I could see Baron chew his tongue as he thought hard. The whites of his eyes were bloodshot from so much missed sleep, one eyelid twitched constantly, and he ran his fingers through his untidy black hair, which made it stand on end. He looked deranged. “Come with me,” he snapped, and marched off into the heart of the camp.
I pattered along after him and dodged Dorian, who tried to throw a stone at my head as I passed. He still had ugly red gashes across his throat from my most recent escape attempt. By placing Baron between myself and Dorian, it was easy to avoid being pelted and Baron threw a glare in Dorian’s direction as the stone went sailing past.
Baron walked right into the sheriff’s tent without waiting to be announced. “I want an extra guard tonight,” he said loudly.
The sheriff looked up from the map he was studying. “Why’s that?” he asked. I saw his eyes flick once to me where I stood right behind Baron, then snap back.
“Something’s going to happen tonight. I can feel it.”
The sheriff scoffed. “Your magical tracker senses tingling, are they?”
Baron slammed his fists down so hard on the table that the ink pot jumped and spilled over the map. He was truly angry. This was the first time I’d felt genuinely frightened of Baron, and I fully realized that he had the raw, brute strength to overpower anyone in this camp…and I could only stray twelve feet from him at a time.
“I just know it. Something’s going to happen.”
The sheriff sighed. “You’ve kept her under control for a week. No one else lasted more than a day. You’re just getting paranoid.”
“I’ve barely slept all that time because I’m playing nanny.” Baron folded his arms across his massive chest. “You bet I’m feeling paranoid.” I grinned mischievously and waved merrily at the sheriff from behind Baron’s back.
“She’s alittle girl,” sneered the sheriff, as though these two simple words spoke volumes about my capabilities, or lack thereof. “You’re a senior officer. You can handle her.”
Baron stepped toward the sheriff. Large as the sheriff was, Baron was even bigger. Now he pointed a finger into the older man’s face. “Thislittle girlalready bested four of your guards, and if I hadn’t been armed at the time, she would have done the same to me. Get me another guard tonight or you can be chained to thislittle girlyourself and see if you underestimate her again.”
The sheriff narrowed his eyes and didn’t back down. His voice lowered to a deadly whisper. “Best watch your tone with me, boy. You can have Sneeds tonight.”
“Really? Sneeds is the best you can do?”
“Sneeds just has to watch her outside the tent while you sleep. She won’t be able to go anywhere, and he’ll wake you if she tries anything. For heaven’s sake, Baron, she’ll still be chained to you; it isn’t like she can get away. Tell Sneeds not to turn his back on her.”
Baron exhaled sharply and turned to go. “Fine. Better than nothing.”
“Baron?” The sheriff called him back.
“What?”
The sheriff’s gaze was lethal. “If you ever speak to me that way again, I’ll cut your tongue out.”
CHAPTER 13
Sneeds turned out to be a short, scrawny, pimply youth about Baron’s same age with buck teeth and a distinct ferrety look about him. I instantly understood Baron’s frustration. This boy presented no threat to me at all. All the rest of that evening, I very much looked forward to the changing of my guard. Sneeds would be easier to bend to my will, a far simpler target than trying to take down Baron, even a sleep-deprived Baron. Now, which tactic to use?
Night settled in slow and heavy, the air cooling as the last bits of daylight died. Sneeds shuffled over to our tent, kicking up dust with each step. Immediately when he arrived, Baron beckoned him over to talk by the fire. Their voices dipped low, but they weren’t quiet enough that I couldn’t eavesdrop.
Out of the corner of my eye, I watched Sneeds’s gaze slide toward me again and again. Baron snapped his fingers sharply in front of the other man’s face. “Eyes here. Pay attention.”
Sneeds blinked. “She’s just so pretty,” he muttered, almost dreamily. “I’ve never seen a girl like that before.”
Baron sharply cuffed Sneeds upside the head. The crack of it echoed off the trees. “Pull it together, soldier. I’m not going to tell you again. Don’t let her face fool you. You saw what she didto Dorian. Shewillrun. You drop your guard for one second and you’ll regret it.”
Sneeds’s attention drifted right back to me anyway. Baron grabbed his jaw with one hand, fingers digging into his cheeks, forcing him to look up. Sneeds’s lips puckered under the pressure and his cheeks squished so that he looked like a buck-toothed fish instead of a ferret.
“Focus,” Baron growled. “I’m counting on you.”
He gave Sneeds’s head a small shake. Sneeds bobbed along, eager and clumsy, nodding so hard his shoulders went with him. The moment Baron turned away, Sneeds’s eyes snapped back to me again.
The plan practically wrote itself.
Baron went into the tent and dropped off to sleep while I was required to stay beside the campfire with Sneeds. Almost instantly, deep snores began issuing from the tent. It was a good thing that Baron hadn’t actually fallen asleep for very long at any point this last week, or I wouldn’t have been able to handle the racket.
