“Took you way too long,” Presh sasses back, pressing herself against his side for a half hug.
Rath cups the back of her head gently, peering down at her seriously. “Bellamy is dangerous.”
“She made her choice,” Presh says, without offering any further info about what that choice is. Then she attempts to step by me and hightail it down the sporadically lit hall.
I carefully transfer my little sister from in front of me to behind, with DeVille right on her ass as always. Apparently, we’re going to have to get used to that. I share a look with Rath over the teens’ heads, and he grimaces in agreement.
Both of us are completely and hypocritically ignoring that we were all over Zaya at the same age. Even younger in my case.
The tube lighting flickers overhead, casting weird shadows across the floor and walls.
“Love the ambience,” Coda snarks from Presh’s phone speakers. “Are you breaking the batshit-crazy bitch out or —”
“No,” Rath snarls.
A woman cackles — literally — from farther up the narrow corridor. “I could hear you assholes bickering from the other side of the door.”
Bellamy.
Trying to keep my expression neutral — because we’re here to ask for her help, after all — I continue up the hall. The other cells are empty, doors open. This space is rarely used except for when a young shifter is having serious trouble with their beast or a feral shifter wanders into Outcast territory. The holding cells are fairly spacious, with benches, a toilet, and a sink attached to the walls. Extra restraints are only brought in as needed. Even the shifters Reck practically beat to death months back never made it down here. Of course, they also didn’t make it out of the interrogation room off the MC tech hub after Chains’s attempt to destabilize the club made their loyalties clear.
Bellamy is sitting cross-legged on the concrete floor in the center of the three cells on the left, easily seen through the thick, essence-enforced, clear polymer that completely seals her cell. A neatly made single bed is tucked against the right-side wall with a tablet tossed on the pillow. The tablet is limited access, allowing Bellamy to access and read the thriller and murder mystery novels she seems to prefer, or to play various solitaire games.
Her bathroom facilities are behind a thin, translucent privacy screen, which isn’t the only oddly thoughtful addition to the space. The other cells are simply barred, with protections built into the metal that help quell whatever shifter needs to be temporarily caged. But the polymer sealed over Bellamy’s cell was a retrofit, specifically spelled to hold an awry. Though I have my doubts about that even being possible, Bellamy hasn’t seen sunlight for eighty-seven days.
The essence-etched polymer being readily at hand was suspicious, at least to my mind. Like the Outcast already had it on order. But that’s another question we’ve all been silently ignoring — the awry in the Outcast’s previous plans that might have needed to be confined. Presh? Zaya?
I note Rath scanning the cell with a deep frown, and just as closely as I did when I saw the mage installing the polymer via the security cameras. But we’re both too on edge to start questioning the Outcast’s intentions right now.
Bellamy is dressed in gray sweatpants and top, barefoot. Her light-lavender eyes — so different than when I first saw her true face — instantly settle on Presh as she shoulders her way between Rath and me. “Hello, youngest.”
“Fuck,” Rath mumbles. “She does look like fucking Reck.”
Yep. Bellamy is too skinny, making those eyes take up almost too much space on her face, but the dark hair, dark-olive skin, and chiseled cheekbones are an exact match to our eldest brother.
“Another fucking genius, I see.” Bellamy doesn’t take her gaze off Presh. “Poor fucking Zaya. To be stuck with you three.”
I see it then — her attachment to Presh and vice versa. Exactly what Zaya must have seen when she decided to not simply end Bellamy in the barrens despite her collaboration with the Authority and the trap she had set up. Still, with Reck’s two agents in the Cataclysm’s pocket, it seems a safe bet that all this shit has been radiating from the same source.
“Zaya is the Conduit to you,” Rath rumbles threateningly. “That’s who saved your fucking life when the rest of us would have ended you for the shit you’ve done.”
“Fratricide.” Bellamy shudders affectedly. “Wow, that’s dark. Even for me.”
“Tell us everything you know about the Cataclysm’s systems and operations and how we penetrate them.”
“And what’s on offer? It’s getting a little … boring in here. The baby sister only gets in to visit once a week or so.”
Presh meeps, totally caught out.
“Have you got my chocolate?” Bellamy blinks innocently at our younger sister.
“So you’re a fucking rat as well,” Rath snarls, clearly all over the fucking place right now.
“Might as well play the game if you already have the name.” Bellamy wiggles her fingers at Presh.
“I don’t even know what that means,” Rath mumbles to me.
Bellamy rolls her eyes at him. “I thought you were supposed to be the smart brother.”
