“We need to get you some clothes.”
The sound of nearing footsteps makes us both freeze. “Lie down,” I tell Aran hurriedly. “Face the wall. They’ll keep going if you’re still unconscious.”
But the creak of the open door echoes through the silence. With my luck, it’ll be the big captain from before. But the leg that appears is much thinner, as is the body that follows. Flattening myself against the wall, I hit the entering Scav in the side of the head with the butt of my dagger, and he goes down like a sack of shit. A trail of blood seeps from his temple as I drag him inside the cell. Working quickly, Aran and I strip him of his clothing.
“Get dressed,” I tell Aran.
I see his stare descend to the injector looped into the Scav’s belt, and I gently remove it from its fastenings. Three of the six vials are empty. “It’s not that I don’t trust you, but I know what it did to me, and I can’t take the chance.”
He swallows hard, tearing his gaze away with effort. “No, I get it.”
“Here,” I say, and point to the blood on the Scav’s face. “It looks more... believable if you put some blood and gunk on your face.”
He recoils but does as I’ve suggested and then stands. With his wild, bearded blood-streaked chin and cheeks, he looks the part. He gestures to the unconscious Scav at our feet. “What about him?”
“Same as I did to the last,” I say, and inject a full vial of Jade into his thigh. “Quick, help me drag him into the corner. With any luck, they’ll think he’s you.”
Once we get the Scav into place, we slip from the cell and run to the end of chamber. The exit leads to a long, narrow passageway with a locked door at the other end, and using the key on my belt, we enter the next room.
And come face-to-face with my worst nightmare.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Roshan is spread-eagled on a table... and not breathing.
My horror is the only reason that the big Scav with the slashed throat gets close enough to grab me by the throat. “How did you escape?” he growls.
Out of the corner of my eye, I see Aran being restrained by another Scav as a third hovers near the table. Boldly or stupidly, I can’t quite decide which, I counter the Scav’s question with a one of my own. “Is he dead?” My voice is a wheeze from the pressure of his fingers, but I meet his stare head-on. “Answer me, you sick fuck!”
His lips tighten. “You answer me or I break your neck right here. How did you resist the Jade?” He snaps the words through his teeth like he wants to grind each one into dust.
“Break my neck and you’ll never know. Is he fucking dead?”
“If he isn’t, he’ll be soon.”
“If he dies,” I seethe through clenched teeth. “You will not live to see another day, I promise you.”
His lip curls at the corner into a sneer. “And how will you do that, little one?” He reaches for something at his belt with his free hand. “Perhaps I need to make you more compliant.”
I sense the movement of the injector before I see it. Fear and desire lance through me at the sight of the device with its bliss-filled vial.He drags the point of it up my arm to the base of my ear. My pulse drums wildly, almost veering into the tip.
“I will ask you one more time—where did you get the inhibitor?”
“What inhibitor?”
His fingers tighten with the force of his displeasure, and I feel a defensive instinct flaring in the core of my body. Heat detonates through me as the captain shoves me to the ground and slams a booted foot into my gut. He pulls another set of vials from his belt, but these are bright orange in color. My mind registers dully that it must be some sort of counteragent. “This.Tell me where you got it.”
I wheeze from the pressure of his foot. “No... inhibitor.”
My lungs are burning with the lack of air—my star magic is going to defend me no matter what, and I don’t think I’ll be able to control it this time. Fire and fury race outward, shimmering along my veins like liquid flame. The Scav’s eyes narrow at my abnormally flushed skin, the swirls on my arms lighting up beneath the smears of dirt and blood like a macabre web.
“Let me fucking go,” I say, panting heavily as I try to pull the tide of magic back. “Or you’ll die. I can’t control what it will do.”
“You talk too much.”
With a foul grin, he lowers himself to his left knee, keeping his right boot lodged in my stomach, and slams the Jade injector to my throat. His lip curls and his finger squeezes the plunger, but nothing happens. A faint sizzling echoes between us. He turns the injector in his palm, disbelief flashing across his face. The needle of the device has melted away.
“I warned you,” I gasp, just as his boot at my belly ignites.
