I raised my eyebrows. “What else would I be doing?”
“There’s no need to worry, Mrs. Effler. No harm will come to you if you follow the rules.”
There were no words capable of expressing how angry I was, so I just held up my middle finger and turned in a slow circle, so that wherever the camera was, it would see me.
“We get the point, Mrs. Effler. We are going to allow your newest pet to come stay with you to keep you complacent. The minute we hear or see anything that makes us think you’re scheming, we'll remove him. If you continue to struggle after that, we'll kill him and sedate you until we get what we need.”
“And what could you possibly need from me?” I asked, smoke pouring from my mouth.
“Your child.” The intercom went silent with a pop and ice filled my veins, quenching the fire as if I’d been doused with water.
I plopped down on the closest chair, a rocker near the window. My brain felt like it had flies buzzing around in it, all fuzzy and overloaded.
A small table sat beside the rocker, perfect for resting a cup of tea or something equally useless. I picked it up and hurled it, using all the supernatural strength I could muster, at the closest window. It bounced off and almost hit my stomach on the rebound. I was jerked to the side just in time.
Twirling, I went on the balls of my feet and threw my arms up in a defensive gesture. Axoular backed away, his own hands up in a submissive pose. I shrieked and ran into his arms, fury and fear replaced by relief.
“What is going on?” I yelled. “Where in creation are we?”
Axoular put his hands on my head and kissed me before yanking me back into his arms. “They wouldn’t let me see you. They let me talk to you and hear you, but not see you. It was to keep me from annihilating them.”
“You should’ve done it anyway. Axo, if we burn this place to the ground, we’d walk out without a scratch. They’ve left us in here together, which was a huge mistake.”
“This place, Riley, is made entirely of stone. And the rooms above and below this one are empty, and stone. They’ve laid it all out for me.”
“No, Axo, I’ve read up on it, we can do it. You can weaken stone with fire, enough to make it collapse. Collapse a wall and we’re out. And that door is wood! We just need to burn it.”
“They’ve thought ahead. We couldn’t progress the fire fast enough. They've got a ventilation system that'll pipe some sort of witchy sleeping drug into the room faster than we can get a big enough fire going. Plus, we can’t spread the fire.”
“We can burn the door down!”
“Riley, I’m telling you, it won’t work. They’re prepared.”
“They want the baby.” There has to be something we could do.
“I know.” He kissed my hair and rubbed my back. “They won’t get it.”
“I’m not that far from delivery. Anthony and Elias will be looking for us, but it could take a while.”
“Nah, they’ll use a witch and find us in no time. Just be patient and play along.” He whispered the last sentence so that hopefully their bugs wouldn’t pick his words up.
“So, we just wait?”
“We just wait. I assume someone will come soon to discuss our options and exactly why you’re being held.”
The intercom crackled. “He’s right. If you’ll agree to be nice, we'll come speak to you about your current predicament.”
What other options did I have? I threw up my arms. “I’ll be nice,” I said through clenched teeth.
“We’ll be with you shortly. What would you like for breakfast?”
“Breakfast?” I couldn’t believe their gall.
“It’s currently two in the morning. You slept for several hours. We’re happy to feed you whatever you’d like to eat. What is your request?”
The disembodied voice was trying to be reasonable, and it infuriated me. “I’d rather starve.”
“No, she wouldn’t,” Axoular cut in. “She’s just mad. She’ll have waffles and bacon. I’ll have the same. Don’t be skimpy with the butter and syrup.”
