I glanced at Navan, who was looking at me as if I had actually been shot, with tormented, longing eyes. “Don’t struggle,” he mouthed at me sadly, and I nodded. As soon as they’d threatened to hurt him, I had stopped struggling.
By now, the two coldbloods had pulled down the chain and brought it over to Galo and me.
“There’s not much of it,” the other coldblood pointed out, eyeing the metal thing dubiously. “Not sure if there’ll be enough for two.”
The silver-haired coldblood looked from me to Galo to Navan, then back to me again. A menacing smile came over his face. “Oh, don’t worry. I’ve got an idea.”
I gulped. Did that mean what I thought it did? That if there wasn’t enough chain for two… then he’d have to get rid of one?
He advanced toward me, with his hands out.
“If you hurt her…” Navan growled.
The silver-haired coldblood grabbed Navan by the throat. “Shut up, human-lover.”
Letting him go, he shoved me down next to the chair and gestured for his companion to do the same with Galo. Then, he wrapped the chain around both of us and the chair several times. This resulted in Galo and me being on the floor, chained to the front legs of Navan’s chair.
I exhaled in relief. Maybe they weren’t going to kill off one of us after all.
The two stepped back to admire their creation with cocky grins.
“The real question is,” the brown-haired coldblood said, “what happens if the chair falls over?”
They chuckled. The silver-haired coldblood gave the chair a kick, which made it tip back uncomfortably. Laughing, he crouched down in front of me and took my chin in his rough hands. “You were the same intruder as last time, weren’t you? I got in big trouble for letting you slip out.”
“Leave her alone,” Navan snarled.
The silver-haired coldblood kicked Navan in the leg, sending the whole chair shaking.
“You’re not exactly in a position to make demands, fool,” he sneered.
Navan glowered at him, his eyes burning with the promise of a painful death.
“Shouldn’t we tell Ezra that we’ve captured them?” the brown-haired coldblood asked.
“True,” the silver-haired one replied. “I’ve had enough of looking at these pathetic creatures anyway.”
Together, they strode out.
Navan only spoke when the sound of their footsteps had quieted to silence. “Please tell me that this is somehow part of your plan.”
“It’s not,” I said hoarsely. “I’m so sorry.”
He exhaled sharply. “You shouldn’t be here,” he said, and I winced at the anger lacing his words. “You shouldn’t have come. What were you thinking?”
“I couldn’t just abandon you!” I said.
“She does have a point,” Galo interjected.
“And you have a Fed agent helping you? What about the others?” Navan demanded.
“Galo was the only Fed agent who believed me,” I explained. “Bashrik and the others are outside the invisibility shield, on another ship.” That last sentence, I mouthed, not wanting to say the words aloud in case we could be heard.
Silence fell. After another minute, Navan murmured, “You shouldn’t have come.”
“I’m sorry,” I snapped back, furious tears flowing down my cheeks. I felt ridiculous, stupid, like I wanted to sink into the floor. Our plan had not only utterly failed—it had actually caused Navan to be hurt more.
“Stop it.” Navan said the words in a leaden voice. When I looked up, his stormy eyes were now sorrowful too. Evidently, he had picked up that I was crying.
“What difference does it make?” I asked. “Now we’ve been caught. We’re screwed. We’ll probably never make it out of here alive—if that’s not reason to cry, then I don’t know what is.”
“It makes all the difference to me,” he said.
I glanced up to see him looking down at me with a tortured expression. When our eyes met, he looked away.
“Riley, please…”
“Look at me when you’re saying it,” I said.
Grudgingly, he leaned down so that our faces were closer. His blue-gray eyes were tormented, his cracked lips parted.
“I was so worried about you,” I said in a choked whisper.
“And now I’m so worried about you,” he replied. His gaze flicked to my lips, then back to my eyes. “If you see a chance of escaping on your own, promise me that you’ll take it. And that you’ll stay somewhere safe this time. No more rescue missions. Okay?”
I shook my head. “I’m sorry, Navan.”
His brows set into a scowl, and his fiery eyes bored into me. “Promise me.”
I glared right on back at him. “I’m not leaving here without you.”
“Dammit, Riley!” Navan stomped his foot, sending his whole chair shaking. “You’ve got to stop putting yourself in danger like this. What if they torture you? What if they… I can’t protect you now. If anything bad were to happen, I’d never forgive myself because I—I care about you. Don’t you get that? I can’t let you get hurt.”
Navan’s tone had turned frantic. He was leaning so far forward that the strain was visible in his face. I reached my head up as much as I could, then leaned it on his knee and closed my eyes. The close contact felt nice, although I wished I could be wrapped in his arms instead. Despite everything, I felt somehow safe, now that Navan was by my side.
Galo’s voice snapped me out of my happy reverie. “I hate to break this up, but we have company.”
I opened my eyes and drew back to see the same coldbloods as before. They were smirking, striding into the room with the imposing, mud-brown-eyed coldblood I was pretty sure had been named Ezra—he had been the first to interrogate Navan after he was captured. Ezra was frowning, looking both repulsed and annoyed. Clearly, he’d seen our affectionate moment.
“You shouldn’t have tied them up like that,” his curt voice declared.
“Why not, sir?” the silver-haired coldblood asked.
“You’ve given the lovebirds room to be disgusting,” Ezra snarled, crouching down to look me in the eye. “This the one from before?” he asked, turning his dark gaze toward the silver-haired coldblood, who nodded.
“I’m pretty sure.”
Frowning, he returned his gaze to me. “Are you the human from last time?”
I glared back at him defiantly. Maybe it would work to my advantage to have him worry that there were more of us.
“Okay, we’ll try this a different way,” Ezra remarked calmly.
Without warning, he punched Navan in the jaw. It gave an ominous crunching sound.
“Yes!” I blurted out.
“Don’t tell them anything,” Navan said, his voice sounding both wet and wooden.
Ezra smashed his fist into Navan again. “What was that? I don’t think I could hear you over the sound of your face crunching under my fist.”
Navan’s whole body shuddered as he choked out a cracking cough, his face tensed into a heartbreaking stoicism the whole time.
Giving his hand a casual shake, Ezra turned his dark-eyed gaze to me. “Now, why don’t we come to some sort of understanding?”
I gaped at him stupidly. Words jumbled in my brain, nonsense syllables slapping around in my mind. All I could see—over and over and over again—was his horrible muscled fist slamming into Navan’s slack face. I couldn’t think—I could barely breathe. My throat had closed up with fear.
Ezra raised his fist again, and my whole body started trembling.
“Do I need to make myself clearer?” he asked.
“N-No,” I gasped out, my heartbeat rocketing up to a thousand. “I’m the one from before. Just don’t hurt him anymore—please.”
A sickly-sweet smile passed over Ezra’s face. “Yes, yes, of course,” he said, stroking his hands along the chain that bound me. “You help us, and I’ll help you.”
Reaching for the chain wrapped around the chair leg, he grabbed it wi
th both hands and bent it apart. The chain snapped. Holding one severed chain end up, Ezra turned to the other two coldbloods.
“That’s why you shouldn’t have tied them up like that.”
The silver-haired one opened his mouth like he was going to protest, but then closed it, probably thinking better of it. Ezra tugged the chain so that I was pulled upright, then used it to lead me to the brown-haired coldblood, handing me over to him.
“Don’t bother trying to question the lycan—he’ll never talk. The human, however, we may just have a chance with. See that she’s put in a cell,” he said.
“Riley, I mean it,” Navan said, a note of panic in his voice now. “Don’t tell them anything.”
Smiling, Ezra strode over to Navan. “Yes, Riley,” he said, punching Navan in the face so hard that his head lolled to the side, rendering him unconscious. “Don’t tell us anything.”
“No!” I yelled, straining to reach Navan.
As I struggled in the coldblood’s grasp, I searched Navan’s face. He was still breathing, but damn, I worried about how many more blows he could take. As Ezra advanced right in front of me, his eyes were glittering. “Don’t worry, your paramour will be fine—as long as you tell us what you know.”
Ezra waved his hand at the brown-haired coldblood, and, before I could respond, he’d tugged me away. We traveled down several floors, until we reached a room full of cells. Here, the ground was damp dirt, and the whole place was filled with an eerie quiet. The cells appeared to be surrounded by stone walls, with a small window too high up for me to look through. It was unclear whether the cells were empty, or whether their occupants had long since given up bothering to speak. At one cell near the middle, the coldblood opened a steel door, unfurled my chain, and flung me inside, causing me to trip.
“Wait—please,” I said.
But he strode away without the slightest pause.
On my hands and knees, I crawled over to the stone wall and leaned against it. More useless tears spilled down my cheeks as I thought of Navan, of how much they’d already hurt him and what they were going to do if I didn’t talk. I closed my eyes and saw it—them stringing him up in more chains, lashing his bloodstained, broken body with knife-tipped whips, laughing as he groaned. I saw them gathered in a circle and kicking him until his hunched-over form didn’t have the strength to tremble anymore. I saw them spitting in his tormented face and jabbing his already ripped-up torso with spears, mocking him for trying to protect me. I lay there, my vision blurred with horror, until I grew too tired to cry.
It was in this dull, fuzz-sighted haze that the door of my cell opened and then shut.
A coldblood had entered. He had a tall, stooping form, which was topped with a severe buzzcut colored with spots of gray. His mouth was a cruel, thin-lipped gash, and yet… the hazel eyes behind his golden spectacles looked kind.
“I need you to tell me what you know, so that Navan won’t be harmed,” he spoke up in a low, gruff voice.
I didn’t look at him. He came to sit beside me, the navy cloak he wore billowing out as he did so. “Believe me when I say that I’m not your enemy. I want Navan unharmed as much as you do.”
I turned my head slightly to cast the coldblood a derisive look. “If you work with these coldbloods, then you’re my enemy.”
He frowned. “No, no. You’ve only seen their bad side. Renegades have to be harsh and strict in the beginning—otherwise, they’ll never get anywhere. We’re all working together for a good cause.”
I said nothing. I wasn’t exactly in the mood for talking, let alone arguing with a coldblood. And as logical and convincing as his words sounded, he was just trying to butter me up. This coldblood was probably just like Ezra—except he introduced his good face before his bad one.
Scanning me with cold eyes, he said, “Do you really want to see how far us coldbloods are willing to go to get what we want?”
His words sent a chill down my spine. Tears pricked at my eyes, but I angrily blinked them back. So what if this lying coldblood had been just as heartless as I’d feared? Was it really that much of a shock that he’d just been pretending to be decent? But if he had been alluding to more of the nightmarish torture I’d been imagining for Navan…
“I apologize,” he was saying now. “I didn’t mean to frighten you, only to stress the seriousness of the situation. My name is Lazar.”
Now his eyes had gone kind again, but I wasn’t buying it. He’d revealed himself to me—he was cruel, just like all the other coldbloods here. Still, it wouldn’t hurt to play the game.
“So, Lazar,” I replied, glaring into his eyes. “Why do you care what happens to Navan?”
He frowned. “Why would I be here talking to you if I didn’t?”
I scoffed. “Because Ezra or whoever else sent you. Because since they’d tried intimidating me for information, they figured why not try to nice-talk it out of me.”
Lazar shook his short-haired head. “I can assure you that’s not the case. Anyway, just tell me what you know—and why you were traveling with a Fed agent,” he continued, “and everything will be fine. You two will be reunited, and Navan won’t be harmed.” Seeing my emotionless face, Lazar clasped my shoulder anxiously. “Please, Riley, don’t test Ezra. I’ve seen for myself what he’s capable of.”
I jerked away with a shiver. Lazar was doing it again—trying to manipulate me. Even so, what if he was right?
But then I thought of the silver-haired coldblood, how he’d kicked Navan for almost no reason at all. Saving Navan from Ezra’s wrath was no guarantee that he’d be saved from the other coldbloods. Besides, telling them everything I knew would give away the one advantage we had—that of the Fed’s involvement. Well, only if those investigating Fed agents hadn’t been captured and interrogated already.
“Would you prefer I left you alone?” Lazar finally asked.
“Yes,” I replied.
“As you wish,” he said, rising with a sigh. “But please at least consider my words. Ezra will stop at nothing to get his way. I know him.”
Lazar lingered for a minute, searching my face for a response I wouldn’t give him. Then, with a disappointed frown, he turned and left, shutting the door behind him.
I glared at the door, trying not to imagine what they’d do to Navan as a result of my refusal to cooperate. They wouldn’t actually inflict any permanent damage on him, would they? I reminded myself that they wouldn’t, not when they were planning to use him as a pawn. Then again, once that strange, higher-up coldblood had found out that Navan was Jareth Idrax’s son, he’d referred to him as a “bargaining chip” in the coming conflict with Queen Gianne. Bargaining chips didn’t have to be fully unharmed, or even whole, did they? All Navan would have to be was alive for his father to want him back. In the meantime, that meant the coldbloods could do just about anything they liked to him…
My head spun with horrible images of Navan twisting with pain, until I could take it no longer. I closed my eyes and tried to doze off, or at the very least, lose myself in that peaceful place between sleep and consciousness.
Resting my head against the wall, I couldn’t fall asleep, but I had no way of knowing how much time passed. It must have been quite a few hours, because I became more and more aware of the hunger in my stomach, and how parched my mouth was.
By the time the door opened again, I felt too feeble to even look and see who it was.
“I’m here to show you something.”
Surprised at the cool, feminine voice, I looked to see a coldblood woman standing by the wall. She had braided, ashy hair and heavy-lidded eyes.
She placed what looked like a small TV in front of my face.
“Watch,” she commanded.
The screen flickered to life. On it, Navan was in the same chair as before, surrounded by uniformed coldbloods and Ezra. I closed my eyes.
The woman pressed her cold hands to my face and wrenched apart my lids, holding them open.
“Watch.”
And so, trying in vain to twist away, I did. As Navan sat on the chair, behind him some coldbloods had hooked up a cord to a metallic cylinder in the corner. Ezra had the other end of this cord attached to Navan’s arm with a clamp. He looked at the camera and smiled.
“Time to play.”
At his last word, the cord—and then Navan—rippled with electricity.
Ezra gave a thumbs-up to the camera. Gritting his teeth, Navan at first held strong, refusing to move or make a sound. Beside him, Ezra nodded to the coldbloods by the metallic cylinder, who pushed a lever on it. This must have upped the dosage of electricity, because seconds later, Navan was writhing, his mouth twisted with painful yells. As I watched, horror-stricken, trying to twist away myself, his body convulsed more and more.
With every added convulsion, I felt my own stomach convulse in turn. This wasn’t happening, couldn’t be. Even the glaze of tears in my eyes wasn’t enough to block what I was seeing. Nothing would ever erase that heart-rending image from my retinas.
As the convulsions continued, it became clear that this wasn’t just painful for Navan, it was potentially deadly.
“Stop!” I cried to the woman, shrieking now. “Tell them to stop!”
My whole body was writhing back and forth too, wracked with sobs and hyper-ventilating breaths. And still, the woman said nothing, just held me there and made me watch.
On the screen, Ezra stepped in front of Navan. Baring his teeth in a smile at the camera, he said, “You help us, we’ll help you.”
Then the screen went black.
Chapter Eight
My hands were still trembling, but after a minute of staring numbly at the blank screen, a different emotion rose up in me. Rage.
How dare these monsters do this. How dare they keep us captive.
I was sick of being the victim—of being a helpless pawn in these monsters’ hands. I didn’t know how I was going to do it, but I had to take back some control.