Chapter 10
Chapter
Ten
Bile seared my insides, coating my throat and tongue, while my legs crumpled. The stench overpowered me, along with the terror ripping through me. I couldn’t catch my breath, my heart thrashing against my ribs as if it needed to escape the tightness of my chest, no matter the cost.
“Whoa, girl.” Zion pushed me against the railing, keeping me upright.
“Go ahead and throw up. All do at some point.” He nodded toward the smooth ground far below my feet.
Some level of my brain understood his words, took in the sights and sounds, but I couldn’t really grasp any of it.
It was like floating behind a glass wall between me and the world.
“You act like you won’t enjoy it here.” Zion motioned out to vast space, which felt small and confined. “I think you are just being picky. I mean, what more could you ask for?”
“Zion, don’t be a dick.” Jade rolled her eyes at him.
I couldn’t respond, fighting the tears as I looked around the dimly lit prison.
Fire-bulbs adorned the walls every three or four yards, giving off enough light to see by, but heavy shadows lingered and clustered together where the lights didn’t reach.
The darkness added to the sense of confinement—the sense of death waiting in the wings.
Would I ever see the sun again?
The underground prison was far bigger than I thought.
Shaped in rectangular boxes, the cells lining the walls all faced each other.
The metal catwalk I stood on was about midway, the ground far below, and the ceiling far above.
Comparable to a stacked city I’d seen in pictures of the Far East, cages were packed vertically and horizontally, reaching floor to ceiling along all four walls.
There were about twenty levels with catwalks.
Some were just one large cell between floors, and other levels had three to four cages stacked on top of each other before the next walkway.
The one way to get in or out of those would be to climb over the others.
A few cages hung from the ceiling, only accessible if a guard brought them down.
Everything was metal, vibrating with noise. There was no space, no air.
I felt claustrophobic. Trapped.
“Looky, looky! We caught a new fish. Az istenit, a pretty one too.”
“I get dibs first.”
“No, I’m gonna tear into that sweet pussy first.”
Vulgar words and sentiments were hurled at me from the inmates inside their tiny barred homes, drawing more and more of them to the front of their cells. Movement and figures consumed my vision, forcing me to glance down at my feet, trying to ignore the more violent and disgusting threats.
Vomit pooled in my stomach again. It was all too much.
Guards and prisoners bustled through the place, their boots clicking on the catwalks, the sound mingling with an endless stream of talking, yelling, and banging. I could taste the foul air on my tongue, feel the shrill noise piercing my nerves.
“The commissary is down there.” Jade pointed to a passageway located on the bottom floor. “And the pit—”
“Please.” Zion cut her off. “We’re not going to play tour guide. She will have the rest of her short life to get acquainted with this place.” Zion clutched the cuffs behind my back, yanking me to another corridor on this level. “Now it’s time for your welcome party.”
“You really are an asshole.” Jade sighed, moving to the opposite side of me.
“Stop being an uptight bitch,” he barked back. “You demons act like you’re above everyone now.”
“Not everyone. Just above douchebags.”
He snarled, baring his sharp teeth at her, his eyes narrowing.
“Oh, so scary.” She laughed. “Do you forget every time you can’t shift in here? Remember, it’s a magicless space, moron.”
His lip rose again, but he shook his head.
Magicless space? It made sense to control the fae prisoners in here from using their gifts.
A siren or incubus could seduce their way out of here in a moment.
At least it put everyone on a more even playing field, though not much of one.
No matter what level the fae were on, even the least powerful or half-breeds, they were tougher than humans—faster, immortal, and much harder to kill. All things humans would love to change.
My brain was a blur, not taking in much as Zion and Jade transferred me down a dank hallway, the screams and shrieks following me, sputtering panic into my system, my legs dipping as they shoved me to move faster.
As they heaved me through a door, my lids tapered at the assault of sudden cool light.
My gaze darted around, taking in the sterile room, noting the three marked rows where observation tables stood marked with: fae, human, half-breed.
Fae dressed in similar outfits as the healer earlier milled around the room, their attention snapping to me the moment we stepped in.
“What the hell did you bring me?” A tall handsome-faced fae with honey-colored eyes snarled down at my bloody gown, an electronic pad in his hand.
“Human. Thief,” Jade responded.
“And no longer our problem. All yours!” Zion saluted the man, already retreating from the room. “I’m off the clock.”
Jade and the man watched him leave the room.
“What an asshole.”
“Tell me about it.” Jade handed over the keys to my cuffs. “Be lucky you aren’t partnered with him.” Jade didn’t even look at me before she left as well.
The moment she did, the guy’s demeanor shifted.
“Full human?” His lip curled, typing into his device.
I stared at him, my mind slow to understand.
“I asked you a question, 85221,” he barked, driving up the anxiety swaying me on my feet.
His jaw locked down, his buttery eyes blazing.
“Oh, you’re one of those who think being silent shows you’re strong?
Resilient.” He chuckled, getting into my face.
“Just wait. This place will break you. Not a scrap of you will be left. You will die here, whether it’s in a week or a month.
I guarantee you won’t make it very long.
” A cruel grin broke over his beautiful face as he muttered to himself.
“Full human.” His fingers typed in what he said, but his gaze peered into mine with speculation. I held his scrutiny.
“Age.”
“Nineteen,” I whispered.
“Date of birth.”
“November first.”
His chin clicked up, his lids narrowing. “You were born on Samhain? The day the barrier fell?”
“Yeah, lucky me.” I was anything but—a bad omen. The wall between worlds had crumbled as my mother delivered me—then she died.
His brows furrowed as he typed in the info, his shoulders rolling back like my birth personally pissed him off.
“Diseases?” He snorted, a dimple showing up in his left cheek. “What am I saying, you humans come filled with sickness and germs. Thankfully we don’t catch things easily from your kind.”
He tossed the computer pad onto a desk, fury bristling off him as he unlatched my cuffs.
Blood rushed through my pinched veins, my muscles screaming with relief as prickles moved over my joints.
Seizing my bicep, he yanked me into a back room that smelled of stale water and cheap disinfectant.
My bare toes slid over the damp cement floors, my stomach dropping, terrified of what was next.
It wasn’t until now I realized how lacking our training really was. They never trained us how to handle getting caught or what it might really be like on the inside, and if we did get captured, they wiped their hands of us. We were as good as dead.
A dozen cold cement stalls lined a wall with one large drain in the middle of the floor. Each of the three-sided showers was about four feet wide and twelve feet high.
“Strip,” he barked, shoving me into a stall and picking up a hose hooked on the wall.
Emotion cluttered my throat, and I began to shiver.
“I said fucking strip,” he bellowed. “Or I will do it, and believe me, you do not want that. I don’t take kindly to having my time wasted.”
I burned with fury and shame, and my eyes began to twitch as I tried to lift my gown.
“You have two seconds.” He took a threatening step toward me.
Sucking in, I reached behind and untied the gown, the thin fabric sliding off my shoulders. There was a difference between being comfortable with your body and with being naked, and being stripped of humanity—of yourself.
“Undergarments.” He pulled a trash can to the opening, nodding at it.
My jaw strained as I clenched it painfully.
Struggling to swallow, I pulled my underwear down my legs, trying not to sob, tossing them and the gown into the garbage.
My stringy hair fell across my torso, giving me a bit of shelter.
A malicious smile curled up the sides of his face as he watched me undress.
He was getting off on this, and it had nothing to do with my naked form but his power to depreciate and dehumanize me.
He stepped up to me, a bottle in his hand, and squirted its cold contents over me; his lips turned up like he was pissing on a vile piece of crap.
My nostrils burned with the antiseptic smell.
I was nothing more than a flea-infested animal. Humans were less than. Weaker.
“Rub it all over you and through your hair.” He nodded for me to step deeper into the stall. “Humans need to be thoroughly disinfected of all the little bugs and bacteria.” His hand flicked on a wall switch.
The blast slammed my frame into the cold stone wall as icy water assaulted my skin feeling like a thousand knives, tearing the oxygen from my lungs.
My hands went up to guard my face from the brutal onslaught.
The pressure was so harsh. My cry drowned in my chest as the stream of water pummeled my flesh.
The guard wanted to wash the human disgust off my bones as well.
The force shredded my healing wounds, old and fresh blood trailing down my legs with the water.
Whipping around, my hands pressed against the wall, sobs hiccupping up my throat.
Naked. Shamed. Degraded.