I arched one eyebrow at him but didn’t argue. I was already hungry; we’d never gotten around to eating dinner. “Fine. If you want to come talk, bring me something to eat now.”
Hmph. I might as well be comfortable if they’re going to pretend to be sweet, nice captors.I walked over to the bookcase and read some of the titles. My favorite books were mixed among other similar books. Everything from vampires to spaceships called Malice, to historical sappy love stories, I loved fiction and loved a wide range of it.
“Do they really think I’ll just settle into captivity and read until I deliver my baby and give it to them?” I turned to Axoular, the rage rising again.
He shrugged his shoulders as the intercom crackled. “Yes.”
“I’m going to find the intercom and break it,” I called, my eyes back on the books.
“I wouldn’t advise that, Mrs. Effler. That will cause you to lose your roommate.” I tried to pinpoint the direction of the voice while he spoke, but I couldn’t even get a general direction.
Huffing, I walked over to the couch and sat down. Axoular followed.
“We’ll get through this, Riley.” He sat close to me, and I curled into him, as much as my belly would allow. “It’s just a puzzle to solve. We’ll solve it.” I grinned at the way he thought. He had no doubts, or at least, he didn’t let me see any doubts.
We sat in silence, my mind on the worst possible scenarios. What if they did a forcible cesarean once the baby was far enough along? I’d remembered all the scary news stories I always seemed to hear when I was pregnant with the boys, where the mom was kidnapped and murdered, baby cut from her womb. They always made me paranoid and scared to go outside alone in the last few weeks of pregnancy.
Now look at me. I’m likely one of the most powerful creatures on Earth and I’m sitting in a gilded cage.The more I studied the room, the more it reminded me of the story Peter had fed us of his captivity.
“This is where he got it!” I jumped up, enraged—again.
“Got what? Who?”
“I told you what Peter told us to get us to trust him, right?”
Axoular nodded.
“Well, he described being kept in a gilded cage. I was thinking about our predicament just now and the words gilded cage popped into my mind. He said they gave him a TV, the whole nine yards. If he destroyed it, they’d knock him out and replace it all.” I spread my arms and indicated the room. “He was describing all of this!”
“You think he was a prisoner here?”
“No, I think hehadprisoners here.”
Axoular’s eyes widened. “I’ll kill them.”
“You took the words right out of my mouth.”
The intercom crackled. “If you would both be so kind as to sit on the couch and don't move. If you make any moves to stand, the room will be filled with gas that will knock you both out and Axoular will be moved to a different room.”
We both agreed, nodding our heads, and sitting. The door opened, and an Indonesian man of average height and build entered the room. In a crowd in Bali, he'd be totally forgettable, the perfect disguise for the locale.
“Hello Riley, Axoular.” He nodded his head to us. “I am Dumadi. I'm the leader of this world’s Leyak, as we call ourselves here.”
“I thought you called yourselves the Humbaba,” Axoular said, looking unimpressed.
“Potato, potahto. May I sit?” Sweeping one hand out, he was asking for permission to sit across from us.
“This is your place,” I said with a sneer. “Sit wherever you want to.” His manners meant nothing to me. I was a country girl, born and bred in Tennessee. I was raised with the best manners my mama could muster, but they were not to be wasted on the likes of him.
“I’ll take that to mean, ‘yes, please join me.’”
I pursed my lips. “Why are we here?”
“Axoular is here to keep you cooperative. You’re here because you carry a Leyak child in your womb.”
“You can’t possibly know that.”
“Did you sleep with my son?”
