Chapter 16
CHAPTER 16
WENDY
T he buyer is stroking my cheek, planting a wet kiss on the corner of my quivering lips, when something crashes into the carriage.
My body goes flying into the roof, tumbling as the carriage rolls over. Pain pounds my limbs as the carriage rattles me, shaking me like Michael does his hands when he’s excited or frightened. When the carriage finally comes to a rest, it takes me a moment to take in my surroundings.
The carriage is a wreck, Vulcan limp, his head hanging to the side as it presses against the carriage door, now resting on the ground. I can’t tell if he’s dead. I don’t really care. There’s a roar of panic outside on the street, people scrambling to not only help but leer at the tragic accident.
Outside, someone shouts for everyone to clear the way. A pause, then the door above me flings open, hinges squealing in protest. Inside stares an unfamiliar face—thin and unassuming, slightly balding. He’s the type of man you’d hire to do work you want to go unnoticed. The kind of face even witnesses wouldn’t recall.
I feign confusion as he reaches in and loops his arms underneath my armpits. In the hours since being poisoned, the ability to use my limbs has returned, though I’m still weak. Teeth must have given me a low dose, or a diluted one. As the man struggles to haul me from the cabin, it takes all my self-control to maintain my dead weight and keep from assisting him. I’m caught between wanting to escape the scene before Vulcan wakes and needing the henchman to believe I’m still unable to move.
When I finally surface, the balding man heaving, I let out the tiniest of sobs, shaking off the awareness that if something had gone awry, I’d be dead.
Around me, villagers gather to speculate underneath dingy faerie dust lamps. We must be a village or two over from where Zane runs his business. That would make sense, given we’d been in the carriage for almost an hour. Zane would have wanted to make sure the accident happened outside of city limits, to keep Vulcan from suspecting him.
Assuming Vulcan’s still alive.
I hadn’t bothered checking.
“It’s alright, I’ve got her,” says the weaselly man pulling me from the wreckage. I lean my head onto his shoulder, limping as he keeps his hand around my waist to help me walk. I’m sure that in a few hours, everything will ache, but right now I’m operating on adrenaline. I allow my head to loll around until I can see back to the carriage. The wreckage is awful. A mare slammed into it, now neighing as she kicks her feet wildly in the streets, bystanders steering clear. I can’t help but notice that Vulcan’s driver is pinned under the carriage, his eyes wide and empty to the dark sky.
Guilt rolls over in my stomach.
I did that. I planted this idea in Zane’s mind.
As Zane’s henchman drags me through the streets, drawing me away from the crowds, I wonder if anyone will notice.
No one does.
When the shadows of a dark alley obscure us, I notice another carriage parked there, waiting for us. I’ll have to be quick.
Thus far, I’ve exaggerated my lack of control over my limbs. They’re still weak, some of my control over them lost under the influence of the rushweed, but not to the extent that I’ve made my enslaver-turned-rescuer believe.
When the henchman forces me into the carriage, I make him work for it, tripping and fumbling, making him drag my limp, dead weight into the cabin. He’s human, and certainly not in his first half of life, judging by the number of wrinkles forming on his balding head. By the time he’s got me onto the floorboard of the carriage, he’s huffing and doesn’t have the energy to scramble over my body and drag me into my seat.
Instead of climbing over me, he slams the door, dousing the inside of the cab in shadows. The latch clicks into place behind me. Mercifully, there’s no secondary click of a lock. Cheek pressed against the wooden floorboards, I wait for the sound of the henchman’s huffs to round the carriage.
I’ll have a very small window to make this work. My muscles protest, but I use the seat to drag myself to my feet.
As soon as I hear the man reach the anterior of the carriage and tell the driver I’m secured, I unlatch the door on my side, willing my legs not to give out on me when I open the door and jump.
The impact should be simple, but it feels as if I’ve fallen from the top of the nearest thatch roof. It doesn’t matter though. The aching in my muscles will be nothing compared to the pain of the punishment awaiting me if I’m caught.
The henchman is still talking to the carriage driver. “Just give me a moment, why don’t you? Need to stretch my legs before getting crammed back into that cab.”
“Zane said—”
“Yes, well, Zane isn’t who had to drag that girl through the streets or drive that horse into a carriage rounding a corner, now is he?” The henchman adds, under his breath, “I’m getting too old for this.”
Relieved at the henchman’s stalling, I limp down the back of the alley, following the gentle glow of light from what I hope is the opposite street. If this alley turns out to be a dead end, I’m in trouble, but I don’t allow my mind down that sullen path.
Once I reach the end of the alley, I turn the corner and toward the light, my stomach clenching when I realize the light is from a faerie dust lamp hanging over a doorway at the back of a building that jams up right next to another.
There’s no way out.
As of now, I’m out of sight. I rush toward the nearby door, still limping, and tug at the handle, but it’s locked. Around the corner, the henchman swears loudly.
He knows I’m gone. And that I couldn’t have gone far.
For a fleeting moment, I wonder if my punishment will be lessened if I stumble back, head hanging, and turn myself in. If he’ll keep my almost-escape to himself, thinking it’ll reflect poorly on his expertise that he let me escape to begin with.
It could work, but then I’d be in a worse position than what I began with, property to be sold to whichever male bids the highest.
No. No, I won’t turn myself in. I’ll fight back. Make the henchman kill me if I have to.
I fist my hands at my sides and sneak to the corner. If I can’t be strong, at least I’ll be unexpected. As the henchman approaches, chanting, “Come out, little girl. We know you can’t have gone far,” I prepare myself.
When he reaches the corner, he makes the mistake of looking the wrong way, and I lunge. I go for his neck, wrapping my arms around it as tightly as I can manage, using my body weight against him as I hang on his back, cutting off his airway. The man flails, thankfully already winded. When he backs up and slams both of us against the wall, stars sparkle across my vision. I let out a cry, partly from the blunt force to my skull, partly because the man digs his long, dirty fingernails into my forearms, drawing blood.
Still, I hold tight, running on the adrenaline of terror and the desperation not to be hauled back to that awful brothel. With each time he slams me backward up against the wall, I count. One. Two. Three, four, five. I’ve no idea how long it takes a man to lose consciousness from strangulation, but as he pounds my already sore body against the wall, my grip around him loosens. With every blow, I have to remind myself that the more he exerts himself, the quicker he’ll pass out.
Down the alley, the driver calls out, “Aye? Found her yet?”
The henchman rasps in reply, and I have no idea if the driver can hear our struggle. It ends up not mattering, because the henchman slams me again, and this time my skull cracks against brick. Pain lances through me, and my hands slip. The harsh exterior of the brick building scrapes my back as I fall, trapped between the henchman and the wall. When he turns to face me, his eyes are storming with vengeance.
“I oughta kill you right here and now,” he says, heaving in panicked breaths as he glares down at me. When he props himself on his knees, he examines me like a hawk, cocking his head as he presses his hand to my throat and squeezes.
The muscles in my chest lurch, grasping for air, but they’re met with the stricture of this man’s hand at my throat. I can’t breathe, and my body realizes it quickly. I flail, just like the man was doing only moments ago, overexerting himself. I find I can’t help the useless reflex.
“You’re not worth your trouble,” he says. “You know what I’ll do? I’ll tell them you died in the carriage crash. I’ll tell them Vulcan slit your throat once he realized what had happened so you couldn’t get away. Didn’t want anyone else to have what was his.”
Tears bloom at the corners of my eyes, trickling down my cheeks. I don’t want to die like this, discarded in a dank alley for the rats to get me. An unknown corpse no one will report to John and Michael, leaving them to always wonder what happened to me.
Still, it’s better than the brothel.
“Don’t. Touch. Her.”
The voice rings out from the alley, rage brimming inside a steel furnace. When Astor steps from the shadows, his figure is as sharp as ever. Not for the first time, I consider how it almost hurts to look at him, his green eyes blazing with menace.
The henchman doesn’t move, but there’s enough command in Astor’s voice that he at least releases his grip enough for me to breathe. I gasp, gulping down air as soon as I can get some.
“You’re still touching her,” says Astor, tapping his foot.
“This one doesn’t belong to you,” says the henchman, his voice more assured than his face, which is breaking out in sweat at his brow.
Astor doesn’t miss a beat. “I’m aware of that.”
His eyes flick toward mine, just for a moment. Just long enough to make me wonder if I imagined it. When he clucks his tongue, Charlie and Maddox step from the shadows, flanking Astor on either side.
Slowly, the man, eyes trained on Maddox’s bulging arms, extracts his hand from my throat, though when he stands, it’s between me and Astor.
“I can’t return to my master empty-handed, you understand.”
Astor’s smile is oily. “I’ll ensure you don’t. But you won’t be returning to your master with her.”
The henchman’s eyes flick over to Charlie. “That one, then. In exchange?”
If Charlie is fazed, she doesn’t show it. Her face remains as still as a doe in the wood.
“Who do you work for?” asks Astor.
The henchman laughs. “As if I would tell the likes of you. He’d have me killed.”
Astor flashes him a razored grin. “You’re a town away. Good thing you have a head start.”
The henchman blanches as next to Astor, Maddox starts playing with his blade. He really does look more menacing than I realized, all brawn and wicked amusement. The henchman must think so too, because he spouts out, “Give me your word you’ll let me go if I give you the girl.”
Astor laughs. “You’re not in the position to bargain, I’m afraid. If I were you, I’d tell us who you’re working for and take my chances.”
The henchman chews on the inside of his cheek. He must recognize that the best he can do in this situation is to try to please Astor, so he says, “Zane. Owns the Marble House.”
“That’s all? There’s no one else?”
The henchman shakes his head.
Maddox and Astor share a practiced glance, and Maddox steps forward, knife glinting. But then Astor puts a hand out, stopping Maddox.
“No need,” he says. “Get Wendy out of here. You too, Charlie. I’ll attend to this one.”
Charlie and Maddox are at my side in an instant, Maddox pulling me into his arms.
When the henchman begs for his life, Captain Astor’s laugh echoes through the alley. “You might have considered that the first time I asked you to stop touching her.”