We were both totally going to hell for using mental illness as a cover to get inside this building. I silently sent up a prayer for forgiveness to anyone who actually suffered from such delusions.
“Stop right there!” someone bellowed, and a red laser beam from the scope of a gun appeared on Sage’s chest. She looked up at the giant fence and the fey now standing on top of it. He peered down at her with scrutiny, rifle raised.
“I know what you’re doing here!” Sage screamed. “Eating lemons and killing werewolf babies to make sunblock appear on silver gold leaf!”
Holy shit, she really was going to deserve an Oscar for this.
The fey man frowned, lowering his scope. “You’re trespassing. Violators are shot on sight.”
Sage reached up and clawed at her face, dragging her nails down her cheeks. “The bugs made me!”
“Shit.” The dude looked over his shoulder and spoke to a second dude, barely visible from this angle. “Some crazy chick is losing her mind out here. Call medical and have them transport her back to the mainland.”
Sage screamed then and ran full speed at the brick fence, arms out as if she expected to walk right through it.
What the hell was she doing? The second her hands touched the fence, the male fey yelled, “Don’t!” But it was too late. Blue magic burst from the fence, knocking into Sage, and she crumpled to the ground, completely unconscious, knocking my wolf out with her.
The male fey screamed something I couldn’t hear from my hiding spot in the trees across the river, but I could see him and he looked alarmed.
My wolf stirred inside of Sage, becoming conscious before she did, and I could see from my spot across the river that the wall above her started to move. A stone gate was hidden in the wall so that you couldn’t see it until it was retracting to gain entry. The brick pattern was a cream speckled barrage of muted colors so that even the gate’s hinges were camouflaged.
Two guards waltzed out, guns raised at Sage as she lay huffing on the ground. I felt her consciousness stir, and immediately spoke into her mind.‘Stay down. I think they are going to bring you inside the gates. The fence was spelled and electrocuted you.’
‘Everything hurts,’she replied, but said nothing more as she just lay there unmoving.
The two guards looked down at her with pity, their pointy fey ears peeking out from the sides of their black baseball caps, and I moved closer inside of the bushes where I was hiding to get a better look. A hundred feet was far when you had to swim that length, but so close when you were hiding in a bush trying to avoid being seen.
One of them inhaled. “She’s a wolf? What the hell is a wolf doing all the way out here?” I was seeing through my human eyes but hearing what they were saying through my wolf who was conscious in Sage. It was a weird out-of-body sensation.
Four other guards came out now, aiming their guns into the trees across the riverbank, right at me, and I slunk backward fully so that I could no longer see them from my human body.
My heart pounded in my chest as I used my wolf’s hearing to listen to what the men said. Sage’s eyes were still closed, so I couldn’t see anything.
“She was ranting about crazy shit. Maybe she escaped from Psych? It’s only a few blocks away on 3rdStreet,” one of the guards said, and I saw him point across the river to an area downtown from my hiding place in the bush.
“We don’t keepwolvesin Psych on 3rd,” the other said, puzzled.
“Let’s get her inside and ask the warden what he wants to do about it,” another said.
“Rules state we shoot all violators on sight. This smells of an ambush to me,” a new cold male voice called out. I flinched, just as he kicked Sage in the ribs.
Sage’s eyes burst open and she started to sing at the top of her lungs. “They grow babies on watermelon treeeeees!” She thrust her arm upward, arching her back.
The men looked down at her in shock but she didn’t let up. “They rub tortilla juice in my eyeeeeees!”
The fey who had kicked her shook his head. “Okay, that’s just sad. Bring her into medical, but make her shut up!”
One of the fey stooped down and pulled a roll of duct tape from his cargo pants. In one quick motion he ripped a piece off and taped it over her mouth. Sage thrashed a little, but just enough to seem scared of the tape and not enough to be a threat. The guard then hauled her to her feet, pulled her hands behind her back, and walked her inside. Excitement thrummed through me. It was happening.
The prison break was a go.
‘Sawyer, I’m here,’I pushed out to him.‘Can you hear me?’
I paced the small grove tucked just inside the thick wall of bushes, but no response came.
Sage had been moved to a medical ward in the hospital. Marmal was still stalking a fey jogger.
When Sawyer didn’t say anything after a long moment, I snapped my attention back to Sage. They had her strapped to a medical bed, and she bucked against the restraints as a fey doctor walked in wearing a white lab coat. The room was on the bottom floor, and Sage’s bed was right in front of a window with pale yellow curtains. The room was actually nice, clean and modern. I was surprised.
