Caz didn’tsay anything when I emerged from his room and said I was ready to go see my friends. He did, however, shove a muffin and an apple at me with a growl, and then crossed his arms, unmoving.
I held them there, engaging in a staring contest as I considered my next action. I could refuse, but I was hungry. I could refuse, but finding out where he was keeping my friends was impossible without him. Or I could eat fast and get to my friends sooner. They were more important than this ego trip of his.
I caved and ate, trying not to think about the effort he’d put into having such a wide variety of things ready for me.
It was probably a chef. Someone else, who actually knows what they’re doing. Caz doesn’t know how to behave this way.
The first bite hit instantly and made my stomach growl for more. The muffin was fresh, probably baked that morning, the apple chunks in it still warm, and the hint of cinnamon hitting just right. It may have been the best muffin I hadever eaten. Though that could just be because I hadn’t stolen it.
“I’ll eat the apple on the way,” I said when I finished the last bite, raising my chin at him. He’d stood his ground, and now I was going to stand mine.
With a snarl of frustration, Caz took another muffin from the plate and thrust it at me. I took it. He would never have to fight me on food. After a lifetime of living on scraps and missing meals regularly, I wasn’t going to pass it up. I thought about grabbing more, but my friends were waiting. They had been waiting all night.
I needed to go to them, to assure them everything was going to be fine. Somehow. I hadn’t worked that part out yet, but I would.
Caz guided me through a maze of empty hallways until I was thoroughly lost. We descended a bunch of stairs as well. The walls grew colder, the stone smooth, more worn.
“This part is old.”
He grunted. “Yes. We’re near the very foundations of the citadel itself.”
I ran a finger over the walls, imagining the history in them, the things that had been seen over the millennia since the first tyrant had erected it.
Another thought came to me.
“Nobody’s down here.”
“No. I thought it best not to have it discovered that I am housing a bunch of former slaves I stole from a market.” Caz looked down at me, his eyes softening for just a second. “People might begin asking questions.”
“Yeah, but look at the floors, Caz. Nobody has been down here in alongtime.”
The halls were narrow here too. Almost confining. To someone as tall as Caz, it had to be near claustrophobic. Such designs were meant to hamper movement and prevent people from running away.
I knew that because I had seen such parts of an elite’s home before.
“We’re in the dungeons,” I hissed in sudden understanding, stepping away from him.
Caz frowned at the distance and then at me. “Yes.”
“Whyare we in the dungeons?”
The cold detachment he’d held since I’d yelled at him faded into blinking confusion. “I thought you wanted to go to your friends?”
Someone save me from the thought pattern of the male brain.
“Yes, of course I do. What Imeant, Caz, was why are myfriendsin the dungeons?”
The confusion became a frown. “There are ways in and out of the dungeons not observed by most. That only I and a few others know. Itwas the easiest way to sneak them in without drawing attention to them. Something I thought we would be in agreement was smart.”
“Yes, it is. But, Caz, you’re not getting it.”
“Then justtell me,” he snapped. “Stop asking questions, and tell me what I did by bringing them all here that is so wrong!”
“You put them in the dungeons. In cells. Don’t you get it?” He obviously didn’t. He had never had to think like one of us before. “We’re clippys, Caz. All the elite have ever done to us our entire lives is put us in cages. And a prison cell is the same damn thing!”
The frown evaporated in a second. “Shit. I—”
“Didn’t think of it that way,” I finished for him, shaking my head. “No, of course you didn’t. You elites never do. You only think of yourselves. Well, welcome to my world, Caz. It’s a lot different than eating from the silver spoon of yours.”
