Chapter 30 #2
After the brutal morning with Kat, Audrey was dumped outside to wait for Maren with Felix, her favorite guard. They chain-smoked in silence beneath the colorless sky. Felix didn’t speak English; Audrey didn’t feel like performing.
When Maren finally stepped outside, her presence was coiled violence.
The kínisi yard sat lower than the fotiá yard, boxed in by retaining walls of cracked stone and old metal sheeting.
Wind collected there instead of passing through, circling dust in mean little eddies that never fully settled.
Someone had driven iron poles into the ground at measured intervals.
Chains hung from a beam overhead. Buckets of bolts, rusted tools, broken ceramics, stripped wiring, and smooth throwing stones were arranged in ugly little piles, each one clearly chosen for a different drill.
The place looked less like a school and more like a workshop for controlled damage.
Every object had weight and a trajectory.
Audrey had spent days staring at those piles until she hated them.
The women who could move things worked here in near silence, sending shards across marked distances, stopping falling weights inches above the ground, or holding metal rods suspended until their arms shook.
When they failed, Maren made them start over.
When they succeeded, she acted as if success were the bare minimum for being allowed to keep breathing.
Maren arrived without a greeting, giving her a curt nod toward a pile of rocks and metal.
Audrey sighed and got started.
It was always the same lesson. Two hours of Audrey staring at objects, begging them to move, managing little more than a pathetic vibration.
Today, Maren’s emotions thickened the air more than usual, until breathing felt like wading through hot tar. Fury and that same jealousy.
“You know,” Audrey muttered, “maybe I’d get better if you gave me some help.”
“Help?” Maren spat.
Audrey blinked, surprised she answered.
“You’re a child—use some common sense,” Maren snapped in mangled English, then launched into a hissed torrent of insults in Voírían.
“Why don’t you just move my arm and make me?” Audrey shot back.
“Kínisi move things. Not useless people, pórnes.”
The insult—whore—didn’t bother Audrey. She’d been called worse by better. But today, after Kat’s fist and Ryker’s threats, something inside her had shifted. She was done swallowing disrespect.
Switching to fluid Voírían, Audrey hissed, “Call me a whore again, Maren. I fucking dare you.”
Maren’s eyebrow arched with delight. She obliged.
Audrey didn’t listen. Instead, she slipped into Maren’s mind.
Ryker was there. Naked in a bed, smoking. And Maren watched him as if he were something sacred.
Everything clicked.
Maren wasn’t just hostile—she was threatened. Furious that the man she twisted herself into knots for was even momentarily fixated on someone who shared her face.
Audrey pulled out of Maren’s mind just as the woman finished her rant.
“...you’re a waste of everyone’s time.”
Audrey let the silence deepen between them.
Then she examined her nails. “What’s actually wasting my time is listening to the delusion pouring out of your mouth,” she said.
“He said we look alike. That’s all it took to send you spiraling?
” She leaned in. “Worried you won’t be his favorite fuck anymore? ”
Shock flickered across Maren’s hateful face.
Audrey pressed the knife deeper—not physically, but mentally.
“And honestly? You deserve better. He’s a prick who hates himself and everyone else. He doesn’t even deserve your smile, let alone your body.”
“You don’t know anything about him,” Maren snarled.
Oh, Audrey knew. She’d been inside the furnace of his mind.
“I want nothing to do with your boyfriend,” Audrey said. “He’s the one who wants something from me.”
Maren’s aura snapped like a whip. “Does he? Because you should have kept digging. Enough to see how worthless you are to him. He lies. You feel it.”
The words struck clean through Audrey’s ribs.
Worthless.
Whore.
A liar’s pawn.
If Ryker believed she was worthless, would he still go after Cary?
Emerson had promised things, too. Alex had lied just as easily. Audrey wasn’t na?ve enough to believe promises anymore.
Before she could stop herself, Audrey reached again for Maren’s mind.
But Maren struck first, shoving Audrey hard in the chest. “You think you’re powerful?” Maren snarled. “I completed Conscription. I watched women stronger than you burn alive for less. And you think you can walk in here and take what we earned?”
A rushing sound filled Audrey’s ears.
Maren didn’t move like the others. The other women fought to survive, but Maren fought like someone who already had. Everything hovered, trembling with the force of her power. Every object around them—rocks, shards of metal, tools—rose into a violent orbit.
“Is this supposed to impress me?” Audrey asked, though fear tightened her throat.
“I don’t need to impress you,” Maren whispered. “I need to end you.”
She twisted her fingers. The objects sharpened in their descent.
Audrey reached for control. For restraint. For the careful, measured approach Kat kept demanding.
Nothing happened.
Then something inside her snapped.
Enough.
She seized Maren’s body with her aura in a rough clench.
Maren screamed and collapsed to her knees. The floating debris crashed down around them.
Audrey tightened her hold, silencing Maren’s mouth, bending her spine straight. Maren’s terror flooded the space between them, and Audrey understood exactly how to control it.
The realization chilled her.
This was easy.
It was as if the power had been waiting for her to stop pretending she didn’t want it. Audrey inhaled. While she hated herself a little more, the silent pleas were exquisite.
After savoring it a moment longer, she released the pressure slowly, deliberately.
“Today’s behavior aside,” Audrey murmured, “I’m letting you live. Because I respect what you survived.” She crouched, watching Maren’s tears spill onto the gravel. “Someday, I’ll collect a favor. Remember this moment of mercy. Nod if you understand.”
Maren trembled, barely moving her chin. For a split second, a look of respect flashed in the woman’s eyes.
Audrey smiled. Then she kicked Maren aside—just enough to remind her who was standing.
“My Voírían isn’t perfect, but I think we finally understand each other.” Audrey leaned down, her voice soft and lethal. “If you ever threaten me again, I will tear your psyche apart until the light leaves your eyes.”
She patted Maren’s cheek. “Capisce?”
A broken whimper answered her, but Maren’s fear faded quickly. What replaced it was worse—a promise.
She could have killed Maren. But corpses couldn’t repay favors.
Audrey straightened, scanning the yard. No witnesses, and Maren was down. The yard was empty, but the watchtowers weren’t. Still, for the first time in weeks, Audrey had an opportunity, and she couldn’t waste this moment. Audrey snatched Maren’s headscarf and fled.
Outside, wind howled across the courtyard, whipping sand into eyes and lungs.
Audrey wrapped the scarf over her head, hiding her telltale curls.
She moved through the busy courtyard, indistinguishable from the others.
For once, the fact that she looked like every other Voírían woman worked in her favor.
She searched the perimeter for weaknesses. Powers she didn’t know guarded the exits. She wasn’t ready to tear minds apart or deflect bullets or ignite bodies.
Not yet. But she would be. Soon.
First, she needed something real: a route, a weakness, a name—anything that could get her to Cary before Ryker did.
If Ryker was hedging his bets and looking for her sister behind her back, then Audrey was done surviving this place one day at a time.
She was going to find her sister and build a life neither of them had ever been given.
Felix reclined against the wall, cigarette between his fingers. For once, luck was on her side. She smiled slowly and walked toward him. He lifted his head at her approach. Something on his face made her stop.
“Trouble again?” Felix asked, flicking ash into the dirt.
“Depends,” Audrey said, forcing lightness she didn’t feel. “You planning to be helpful, or just pretty with a cigarette?”
Felix snorted and pushed off the wall. He looked less armed than usual—no visible weapon, scarf loose, one sleeve rolled up—and it relaxed her.
He glanced toward the yard where Maren still hadn’t emerged, then back at Audrey. “You look like shit,” he said. “Come inside.”
She should have kept walking. Should have taken the opening while the yard was thinly watched and Maren was down. But her nerves were flayed raw, her thoughts screaming over one another, and Felix was the only person in this place who ever spoke to her like she wasn’t already halfway to the grave.
His room smelled like cigarettes and fabric softener. Contraband lived there openly: a mirror, lines of glittering powder, a little stack of pills in mismatched colors, a flask on the floor. Felix shut the door, leaned against it, and watched her clock the setup.
“You want out of her head for a bit?” he asked. “I can help.”
Emotions burned in Felix’s eyes. His tone was friendly, but his eyes paused too long on Audrey’s face, as if looking for something.
He wanted something from her.
She wanted something, too.
Felix might not know much. He might know everything. Either way, he was the first opening she’d had in days, and Audrey was done wasting openings.
She needed one thing now: where Cary was being kept, moved, or hidden. If Felix knew, Audrey would get it out of him tonight—by charm, by lies, or by force if she had to. That was the next step in getting her sister back.
After that, she could start using this place rather than just surviving it.