The door behind her suddenly opened, and she spun around to face the guards.
“Food.” The guard dropped a bag onto the ground, then stepped back and the door closed again.
Ethan had started to wonder whether they would be fed. This was a positive sign.
He walked past Linao and crouched beside the bag.
“What have we got?” Velda joined him, getting down on her haunches to peer inside.
He took out some energy bars, some containers of water, and what looked like fruit, but it was like no fruit he’d ever seen before.
Linao made a sound in the back of her throat, and Ethan looked up at her.
She was glaring at them, lips curled up in contempt.
“What’s wrong now?” he asked.
“Her.” Linao pointed at Velda. “She’s inane. I don’t know what you see in her. Worrying about showers, wondering what we’ve been given to eat. She’s a fucking moron, and how she came to be Head of Defense is a question for the ages.”
“My, my,” Velda said, and Ethan could hear the amusement in her voice. “Someone’s grumpy. Probably because you haven’t had anything to eat.”
Linao let out a soft shriek, lifting her fists to her head as if she was about to pummel herself. “You do it on purpose, don’t you?”
“You suddenly seem very easily riled.” Velda sounded thoughtful.
This was an act?
Interesting.
Ethan’s dislike of Linao had blinded him to that, but he considered it as Linao leaned forward and snatched an energy bar out of his hand.
Velda might be right, the voices in his head said.The enemy is acting unhinged, but her eyes say she’s gauging your reaction.
He almost didn’t register the strangeness of the voices in his head this time. It was like he was getting used to them. And he didn’t disagree that Linao was their enemy.
“Help yourself,” he said to Linao, holding out another bar to her.
Their lack of protest at the way she’d just behaved seemed to enrage her even more, and Linao kicked the bag, spilling its contents, and then she jumped on one of the food packages, crunching whatever was inside to dust.
The cell door whisked open immediately.
Oh yes, she’d been playing for an audience, but they weren’t it. She wanted the door to open again. She wanted something.
And because it was Linao wanting it, he assumed she had some angle. Maybe her father had managed to pass on a coded message during their chat. Like maybe ‘we’re about to attack, be ready’.
“What are you doing?” the guard asked.
“I don’t want to be in the same room as her,” Linao shouted, pointing at Velda. “Put me somewhere else.”
The guard regarded her in silence for a beat. “No.” He stepped back, but before the door could close, Linao leapt forward and stuck her arm in the way.
The guard must have been caught by surprise, because he had already started to turn away, and as the door stopped closing, Linao dived through the gap and then ran.
“She’s something, all right,” Velda said, and there was a sliver of admiration in there.
Ethan grunted, because while he agreed, he just didn’t like her enough to say it.
The door had halted, then begun opening again, and they both stepped forward, but a second guard was suddenly in the way, laz raised.
