yer bracelet,” Lenore said, squeezing my hand. “Give it.”
She didn’t want my bracelet. She wanted to freaking break my hand.
I pulled back and gave her a side kick, but it was like kicking a tree, the woman was so big. She took it, then swung a thick fist at me. I ducked and people cheered.
“I said let go!” I shouted, throwing coffee in her face.
Lenore bellowed as her grip loosened, and I pulled away. Arms outstretched, she came at me. I ducked, scampering out from under her and slipping on eggs. I couldn’t let this woman get a bear hug on me—she’d snap my spine.
Still howling, she turned to follow, moving remarkably fast. I hadn’t wanted to hurt her, but I didn’t have much choice anymore. Jumping onto the table, I fell into a fighting stance.
Lenore hesitated, her eyes flicking behind me. Taking a step back, she passively raised her hands, but it wasn’t because of me. Too late, I turned.
Pain exploded at the back of my knees, so hard and fast that I couldn’t breathe. I went down face-first. Tears blurred my vision, and I curled into the fetal position, trying to hold my knees. Someone had hit me from behind. Oh God, I’d never walk again.
“I’s kill her! I’s fucking kill her!” Lenore was screaming, and I looked past my stringy hair to see her being led away by two guards, submission holds on her with the help of a couple of sticks. Sure, big talker now that she couldn’t do anything.
“Get up, Sunshine,” someone said sarcastically, and I groaned when they pulled me up and dragged me between them. I couldn’t straighten my legs. They hurt like hell. Apart from our table, the rest of the room was orderly. Noisy, yes, but no one was getting off their benches.
Mary held her narrow body with her skinny arms, scared. Charles wouldn’t look up. But it was Ralph’s expression that scared me. Terror was in his eyes, terror he couldn’t express but was reliving. Not the medical wing. God, please. Not the medical wing.
“New girl making friends?” one of the guards said, letting go and shoving me into the wall before he jerked my arms behind me. “What is it they say about redheads?”
“The medical wing?” the other said, hesitating by a stairway going down. There was a cold draft coming up, stinking of fear and infection.God, no. They could do it, and it would be over. My life done. I’d be like Ralph, and all the magic in the world wouldn’t be able to fix me.
I gathered myself to fight again, my relief almost making me cry when the first replied, “No. She’s got someone from the mainland coming over, and they want her to be able to talk.”
My relief was short lived. They want me to be able to talk? I wasn’t getting a lobotomy because it might inconvenience someone?
The sound of links of steel ratcheting closed around my wrists was loud. I wanted to fight, but I could hardly move, and fear hit anew when they dragged me past my cell to another part of the prison. My heart pounded, and I struggled to get up, to do something! Being hurt and cuffed wasn’t nearly as terrifying as the realization that these people could do anything—cut me up like they had Ralph—and no one would think twice, much less care.
The noise from the dining hall grew fainter, and it was just me and my jailers, dragging me backward over the concrete floor past a series of close-set metal doors. They faced a solid stone wall, and beyond that, the unseen ocean. My heart pounded, and adrenaline got me to my feet when they stopped so one guard could open a cell door. It took two of them to do it, one at the cell with me, and one at a remote panel. The sound of the creaking door chilled me, and I gritted my teeth against the pain in my knees when they started to buckle with my own weight.
“Enjoy the hole,” the guard said, and he shoved me past an outer metal door and a second, standard barred door into a lightless five-by-nine box. I fell, vision graying from the pain in my knees. The barred door shut before I could even pull my face up. The second door slammed behind it a moment later, cutting off the light after I saw the toilet, sink, and nothing else.
They didn’t even laugh at me as their voices became faint, I was so beneath their consideration. Slowly I got my legs untangled, the motion difficult because my arms were still cuffed behind me. Feeling sick, I scooted back until I found the wall. It was metal, too, and cold. The soft sounds of my breathing became loud. Someone nearby was crying, but it wasn’t me.
It would never be me.
The metal floor and walls were cold, but I had quit shivering hours ago, numb to it now. The backs of my knees were swollen, and I couldn’t bend them. They ached, throbbing with a pain that refused to abate and that I just learned to live with. The solid outer door had remained closed, and it was close to pitch-dark. I couldn’t see the walls, but I had traced their outlines to find the toilet—hard to use with my hands still cuffed—and the sink. Now I sat with my back in a corner beside the door, my legs outstretched on the cold metal floor to try to get the swelling down. Getting my cuffed hands in front of me had been torture.
I had missed lunch, by the faint scent of lasagna that had come and gone. My dinner had been salad. I hadn’t eaten it, and it sat beside the interior door where the woman had left it. The vinegary dressing was probably full of magic-demoting goodness.
A scrape of nail on metal brought my heart into my throat, and I strained to see. Rat? I thought. I wasn’t scared of them, much, but I couldn’t see a damned thing. Wincing, I tried to bring my knees closer. The new scent of iron and stone tickled a memory, and hope brought me stiff. “Bis?” I whispered.
A soft thump shocked through me, and adrenaline pulsed when a pair of softly glowing eyes turned to me, hovering about a foot above the floor. “Ms. Rachel,” the adolescent gargoyle whispered, his nails scraping as he came closer. “I knew I could find you!”
“What are you doing here?” I asked, relief spilling through me. I reached out to touch him, and the instant my cold fingertips made contact, the unfamiliar pattern of the shattered West Coast ley lines burst into my thoughts. I jerked back, shocked. Damn it, I really needed to touch someone, but Bis would send me into overload.
“Sorry,” he said, his big supple ears drooping like a puppy’s in the faint light from his eyes. His usually pricked ears were edged in white fur, as was the lionlike tuft on his thin, hairless tail. His leathery wings rustled as he settled them, and his craggy features looked young despite the crevices and pebbly gray appearance.
“How did you get here?” I whispered. “Is Ivy with you? Did she fly out?”
“It’s just me and Pierce,” he said proudly. “We jumped. All the way from your kitchen.”
“Pierce!” I exclaimed, then winced. Any louder, and a guard might hear. “Did he escape from Al?” Oh God, I’d get blamed for that—even if I was in prison.
Bis’s flat, black teeth glinted faintly. “No. After you almost died from that soul charm, the demons made him send someone to watch you. Pierce was willing, able, and cheap.”
“You’re kidding!” I almost hissed, but I wondered if part of the reason Al had gone along with it was because he was worried Pierce might find him sleeping one night and
