Chapter 13
Chapter Thirteen
Riley
I’m not sure how long I’ve been out before the door opens and someone slips a container inside. I can smell food but with the way I’m feeling, the idea of eating makes me nauseous.
“I’m not hungry,” I mutter, but the person is long gone.
I hear a faint noise and cock my head a second before I hear a quiet sound that’s so familiar that relief rushes through my body.
Diving forward, I knock open the container and send the food inside flying out while my fingers sink into soft fur.
“Kit!” I cry as I’m suddenly greeted by my own face through her eyes. “The best dinner I’ve ever been served.” I pretend to nibble on her which makes her squirm, all the more excited. “While you’re with me, you need to be careful. I don’t trust these people.”
I slide her into my shirt until just her head is sticking out and glance around the room now that my vision has returned to me. I see that I’m in some kind of doctors office… but why did they just leave me here? Was he so thrown by the stain that he just ditched me for what feels like hours?
“Kit, when the door opens again, I need you to get me my pendant and the hourglass, okay?”
She just continues to love on me, showing me that she hasn’t listened to a single thing I’ve asked. She’ll likely return with roses at this point.
Kit rubs her face all over me and flips and rolls while making all the happy noises she can.
Her tail even ends up in my mouth at one point as she does a very impressive nosedive.
“Yes, yes, I love you and I missed you so much. I really did. You can give me all of the kisses when we get back home,” I say while she licks all over my face.
It’s not at all pleasant and something I don’t generally let her do, but I’m so happy to see her that I’m fine with it at the moment.
I give her a kiss and scoop her up to my shoulder.
I try to open the cupboards and drawers but find that the only ones that aren’t locked are holding items that very much couldn’t be used to defend myself… unless I was planning on cramming some gauze down someone’s throat. Or a possible “Death by cotton balls.”
Kit thinks the cotton balls are her jam and takes one which she chews on, but at least that means she’s stopped licking me.
I find absolutely nothing to use in defense besides some chairs, but…
I’m not quite sure running out with a chair above my head is going to solve much.
I have no idea how I got in here… and so far, while they’re not exactly the best of hosts, they also haven’t done much to me.
That doesn’t mean I plan on staying, though.
If only I could handle being away from that cursed hourglass. Why is it so bad? I know I had a bad spell the night Torin went in to retrieve the horse, but does this mean I’d feel this miserable every day without the hourglass? Is the hourglass really helping that much?
Exhausted after doing so little, I sit down on the floor while I try to think about my next course of action which must end up leaving me unconscious because the next thing I know, the door is open and someone is dragging me.
My mind immediately goes to Kit, but when I check her eyes, I see that she’s not even with me. She’s rushing down the halls dodging onlookers.
“Where are you taking me?” I mumble.
“You’re fine, we’re just going back to your cell,” a man says.
“Is the god there?” I have no idea why I’m even worried about Vero since he’s obviously a dick. But I can’t stop thinking about Torin going through something like that. And I know he’s not Torin, but it’s still not right.
When the guards don’t answer, I say, “I need to use the bathroom. I can’t go yet. I really need to use the bathroom.”
“You can use the toilet in your cell.”
“It’s an emergency.”
They ignore me as I wonder if I’m above pissing on the men dragging me just to prove it. I don’t want to leave the area when Kit is still away, especially since she might not know how to get to me.
I twist, hoping to delay my return to the cell, but only end up putting my arms in some really awkward and painful position while the men are not at all disrupted. They continue their journey without a care in the world.
“Please help me, please,” I mutter. “Please…”
And that’s when the white magic—my… Death magic—hits me hard. I gasp, and the two men are so startled they drop me on the ground.
“Magic! He has magic!” someone screams.
I’m too far away from the hourglass. I’m too far away…
I curl up on the ground as I try to get away from the pain of it. That hourglass is calling to me. And I need it.
Desperate, I begin crawling back the way they’d dragged me from while panicked voices surround me.
“What do we do with him?”
“Tell Onyx. Don’t let him reach the doors.”
“Pin him down or I’m going to shoot him.”
I can see nothing and only hear their frantic voices. Someone slams me to the ground, although I’m so weak they would have only needed a simple push. They shove my face against the rough ground, their weight on my back as I feel my consciousness fading in and out.
“I was there when they tested him. He showed no magic!”
“He was hiding it somehow.”
“What the fuck is that?” someone shouts right before I feel Kit crash into me. I jerk my arm free to grab the hourglass she’s carrying and gasp like I’ve been allowed to breathe for the very first time. It was so exhausting, so tiring.
“That’s a good girl. You did such a good job,” I praise Kit.
The fog in my head almost immediately clears as I feel life surge back into my body. I hurriedly take in the situation… and all of the guns pointed at me.
“Why the fuck are you pointing guns at me?” I ask in disbelief.
“Calmly return to your cell,” a guard orders.
There’s nothing calm about any part of this as I question what I should do now that they know I can use magic. It’s not like they’re going to be pleased about it. And that’s when someone tries to grab Kit.
I press my finger against the third notch on my pendant and watch while ice shards form right in the barrels of their guns. They don’t realize it until someone who is rather trigger-happy fires and the gun nearly explodes in his hands.
I shove the people off me and run toward the building they’d just dragged me from. Kit makes a chirp of disbelief, likely wondering what the hell I’m doing.
Honestly… I have no idea either as I plow through the door, followed by the sound of more guns exploding when they discover they’re unable to break through the ice I’d slotted in their weapons.
I’m uncertain where to go now that I have sight.
It doesn’t help me at all that I was here previously, so I just start running and hope I find what I’m looking for.
My heart is beating out of my chest as I rush into a room and find that it’s definitely not the one I’m looking for when two women look up at me in confusion.
Darting back out, I recognize the hallway I’d seen in my dream and race to the door I’d gone through.
I slip through the door and find an empty room with a fountain right in the middle.
It’s not deep, and I know if the god was standing, it wouldn’t even come up to his hips, but whatever they’ve done to Vero has kept him submerged for hours.
I reach into the water, not even sure what I’m doing.
Like have I become some fucking locksmith all of a sudden?
I kind of just like… hold my hand there, all the while thinking, “Maybe I should have found Torin first, but it’s far too fucking late.”
“Fuck, fuck, fuck,” I whisper when I hear people coming.
I commit to reaching in and grab the chains on Vero’s wrist before jerking them a bit, which…
does next to nothing. Jerking anything underwater—well, most things—is rarely successful, and this is no exception.
I mean… if the god couldn’t “jerk” the chains free, why did I suddenly think I could?
The door blasts inward as people with guns…
a lot of guns rush in. And that’s when I feel the god’s hand wrapping around my wrist. I assume it’s going to be some sort of “Thanks for trying to save my life,” but instead he yanks me forward, pulling me into the water where he fucking pins me there, like he’s going to drown me for good measure…
reminding me that this guy was planning on killing me not that long ago.
Kit leaped off my shoulder in surprise when this happened, so she gets to take it all in while the guards look confused and I feel even more confused.
I try to smack Vero off me, but smacking him away is almost as successful as jerking on the chains. The problem is that I hadn’t planned on being pulled underwater, so the amount of oxygen I have stored is next to none, and I don’t think I can live through hours of drowning like the god can.
Thrashing, I hope Vero will take some pity on me and let me go but he isn’t even looking at me; hell, maybe he doesn’t even know what he’s doing. I realize that I very well might die here, all because of a god who I thought I’d save.
How ridiculous.
My hand hits his chest, and the white magic inside of me builds up before it explodes.
It throws me back as the fountain shatters, chunks of stone flying everywhere while the water spills out.
I hit hard on my shoulder, using the momentum to roll myself back up onto my feet where I see the god dash off without me!
I scoop up Kit and rush through the door Vero just bolted through, but at least it appears that his shackles have been destroyed.