~*~
As soon as it was out of her mouth, it occurred to Emily that she might very well have just signed her death warrant. She’d seen her kidnapper’s face. They weren’t going to just let her go back to her life at school because she was no longer useful. She closed her eyes.
I’m sorry, Rab.
“What the hell do we do now?” demanded a new voice.
Emily’s eyes popped open, searching for the source. Beyond the circle of light, a stocky man in a mechanic’s jumpsuit leaned against a stack of wooden crates. The wraith?
The Sugea turned toward him. “The plan remains the ssssssame. Her purposssse in this hassss not changed.”
“We want this done on our terms, our time, our turf. We can’t just babysit her for the next six weeks,” said the wraith.
The Sugea turned back to her, lurching into her face in another one of those serpentine lunges. “Ssssshe’ssss lying.”
His breath was fetid and hot on her face. Emily cringed away, imagining all kinds of repulsive sources for that smell.
“The Walker prizes his sisssster too much to leave her without recoursssse to reach him in an emergencccccy.” The slits of black in his eyes widened as he hovered over her, staring, unblinking.
Emily knew he was trying to compel her. He couldn’t know that she was protected against such powers for exactly situations like this. God bless Rab’s paranoia. Maybe she could use it.
Allowing her face to go lax, her eyes to unfocus, Emily let her head sway a little as she spoke, voice sounding sleepy and unwilling. “I have emergency contacts, but they aren’t him. Sometimes he really does have to drop off the grid entirely for missions.”
The Sugea whirled away and continued to argue with his associates.
Emily’s mind began to spin. How was she going to get out of this, tied to a chair under a freaking spotlight?
Wait… She wasn’t tied to the chair. They’d dumped her in it. She tested her bonds. For all that it was bespelled to prevent her from splitting, it seemed to remain simply rope. Which meant it ought to have a little give in it if they didn’t tie it right. She was just a girl. Maybe they’d underestimated her as a threat. Slowly, so they wouldn’t notice, she tried to pull her wrists apart. She didn’t get far. The knots were tight, efficient. But there was a bit of a creak when she moved.
“We should kill her and be done with it,” said a third voice.
Emily’s head snapped up. Crap. She began to tug at the rope with more fervor, no longer caring if it was obvious. Her wrists burned as the skin rubbed raw. Tears sprang to her eyes, leaked down her cheeks, but she gritted her teeth, not making a sound as she continued to struggle.
“Are you crazy?” asked the wraith. “You really want to earn the wrath of an ex Shadow Walker? He’d hunt us down and slaughter us.”
At least one of them has a little sense.
“And you think he’s not going to do the same for having taken her in the first placcccce?”
“Maybe that’s something you should’ve thought of before you came up with this imbecilic plan!”
Voices and tempers were rising and with them, her fear. They may not be the smartest villains in the world, but they were all equally capable of killing her if she didn’t find a way out of here.
“How did you think this was gonna end, huh? The Walker would slaughter Anatole and be so grateful we didn’t kill his sister, he’d just let us go on our merry way?”
“Well I didn’t sssssee you offering up an alternative!”
Emily braced herself and flexed her legs, trying to stretch the ropes at her ankles. Nothing. She was too well bound.
I have to do something.
Temper snapping, she wrenched her arms, trying to gain some slack in the rope. And she felt something hot and wet.
Blood. She hesitated only a moment before clenching her teeth and twisting her wrists, deliberately trying to worsen the abrasions. If she got her hands wet enough, maybe she could slip her hands free. The friction hurt, but she continued to twist and bleed and tug, unnoticed by the arguing thugs.
“—she knows someone else who could do the job.”
Emily stilled abruptly when she realized their attention had swung back to her. Blood ran in hot rivulets down her hands, dripping onto the seat of the chair, soaking into her school uniform skirt. Her wrists screamed in pain, the muscles cramping from effort and the bad angle. And still she tried to keep her face expressionless.
“How about it, little girl?” asked the wraith, stepping into the circle of light for the first time. His face was narrow, with high cheekbones that broke the plane of his face like blades. The vivid lavender eyes didn’t look entirely sane.
“How about what?” she asked.
“Do you know any Hunters for hire? Surely your brother has friends and contacts you’ve met over the years.”
Emily stared at him. “You’re seriously asking a fifteen year old girl for recommendations of assassins? How exactly do you think that would look to your associates?”
The wraith smiled and curled those long-fingered hands around the arms on either side of her chair, boxing her in. Emily felt something curl up in panic in the pit of her stomach at the sight of that smile.
“Well either you have something useful to give us or you don’t. The prospect that you might have useful contacts is the only thing keeping you alive right now, so I suggest you think a little bit harder.”
Emily felt her hands go cold and she began to tremble.
Had the wraith touched her? She tried to glance down, saw that his hands remained on the chair arms. Was it a sign of shock? Of greater fear? It was a softer cold than the wraithfrost, and though she was terrified, she did not feel the mind-numbing despair normally associated with wraiths. It felt strangely…familiar, almost comforting. Like when she shadow-walked with Rab.
No way.
She shifted back in her chair and her hands moved, the rope collapsing into the palms of her hands.
Her heart began to thud, a one drum symphony of hope and fear.
Thinking fast, she began to stammer, “I don’t…there was maybe this one guy I met when we were in Albuquerque.” Struggling to keep her shoulders still, she uncoiled the rope in her hands. She’d only get one shot at this, and it was a Hail Mary at best. If she was right, she’d have a chance at escaping. If she was wrong…well, then at least she’d be going out fighting.