Three #3
Which made her grimly aware of the hopelessness of her position. No matter how sincere Nadiya’s words were, Giselle had no
good choices.
“And what will I do,” Giselle asked carefully, “at Valeran?”
Dr. Iver’s smile was so cryptic it might as well have been a frown. “Help us win the war, of course.”
Giselle had nothing to bring except the ratty, oversized flannel she’d been wearing at the time of her arrest. To add insult to injury, it had once been Sutton’s. She snatched the shirt off the bed and slid it over her shoulders as she stepped out of the cell for the first time in almost two days.
Sheriff Reeve returned, but he didn’t say a word to her. As she followed Nadiya and Dr. Iver, he gave her a single stiff,
tight nod—and the same stony look that didn’t exactly instill Giselle with confidence. She looked away from him and down to
the floor.
The door to the sheriff’s office was propped open, letting the staticky warbling of John Prine’s “Angel from Montgomery” leak
from Sheriff Reeve’s radio and into the lobby. Sutton was waiting for them there. The moment they entered he surged to his
feet and strode over to her, breathing hard and fast.
“Where are you going?” he demanded. “Dad, are you really letting her out?”
“Quiet, son,” Sheriff Reeve said. “This isn’t your concern.”
“The hell it isn’t.” Sutton’s whole body was shaking. He stopped in front of Giselle, blocking her way to the exit, and when
she looked into his eyes, she saw they were glazed and dark. “You’re not gonna get away with it, you little fucking whore.”
Several things seemed to happen at once: Sutton clamped his hand down on her shoulder, hard. Giselle flinched on instinct, but she couldn’t even process the pain, because in the very next moment, Nadiya whirled around.
She jammed an elbow into Sutton’s stomach, he cried out, and in a flurry of motion almost too quick to perceive, she had him
pinned to the wall, arm against his throat.
Giselle froze. Sutton was gangly-looking, but under his clothes he was packed with lean muscle. He was more than a head taller
than Nadiya and had fifty pounds on her, at least. But now Sutton was squirming and whimpering like a dog on its back.
“Don’t touch her,” Nadiya said, in a voice that was all the more intimidating for its utter calm.
“Let me go,” Sutton whined. “Dad . . .”
Sheriff Reeve didn’t have a chance to intervene. Nadiya released Sutton and he slid down the wall, crumpling to the floor
on his knees.
Dr. Iver regarded Sutton, very briefly, in an almost pitying way. “Come on, Nadiya. Ms. Buckley. No time to waste.”
It gave the impression that this was nothing new to him. Giselle followed them out through the door, blinking as she emerged
into the midday sun. Parked directly outside the jailhouse was a sleek black town car, its windows tinted and the Mercedes
emblem glinting on the hood.
A driver in a gray uniform emerged and opened the passenger door for Dr. Iver. Then he walked around and opened the back door,
waiting expectantly.
Nadiya climbed in first, glossy black hair fluttering over her shoulders. After a moment’s hesitation, Giselle followed.
The interior of the car was all gleaming leather, with a suffocatingly artificial smell, as if it were fresh from the dealership.
Giselle buckled herself in and the engine purred, the only sound as they pulled away from the jailhouse. The potholed streets
and the dingy buildings grew smaller and smaller in the rearview mirror.
It wasn’t until they reached the rust-flecked NOW LEAVING BELLE sign that Giselle found her voice. She turned to Nadiya and said quietly, “Thanks for that.”
“It’s nothing,” Nadiya replied.
“You did seem nonchalant about it,” Giselle ventured. “Do you often find yourself roughing up guys twice your size?”
“Not usually in rural jailhouses.” Nadiya’s gaze was slightly probing. “He seemed like an . . . interesting choice of company.”
Despite everything, Giselle had to bite her lip on a laugh. “Yeah. Well. There aren’t many options in Belle.”
“Evidently.”
They lapsed back into silence, and Giselle looked out the window.
They were onto the county roads now, smooth and winding.
The trees grew thicker and darker, revealing only the odd slant of azure sky.
Another wide turn, and then a sudden incline, the kind that made her breath catch.
They were going east and up, into the mountains.
The farther they got from Belle, the more her chest ached. There was a partition between the front seats and the back, so
she couldn’t have asked Dr. Iver anything, even if she had been bold enough.
She turned back to Nadiya instead. “You aren’t taking me to some prison camp, are you?”
“No. Valeran is a school, like Dr. Iver told you.”
“A school for criminals sounds more like a prison.”
“You’re not going to be a prisoner,” said Nadiya. “You’re going to be a soldier.”
Giselle glanced out the window again, watching the dusky blur of trees as they ascended. Then she let her head drop, slumping
over wearily in her seat. “What’s the difference?”