I pointed to my tote bag sling. “I—I just broke my arm. I can’t—”
The man behind me snapped my forearm with a mallet.
He’s going to kill me when we return to his home.
Help me...
No sympathy glowed in his eyes. “Do the best you can.”
Jethro.
I still had his fate in my hands. I couldn’t falter.
Swallowing my racing heart, I slipped the cast free and raised my arms as best I could. Blood pressure throbbed in my fingertips and shooting pain bolted down my forearm. A terrible image of diamonds spilling out the end of the cast had me swallow a gasp-cough.
Closing my eyes, I waited as a two large sensors swung around me with the whirring noise of rotor blades.
“Thank you. Come out, please.”
I obeyed, forcing my legs to remain firm and not buckle. Standing beside the man as the screen lit up with an image of a nondescript person, he frowned as black splotches appeared on the screen where my cast, my bra, and diamond collar were.
The officer cleared his throat. “Miss, you’ll have to undergo a pat down.” Looking behind him, he said, “Jean, can you help this lady?” He sidestepped, giving room for the female staff member to move into my personal space with her rubber gloves and judgemental stare.
“Do you wish to go into a private room?” Her voice screeched across my nerves.
A private room.
I could tell her what Cut did. I could inform her of what I carried. I could destroy not just my life, but Jethro’s, too.
Cut met my eyes through the scanner. He hadn’t gone through yet. He didn’t say a word, crossing his arms, waiting for my decision.
I bit my lip. “No, here is fine.”
“Alright.” Clasping her hands, she ordered, “I need you to spread your legs and hold your arms out to the side.”
Other passengers milled around, slyly watching as they grabbed their bags and slipped into shoes and jackets.
I did my best to comply, but my arm burned. God, how it burned.
Without asking for permission, she swept swift hands from my wrists to my shoulders and down the front of my chest. My white jumper with a unicorn in the same grey colours of Moth gave way beneath her touch. Her fingers pried at the underwire of my bra, ensuring there was nothing hidden. Skimming my leggings, she returned to my chest and slipped her fingers beneath my diamond collar.
I held my breath, forcing myself not to choke as she tugged a little, running her touch right around my neck.
She pursed her lips. “You’ll have to take the sling off. I want to x-ray it.”
I awkwardly shrugged out of it, passing it to her one-handedly.
She placed it onto a tray and gave it to another guard to run it through thex-ray machine.
“I’ll also need to see inside your cast.” Pulling free a torch from the arsenal on her belt, she said, “Stand to the side and hold out your arm.”
Air suddenly turned to soup.
Tears pricked as I handed over my broken limb, throbbing with the crime of diamonds.
Cut was wrong.
A cast didn’t offer sympathy these days. Perhaps in the past it had. Once upon a time, the sign of weakness and pain might’ve allowed a trafficker free range to import whatever they wanted by tucking a parcel of contraband in a fake cast. But not anymore. People had no empathy these days. High on their careers and pompous on their commitment to protect the borders—any shred of compassion had disappeared beneath strict training and no-nonsense.
