“Me?” She shook her head in mock disbelief.
He grunted and gave her a suspicious once-over.
No one was sure if she was safe to be around anymore. She wasn’t sure either. This was her own fault, though if everthere was a model prisoner it was she, especially considering the havoc she figured she could’ve created. The craziness of two days ago was engraved on her mind. She’d gone over it second by second, or as well as she could. Memories were always suspect when one was stressed.
And that had definitely been a time of stress.Vargr had seen wings on her.
She turned to let them move the manacles and relock them behind her back. At least her countless muscular pains had faded. She’d felt like a pin cushion the first day in here.
Wings. Vargr’s words had given rise to doubt. How could that be true when she could not recall growing wings and the back of her shirt was intact? From the chaos of her memories she’d plucked facts—if it had happened, she’dpossiblybeen suspended over space, stabbing the patchwork human the Ghoul Lord had inhabited.
Stabbing the Thing. She swallowed at what that conjured and at the echoes of her pain. The headache threatened to return.
The guard’s hand brushing her and the click of the manacles brought her to back to the present.
“Come.” He beckoned and she followed.
What shehadseen that day were reflections—red flickers on glass. It had been early evening, and nothing was on fire behind her, yet the huge glass visor over the Parklands had been tinged red, as had the disgusting, cobbled-together flesh of the creature.
Inexplicable, unless maybe she’d had red wings? A scary and fascinating idea.
She’d tried to recreate them, but nothing occurred.
Even Little Mo seemed to have deserted her. She’d not seen Mo since the fight. It made her wonder if the small AI was scared or carrying out some self-preservation protocol, like if your owner’s in deep doodoo run for the hills and hide.
She didn’t blame him.
When she fell into her nightmares, the sizzle and crack of her gun sounded in her head. She really should not be scared of herself, but she was.
They led her from the storeroom with her arms cuffed behind her and a chain connecting her wrists to one of them. It was more than seemed necessary to hold her, but she said nothing. There was nothing much to say as yet.
With every step toward the vast Parklands area, the shouts and general grumbling from the crowd taunted her, haunted her. Would they kill her? The shouting pounded at her in rhythmic waves of hate. With pinched lips, she looked around and demanded her breathing slow, telling her heart to stop making a ruckus.
Serenity. Be true to yourself… and try not to murder anyone.Yet.Breathe.
Here, the immense and sometimes suffocating weight of the scraper buildings above became lost in the greenery and in the view onto the plains and the faraway hills.
They hated her, yet she thought she’d done the right thing, if you valued the death of a Ghoul Lord over the lives of two humans. She did, about half the time, when she was hungry and bone-tired, and her head ached. At other times, she was disgusted with herself.
None of these beasters could’ve killed the Ghoul Lord. Only she could.
She held in the sigh that wanted out. It felt as though she were growing a parasite in there, one that’d wriggle out through her ribs if this kept on much longer. Two days since she’d messed up, or done the right thing, or committed murder. Choose. Tick one choice only.
Fuck this.
Cyn rolled her shoulders and kept following the two foot-soldiers through the crowd. People moved aside for her and them, much like how they’d parted for the Ghoul Lord.Ugh.There’d been blood left behind by his feet, tiny pieces of rotten flesh. She jammed her eyes shut.Shut up, memory.
Three wing-soldiers followed her. She knew none of these. There were a thousand or more beasters in Worshipper Quarter, so that wasn’t surprising. Most of them were here, watching as she was led to this trial.
She’d shot two dead, and one of those had been Tom. He’d been a friend. Wounded two others, one of them Vargr. Bondmated to him, and she’d almost killed him. Replaying what she could recall of those seconds had made her want to weep while she was locked in that storeroom and alone. Friends were not disposable things.
And Vargr? How deep did bondmating go; how much did it permeate her cells and make decisions for her body? Was it love?And if it was, how could she have done that?She barely knew him, though, and she’d known Rutger for even less time. One glorious love-making session and thenboomthis.
Words penetrated the gloom of her thoughts. Mostly these people muttered shit that was false or they cursed her.
She had wept in that storeroom. It hadn’t done much for her except wet her face and left her heart pining for the two men who had cared for her, becauseshestill cared for them. Rutger and Vargr, and she’d shot one. It was laughably tragic.
They’d told her Vargr was recovering. If she found out that was untrue, she’d kill more than two of them. She clenched her teeth.Fuck this.
