on its prey after being left to chew on only bones for too long.
The king turned the newspaper to face him and unfolded it carefully, as if it had a bomb planted inside. He skimmed the page. With each passing sentence, the frown between his eyes deepened. Finally, he lay down the paper and turned his gaze to her. “Is it true? Ardenza found a solution against the mutation?”
She scowled. “Unfortunately, it is.”
“Unfortunately,” the king repeated calmly. “Ardenza finding the serum before we did is… unfortunate?” he asked, voice steady but eyes blazing.
General Zander sat down in the chair opposite him. “They’re already working on a vaccine.” Her eye twitched as she tried to remain composed. She flicked her knife free from its sheath and twirled it around in her hand. “But that’s not what pisses me off. We’re rich; we’ll pry the vaccine from their hands with gold. Ardenza has a price, just like everybody else.”
The king only watched, unfazed by her display of anger. “What, then?”
“Just continue reading,” she spat, turning a couple of pages and shoving the paper back to him, showing another article. The General turned away as if she couldn’t even stomach looking at it.
He turned the paper, his hand splaying over the black-and-white print. Slowly, his fingertips turned white as he seemed to increase pressure.
“Is it her?” he asked through clenched teeth.
“Of course it is.”
King Sergei’s frown was the only sign of his distress. “How?”
“She survived. Changed last names,” the General answered with effort, making sure she didn’t raise her voice.
The king’s anger didn’t subside, but, slowly, his eyes darted back to the page she held open. “Impossible,” the king replied, shoving back the newspaper.
General Zander shook her head. “It is possible. I asked my contacts in Barak, and they searched for her birth certificate—it wasn’t there. They did, however, list some of her information in the military system.”
“She was presumed dead.”
Clenching her teeth, General Zander stashed away her knife. She calmed her breath through sheer will and determination. “Does she look fucking dead to you?” The General pointed to the picture in the Ardenian newspaper.
King Sergei suddenly stood, tearing his eyes away from the picture. “Remember your place, Tatiana.”
General Zander—Tatiana—breathed a dramatic sigh of relief. “What a marvelous way to deflect, Papa. From now on, I shall keep my mouth shut like the obedient little princess you want me to be,” she snarled, eyes turning sour.
The king looked her dead in the eye. “Watch your tongue, girl, or I will put all of it in Alek’s name. You know just as well as I do that the public would much rather see you step down.”
Tatiana clenched her jaw and turned red from anger. She exhaled slowly, and her expression changed, her lips curving into a manic smile. “The public would rather not see a Zander on the throne at all. That’s why we need to rip this problem from the world. Have no one questioning our claim.”
“She might not know,” the king murmured. Thinking. Contemplating.
Tatiana stood, grinning darkly, and walked over to the windows of her father’s sitting room, looking out onto Ostra. “Of course she doesn’t. All the more reason to act fast—before anyone finds out.”
The king grunted. “Don’t we have anyone in Ardenza to do the job?”
“And let an Ardenian do it?” she snorted.
The king tutted as he agreed. He was tapping his finger on the paper before him, mulling it over, thinking of different scenarios. “There must be an easier way.”
“Easier than killing her?”
The king raised a brow. “You think your team can do it?”
“Think?” she exclaimed. “I know.”
“That arrogance of yours won’t ever do you any good but make you blind to your weak spots,” he snarled, pointing a finger in her face.
His daughter raised her chin defiantly. “I’m not arrogant. I’m confident.”
“That’s a very thin line to cross, Tatiana, and I will make you pay for it if you do.”
“I won’t,” she countered.
“Do it, then. But I swear to you—if you fail, you will account for it personally. Your inheritance hangs in the balance.”
“Don’t I know it,” Tatiana replied, a wolfish grin marring her pretty features. “As I said, dear Papa, everyone has a price—and I know just the person who will help me do almost anything.”
1
THE YEAR 2146
Raven was eight years old when her mother got sick.
It started with hunger.
This didn’t ring any bells because it was a regular occurrence with the food shortages.
But then her mother began sweating profoundly and started saying weird things in her sleep—which frightened Raven, especially at night.
Her mother often had seizures, during which Raven was told to go to her room. She always did, but she would lean against her door and watch the living room through the keyhole. When her mother’s body finally slackened, she would listen to the conversation between her parents.
“You must bring me to the hospital, Leon, and take Raven to West-Ardenza. You’ll both be safe there.”
“What about Borzia?” she heard her father ask softly.
“No.” Her mother was shaking her head.
“But many—”
“I said no, Leon,” she said sternly.
Raven didn’t know what Borzia was.
Her father stared at their entwined hands. “If it’s the mutation… I can’t lose you, Natasha.”
“It is the mutation,” her mother said. She clasped a hand on his arm. “And I don’t want to endanger either you or Raven. I won’t. Call them.”
Them.
This, Raven understood. The people in the white suits.
She barged into the room. “No!” she exclaimed loudly and fell to her knees beside her mother. “Mama, they picked up Dany’s brother, and they never saw him again.”
Her mother took her hand. “You’re going to see me again, dear. I promise.” But her mother’s hand was shaking, and her voice broke on the last word.
Raven put her head on her mother’s chest and listened to her heart. She nodded. The possibility of her mother being taken away wasn’t one she wanted to think about. So, if her mother said she would see her again, Raven believed her. She willed herself to believe her.
One day later, the people in the white suits picked up her mother.
A week had gone by when Raven woke up in the middle of the night to the groaning of the wooden f loor. She clicked on her bedside lamp, which she rarely used. The light flickered weakly, as it usually did nowadays. Bracing herself against the cold with her robe, she opened the door to the living room where a burning light showed her father packing a suitcase.
“Papa?” Raven asked as she rubbed the sleep from her eyes. “What are you doing?”
Her father paused for a moment, but then continued packing. “We’re going on a trip, dear.”
Her jaw dropped. “What?” Tears rushed to her eyes. “To where? And what about Mama?” Raven had never been anywhere outside her hometown, Damruin.
She didn’t know it then, but hell had broken loose in a city nearby, and people had been banging on the doors. Not to seek shelter, but to tell everyone to get out of there as soon as possible.
“Mama knows we’re going.”
Raven’s bottom lip trembled. “I’m scared, Papa. I don’t want to leave.” Something wasn’t right. A fun trip meant they would be happy—and her father was far from it.
He straightened and knelt in front of her, planting a kiss on her forehead. “I know you’re scared, Raven. But I have to ask you to be strong right now. Just for a little while.”
She blinked through her tears.
“For Mama?” he asked, swallowing.
She nodded.
After what felt like an eternity, they arrived at a refugee camp near the border of Borzia, which Raven had learned in the little makeshift school she went to with the other children, was a neighboring continent.
Raven celebrated her ninth birthday at the camp.
This year, there were no presents, not her parents singing to her or her mother baking her favorite cookies. But her father was there, and he had gifted her a tiny cupcake with an unlit candle. She didn’t know where he had gotten it from, but it tasted divine. It made her forget they couldn’t even light the candle for her to blow out.
The days blurred together, and the food grew scarce. Panic rose among the people in the camp. Raven felt like everything around her was crumbling, and she couldn’t do anything about it.
She didn’t know it then, but the mutation left no survivors. Once the genetic changes kicked in, you either died or turned into a mutant. Years later, she would discover that there had been many sick people everywhere—that they had all been taken to hospitals, like her mother. Too many of them had been packed together in one room because the doctors didn’t know what to do with them. The nurses and doctors took care of them to the best of their abilities. That was the first problem: the hospitals were the first to fall when the mutation finally expressed itself.
One day, at camp, a family came in. With them was a sick person—sick like her mother had been. They were sweating, seeing things that weren’t there, jolting in their unconscious state. The family refused to bring the person to a hospital.
Raven went to her father and asked, “Papa, why did Mama have to go when she was sick?”
Her father gave her a quizzical look. “People with Mama’s illness have to go to the hospital.”
She shook her head. “Someone downstairs is sick, too.”
His eyes widened. “Sick like Mama?”
Raven nodded.
Her father cursed, stood abruptly, and walked down the stairs. An hour later, her father had repacked the worn-out suitcase and stroked Raven’s hair. “Let’s go. We’re continuing our journey.”
Raven’s body shook, but she nodded—tried to put on a brave face for her father. She understood they hadn’t arrived yet where they needed to go. But every step they took onward was another step away from her mother.
A couple days later, they stood on a crowded square before tall golden fences.
Raven could only see the top of the fence, and grabbed her father’s hand more tightly as she got swallowed up in the masses.
“Let us in!” someone shouted.
Her heart started pounding in panic.
Another person cried, “They’re already so close, you can’t let us walk all the way to the wall! We won’t make it.”
Yet another person used words her mother wouldn’t allow to be repeated and ended with, “Borzian scum!”
Shocked and wide-eyed, Raven had looked up to her father, who didn’t seem to be the least bit shaken by the comments. She was sure her mother would have put the man in his place for using such vulgar words. She always scolded Raven for them, too.
Raven missed her mother. She hoped she was doing well.
The crowd went wild when the fence opened and some people were allowed to enter.
Her father dragged her through the crowd, all the way to the front, until people in grey uniforms appeared before her. Soldiers, Raven realized. They were at the Borzian borders. Why were they at the Borzian borders? Didn’t her mother tell them not to go there?
Tugging her father’s hand, she tried to get his attention, but he kept walking.
Her father said something to the soldier she couldn’t understand.
The soldier looked down at Raven, which made her feel uneasy—saying something that didn’t sound very nice. After that, the man looked back at her father and held out his hand like he had all the time in the world.
Her father retrieved some papers from his inner pockets and handed them to the soldier, who skimmed them and looked back at Raven with pinched brows. He walked over to another soldier and let him read through the paperwork—who looked to her, too. He retrieved a device from his jacket and made a call. Then, he nodded to the soldier, who came back and spoke to her father again in harsh tones.
Raven’s eyes were glued to the soldier in the back, who was still looking at her as he held a large device to his ear and talked, reading something from the document still in his gloved hand, misty clouds escaping from his mouth in the chill air.
Suddenly, a large hand gripped her shoulder, and she looked back up at her father, who was urging her forward. “Come on, sweetheart.” He held the suitcase in his other hand and gave her shoulder a reassuring squeeze—but the soldier put a hand on her father’s chest.
He barked a command.
Her father’s face turned outraged. “What? I’m her father.” These words she understood.
“And an Ardenian one at that,” the solider replied coolly, with an accent.
“No way,” her father countered as his voice turned desperate. “I’m all she has.”
Raven frowned. That wasn’t true. She also had her mother.
The soldier ignored him and grabbed her by her shoulders as he urged her forward. Raven quickly took her father’s hand and held on to it for dear life. “What’s going on?” She asked, and her father cursed as the soldier put more pressure on her body, forcing their hands to part. “Papa!” she said again, louder this time—more afraid.
The frown on her father’s forehead drew deeper.
Another soldier walked over to her father and pushed him back into the crowd.
“No! Raven!” he shouted.
The sound of his voice got swallowed by the loud yelling of the people, and he, too, disappeared.
She kept shaking her head, resisting the soldier’s insisting hand on her back. “I don’t want to go without my papa!” she yelled to the soldier. Panic fought its way through her small body.
The soldier didn’t even look down as he said, “You’ll be safe inside.” As if the words were reassuring.
“No!” she shrieked as her father’s voice reached her again, and by some miracle, she pulled herself free from the soldier’s grasp. She tried to walk back into the crowd but was too slow, and he grabbed her again, pushing her in front of him. “You will walk inside, little girl, or I’ll carry you—oh.”
