Chapter 18
Lochlan didn’t look at me when he accepted the payment from the slavers. His jaw was tight, the muscles along it working as if he were grinding his teeth to powder. For a moment his fingers lingered around the pouch of coins, then he tucked it into his belt and stepped back.
“Pleasure doing business,” the slaver said. He gripped my upper arm so hard that I was sure bruises would appear within minutes. Lochlan’s eyes flicked to where the slaver’s hand was clenched around my arm, then he simply grunted and walked away without looking back.
The slaver jerked me forward. “Move it.”
I stumbled after him through the warehouse doors and nearly gagged when the smell hit me.
As my eyes adjusted to the dim light after the bright sunshine outside, I saw dozens of cages lining the interior.
Some were barely large enough for a person to sit in while others held three or four people, all crammed together.
There was an occasional rustling when someone shifted on the dirty floor, but most of the occupants barely moved at all.
They just stared with hollow eyes as we passed.
One woman sat curled against the bars of her cage, her arms wrapped around her knees as she rocked faintly back and forth.
A boy no older than twelve leaned against the opposite wall of another cage, staring straight ahead like a statue carved from stone.
On a table near the end of the hall, bottles were lined up in a row, all filled with a deep-crimson liquid.
While the door to the warehouse was still open, a woman cried out, “Help! Please help me!”
Immediately, one of the guards doused a cloth with liquid from one of the bottles and shoved it over her mouth. Within a few seconds, she stopped shouting and fell back in her cage.
The slaver who guided me in stopped once at a table, dipped a cup into a bucket of water, and gave me a shove between my shoulder blades.
“Move.” He prodded me along until we came to an empty cage near the back wall, then he kicked the door open. “Inside.”
I ducked under the low frame and stepped in. The floor of the cage was coated in gray ash smeared across the floorboards, thick enough to leave footprints, and the faint smell of long-forgotten smoke hovered in the air.
The cage door slammed shut behind me with a heavy clang. A lock clicked into place and my claustrophobia reared its head, but I steadied my breathing. This was temporary, and I had what I needed to release myself. This wasn’t forever.
“You get meals three times a day unless you talk. Now drink this.” He shoved the cup at me. I took it but didn’t drink. He had to have put something in it.
“I’m not leaving until you drink,” the slaver said, staring at me with unblinking eyes. He jingled the keys in his hand and I let my gaze drop down to study them before slowly lifting the cup to my lips and letting the drink fill my mouth, but I didn’t swallow. Instead, I mimicked the motion.
“You aren’t the first to try that trick,” he chuckled. “If it’s gone, open your mouth. If any comes out, you get a double dose and I’ll force it down your throat.”
After a moment’s hesitation, I swallowed and opened my mouth to show it was gone.
“That’s better,” he purred. “Do as you’re told and we won’t have any trouble.”
His footsteps faded and across the room, someone coughed weakly. The moment he was out of sight, I jammed my fingers to the back of my throat and vomited as quietly as I could into the corner of my cell. How much was left in my system? Would I still be affected?
I heaved until nothing more was left in my stomach and my abdomen was sore. Already, there was a faint fogginess to my thoughts, but they were still my own. At least the smell in the building was already bad enough that I hadn’t made it much worse with my vomit.
I sank back against the bars and waited for several minutes, memorizing the features of each guard as he passed and counting the time between patrols.
The guards paid little attention to the prisoners and frequently paused at the doors and windows, checking for any outsiders attempting to force their way in.
Peter had been right. This place would be difficult or impossible to attack from the outside. But fortunately for me, I wasn’t on the outside. I carefully slipped my fingers into the hidden pocket sewn into my tunic.
The tools and small wooden block Peter and Lochlan had given me early that morning were still there.
Good.
Getting inside had been easy enough. Now I needed to find a way to get the information I wanted and get out.
It took more than an hour to slowly whittle the wood into roughly the same size and shape of the guard’s key I’d seen.
I had to keep my knees propped up to block what I was doing from the view of any guards passing by, but by keeping my head down, I went unnoticed, just another unspeaking, uncaring one of the masses.
In between guard rotations, I slipped the key into the lock. I’d guessed the size well and it slid in part way, then hit some sort of barrier. I withdrew the key and studied it. I needed to find a way to know which part of the key needed to be cut or shaved down.
After another moment of consideration, I spat into the ash on the floor and mixed it to make a sort of thin paste that I rubbed all over the key.
Once it was fully coated, I reinserted the key and gently tried to turn.
It hit whatever mechanism in the lock was still there, and I carefully pulled it back out and resumed my position with my knees bent and head bowed just in time for the next round of patrols.
There, dug into the ash paste, were a few small dents where the lock’s interior tumblers had rubbed away the ash. I carefully shaved down those spots, rubbed more paste onto the key, and when the guards paced out of the room where I was held, I tried again.
It took five times repeating the actions, slowly whittling the key where it didn’t quite fit the lock until all the appropriate nocks were in place and I felt the tumblers begin to shift when I turned the key. Vicious satisfaction flashed through me. I had succeeded.
A bell rang somewhere in the depths of the building, and all around me, the other prisoners finally began to move, shifting up to get as close as possible to their cell doors.
I shoved the key into my tunic and imitated the others, crowding closer to the cell door and letting my short blonde hair fall over my eyes as I kept my head down. A knot of guards were circulating around the cages, shoving food between the bars.
Around me, the other prisoners devoured their bread like starving animals.
The man next to me, who had been sleeping most of the day, shoved the whole slice into his mouth all at once, barely chewing before swallowing.
A girl across the aisle clutched hers with both hands and ate in frantic little bites, her eyes darting toward the guards as if afraid they might take it back.
When they handed me mine, I purposely fumbled my slice of bread so it fell next to the bars and the hungry prisoner in the next cell over shot out a hand to snatch it up.
The guards laughed at this, watching as I silently pressed my face against the bars to watch the prisoner eat my slice of bread. For his sake, I hoped it wasn’t drugged, but I couldn’t risk eating it if it was.
“Too bad,” one said mockingly. “That’s all there is until this evening.”
They moved on to finish handing out the allotments of bread and, once done, circled the cages again, this time with a bucket and dipper of water.
They paused and handed the dipper between the bars to each prisoner but didn’t stop to watch if the person drank or not, the way my guard had done when I first arrived.
When they came to my cell, I let the dipper touch my lips, tilting it just enough that it looked convincing and allowed a tiny portion to sit in my mouth as I lowered the dipper and handed it back.
The moment the guard turned his back, I let the water dribble out onto the ground, where the ash swallowed it instantly, leaving only a darker patch that faded as the moisture spread.
I would’ve bet everything in my account that that bucket of water was drugged as well. I kept my head down and listened as the guards talked while giving the others their drink.
“Boss said the new intakes need to be logged tonight.”
“Again?” his companion groaned. “That clerk is obsessed with his recordkeeping. If the Nightsworn come sniffing around…”
“They won’t. And besides, orders are orders. Buyers want proof of where the merchandise came from.”
Merchandise. That’s all these living, breathing human beings were to them.
“If you finish up this, I’ll take care of it now. Otherwise I may forget.” The guard handed his bucket to his fellow.
“You’re lucky it’s me on shift and not Reuben. Go on, then. Better you than me.”
The guard handed off his bucket and dipper, then crossed to one of the doors on the side and opened it with a creak. I caught a brief glimpse of a narrow hallway beyond, and lantern light flickered farther down, brighter than the dim warehouse floor.
So that was where all the records must be kept. Good to know. Now if I could just find out where the pixie blood was as well.
The afternoon dragged slowly toward evening, and while it was easy enough to ignore the persistent hunger gnawing at my belly, my thirst was becoming harder to endure.
After emptying my stomach that morning and refusing to drink a single drop since, my mouth had become dry and tasted terrible.
The fogginess to my thoughts that the initial drink of drugged water had brought on had mostly cleared, but I couldn’t help counting down the hours to nightfall when I’d be able to finally slip out and hunt down the records.
Near dusk, a buyer arrived. A man in a dark coat strode down the row of cages while a guard followed with a ring of keys, pointing at the different prisoners and detailing various qualities about each. The man stopped at a cage two rows over and pointed.
“Give me that one.”
The guard unlocked the door and dragged a young woman to her feet. She stumbled as they hauled her out and bound her wrists. She looked barely older than I was.
There wasn’t any fear on her face as they pushed her toward the door.
Was that what had happened to my mother?
There was a very good chance she had passed through this exact room.
Had she been drugged and sold, simple as that?
Would this drug cause permanent brain damage or memory loss?
Once I found her, would she even remember me?
My fingers curled slowly into fists. I’d love to see all these guards burn for what they did on a daily basis.
To focus my thoughts, I kept imagining various scenarios for when I went into the office as I kept my gaze locked on the door.
Other than the guard who went in and spent a few minutes before emerging, no one else entered or exited.
Did they assume that there were enough guards around the exterior of the building that the inner office didn’t need protection?
I took a deep breath. This would have to be planned out meticulously. Lochlan had said Roderick would come to buy me at dawn. I had to wait long enough to go in so that when I took out the records and pixie blood, I’d have an escape.