Her words slice through me. An unknown creature started this whole mess? No one seems to know what I am. What if …? No. It can’t be. I’d remember something like that. Or would I? I’m only beginning to realize just how many memories I’ve forgotten.
“Oh, yeah, I forgot most don’t know about the legends.” Zinnia grins, misinterpreting my horror-stricken face. “Sucks to be you. Knowledge is power, something the station doesn’t understand. They’re so dead set on trying to find that object that supposedly contains the world’s history because they think it holds the answers to the Grim. If they’d just believe in our legends, their lives would be so much easier.”
So many questions burn at the tip of my tongue. What was this creature that caused the destruction? How did it cause the destruction? Where did it come from? And where is it now? But when I open my mouth to ask, she places a finger to my lips.
“Nope. I never tell outsiders our secrets, especially ones who could be hybrids.” She goes back to cleaning me.
With every swipe of the damp cloth, my stomach churns. I don’t know how many times I’ve been touched without permission, but it’s definitely been too many. I want to shove her down and run, but I keep thinking of Blaise, Ryder, and Reece and how they’ve never abandoned me, even when things got intense.
After Zinnia finishes washing me, she adds a few silver cuffs to my neck and wrists. Then she combs my hair and puts a mess of braids down one side. By the time she’s finished, I feel like a doll all over again.
She drops the brush onto the bed and steps back, admiring her work. “I think that should do. You look good enough to get some male testosterone flowing. Although, you look like you could use some food and water.” She reaches back behind her, picks up a tin cup and a bowl, and thrusts them at me. “Eat and drink up.”
I recall Blaise’s rules of survival, particularly the one where he told me never to eat or drink anything I didn’t prepare myself.
“No, thanks. I’m not hungry.” But my stomach grumbles in contradiction.
She snatches the cup from me and shoves the brim against my lips. “You will do what I say and will be grateful for every bite of food and every sip of water. We don’t usually offer our prisoners such luxuries, but I’m making an exception right now so you don’t faint before I have my fun.” She tilts the cup and forces the water into my mouth.
I choke as the water slips down my throat and drips down my chin and neck. After she has emptied the cup, she throws it aside and then stuffs bits of charred meat between my lips. When she turns around to grab a knife off the dresser, I spit the food onto the ground then step forward to hide the evidence under my feet.
She turns with a knife in her hand and points the tip at my pulse. “Your heart’s pounding. You’re afraid. Hybrids aren’t usually afraid.” When I say nothing, she lowers the knife from my neck. A few droplets of my blood dot the blade. “Come on. I think they’re already waiting for us.”
She steps inside the main area of the tent, and I follow, feeling sickened over every word she spoke to me, every touch she stole from me. But the feeling alleviates when I spot Ryder, Reece, and Blaise sitting on the floor near the chairs. Their clothing and faces are smudged with mud, but I can’t see any scrapes, cuts, or bruises on their skin. And they’re awake and not giggling and sobbing like the last time I saw them.
“I brought you a present.” Zinnia shoves me forward.
I trip over the train of the dress and stumble in the dirt. Ryder leaps to his feet, his arms circling my waist to steady me. I rest my head against his chest as all the fear, worry, and self-disgust bottled up inside my chest crash over me. I want to cry over being touched by Zinnia. I want to scream at myself for not being a better liar. Most of all, I want to warn them of the Deorum and the sacrifice and how Zinnia is going to test us to see if we’re hybrids.
“Ryder, I have to tell you something.” My voice wobbles. “They’re going to kill us. They’re sacrificing us to the Deorum.”
Every single muscle in Ryder’s body stiffens, but he traces his finger up and down my spine. “Sh … I’ve got you. You’re safe now. We’ll protect you.”
“This is what you all wanted, right?” Jealously rings in Zinnia’s tone. “What you begged for instead of me? Honestly, I don’t get it. I mean, I know everyone at the station tries to preach about compassion, but how can you possibly care for someone who might be part of the thing that ruined your lives? It’s disgusting.”
Ryder’s fingers stop moving. “What are you talking about?”
Oh, God, she’s going to tell him she thinks I’m a hybrid.
“I’m talking about her being a Grim,” she says, her tone frigid. “Or, at least, half-Grim.”
“You’re lying.” Ryder breathes fiercely. “How dare you say she’s one of those monsters. You’re just bitter because no one wants you.”
“How dare you disrespect me!” she shouts. “I should have my guard’s shoot you dead right now.”
“Do it,” Ryder taunts. “You keep threatening the same thing, yet you never follow through. And you want to know why? Because you can’t. You need us and every other prisoner you’ve got trapped beneath the ground.”
“For a sacrifice,” she fires back. “But you know what? I’m starting to think I might have more than enough prisoners. I could easily eliminate a few.”
“Do it, then,” Ryder goads, his hands splaying across my lower back. “I dare you.”
“Ryder,” Reece warns. “That’s enough. You’re only making this worse.”
Ryder’s fingers fold inward, but he stays quiet.
I tilt my head and glance at Zinnia, wondering what she’s about to do.
She gives me a look that could kill before glaring at Ryder. “You’re going to regret ever rejecting me. And when I prove you wrong, when I prove she’s one of them, I’m going to make you watch as I kill her,” Zinnia snarls then spins toward the entrance of the tent. “Wrath! Bring me the handcuffs!”
Wrath enters the tent a split second later, dressed head to toe in leather and carrying four sets of rusty chains, each linked to a set of metal cuffs. They’re definitely not like the magnetic handcuffs I’m used to, but they look equally as uncomfortable.
“Sit down. All of you.” Zinnia hauls me away from Ryder and pushes me down again.
I land on my hands and knees with a grunt and quickly crawl over beside Blaise. Sitting down beside him, I cover my legs up with the train of the dress, trying to cover as much of myself up as I can.
Ryder takes a seat on the other side of Reece, looking as if he’s one step away from wringing Zinnia’s neck.
Zinnia huddles with Wrath and whispers a few words, causing Wrath’s expression to harden.
While they’re distracted, Blaise leans toward me, his shoulder grazing mine “Are you okay?”
I nod, but I can’t look him in the eye. How can I after what Zinnia said about the foreign creature who led the Grim to this world? What if I am this creature? Blaise may have been okay with me being different, but I doubt he’d be okay with that.
“Don’t worry,” Blaise whispers. “We have a plan. A few more minutes, and we’ll be out of this mess.”
My lips part to ask him what the plan is, but Wrath stomps up to us, and I snap my mouth shut.
“No talking,” he barks, dropping all but one of the handcuffs down on the ground. Winding around me, he seizes my arms behind my back and buckles a metal cuff on each of my wrists. Then he deliberately drags his finger up my spine and puts his lips close to my ear. “I can’t wait until I get to kill your friend,” he whispers. “You’re the prize. And I never lose.”
I slant forward, recoiling, my hair spilling over my shoulders.
He laughs then moves on to Blaise, grabbing ahold of his arm. With a twist of his wrist, Wrath bends Blaise’s hand in the wrong direction. I hear a snap of bones breaking, and Blaise’s face contorts in pain.
“I’m going to fucking kill you for that,” Blaise grits through his t
eeth.
“Maybe I should break your other hand, too, then,” Wrath sneers, his knuckles whitening as he grasps Blaise’s good arm.
“Don’t.” Zinnia steps up in front of us, holding the leather pouch she waved in front of my face earlier. “I can’t have him completely incapacitated.”
Wrath’s lip curls as he scowls at Zinnia. “Whatever you want, your highness.”
Zinnia orders him to finish handcuffing Reece, Ryder, and Blaise. Wrath does what he’s told then drags a chair over to the center of the tent and takes a seat to watch the show.
Terror lashes through me as Zinnia opens the pouch and reaches inside. When she withdraws her hand, she’s holding a handful of dry, brownish-green leaves—quercu. I’m not sure what I expected, but definitely not leave. Still, those leaves call to me, beckoning me to taste them. The intoxicating scent sends my body into a mad frenzy.
“No. No. No. You can’t eat them, or you’re done for,” someone says. “Then it can’t be undone.”
My head whips around, and for a fraction of a second, I swear I see someone race across the tent. But when I blink, they’re gone.
Zinnia waves her hand around in the air, and the crisp smell of the leaves catches in the air.
I breathe in deeply, and my mouth waters, a moan escaping my lips.
Blaise’s gaze darts to me, alarm flooding his eyes.
My stomach turns. Look how appalled he is. He knows how much you want it.
Zinnia approaches Ryder first. “Open your mouth.”
Ryder glares at her with his lips fused together.
“Open your mouth, or I’ll break your jaw,” she snaps.
Glowering at her, Ryder unhitches his jaw and opens his mouth. Zinnia reaches forward to put a flake on his tongue, but at the last second, she draws back and sets the leaf on her lips. Then she slants forward and presses her mouth to Ryder’s.
Ryder cringes, and Zinnia’s eyes wander in my direction as she shoves the leaf into his mouth with her tongue.
I recollect the memory I had where I was almost kissed and how I ran away, afraid of the hunger rising inside me. I then look away, unable to stand the sight of them. I hate that he’s being forced to eat quercu by Zinnia. But something else is also bothering me, something I don’t fully understand, and quite frankly, it makes me want to crawl over and claw Zinnia’s face off.
“Where the hell did you get quercu?” Reece asks, shocked. “That stuff is practically extinct.”
“I bought it off a traveler,” Zinnia replies, smacking her lips. “You’d be surprised how often it comes in handy.”
Hearing her voice means she’s no longer kissing Ryder, so I turn my head and look at them.
“What do you do with it?” Blaise shakes his head in disgust. “Make trades? Because the only things that want that stuff are the Grim, and if you’re trading with them, then that makes you a traitor.”
“A traitor to whom?” She raises her brows in speculation. “Everyone at Leviter Station? Because one might say that entire place is full of traitors.”
“No one there is a traitor.” Blaise’s eyes snap cold. “We help people, not try to kill them, unlike the Forsaken.”
“Oh. You think so?” She inches toward Blaise. “Then tell me, when your team shows up here, will they or will they not try to kill me?”
“Why would a team show up here?” Reece asks. “They don’t know where this camp is.”
“They didn’t know until you told them.” She crouches down in front of Reece, still cupping flakes of dried leaves in her hand. “You guys are smarter than I gave you credit. Counting the steps from the caves to our camp and then finding my radio transmitter to send out a code. But how did you find the transmitter while you were so doped up? You shouldn’t have even been able to think about anything else other than your nightmares.”
“Your dreamland is weak. Whoever you got it from screwed you over. My bet is you probably killed a wanderer and stole it off them,” Reece accuses. When she doesn’t deny it, he shakes his head. “You deserve what’s coming to you.”
She leans forward, getting in Reece’s face. “You think just because some rescue team is coming, that you’re saved? You forget how savagely we fight. We don’t need computers or machines to protect us, unlike you.”
Reece carries her gaze, refusing to lean back. “If that’s the case, then why do you have a radio transmitter, Tasers, an electromagnetic pulse activator, a scanner, and a broken chaser hidden in the dirt underneath your bed?”
“Zinnia, what’s he talking about?” Wrath asks, his fingers curling around the armrest. “We don’t have those kinds of things at this camp.”
“It’s your highness,” Zinnia tells him without taking her eyes off Reece. “And that’s none of your business.”
“None of my business?” Wrath starts to rise to his feet, fuming mad. “The whole point of our way of life is to exist without the machines the Grim created and used to bring violence to our world!”
“The Grim didn’t create all the machines. Humans had their own machinery and weaponry.” She reels around. “And there was violence in our world before the Grim came along. That’s the problem with humans. We turn on our own kind, which is why I have all that stuff—to protect us from our own kind.”
Anger simmers in Wrath’s eyes as he steps toward her. “We don’t need that stuff to protect us. We’ve been doing just fine without it.”
“Yes, we have, but things change.” Her fingers fold inward, crunching the quercu leaves. “The Grim put bounties on not only Nameless but humans. Any human could turn in an escaped Nameless now.” Her gaze flicks in my direction. “Or an unbranded human in exchange for immunity.”
“No human would be stupid enough to fall for that shit.” Wrath straightens his stance, his head almost clipping the ceiling. “The Grim would never give anyone immunity. It’s probably a trap. They probably capture the people stupid enough to fall for it and get double the prisoners.”
“Of course that’s what they’re doing,” she snaps. “But that isn’t going to stop people from believing them. And I’m not about to let us be susceptible simply because we refuse to steer away from the old ways. Yes, I understand that machines aided in the destruction of mankind, but we also need to be able to protect ourselves from the violence.”
He eliminates the space between them, towering over her. “Those old ways make us who we are. Without them, we’re just as bad as everyone else.”
“Those old ways were created by our ancestors who had no clue what the outcome of our world was going to be,” she says. “I’ve already heard rumors of human hunters grouping together to track down humans. We need protection and not just from the Grim anymore.”
“The Deorum will protect us,” Wrath growls, his nostrils flaring. “We have a truce. We give them ten lives every month, and in exchange, they protect us.”
“The Deorum protect us from hybrids, not the Grim or humans.” She stands toe to toe with him. “We already have a hard enough time making that quota.”
“Then we will find some other way.” He leans in, his face inches from hers. “We don’t need to use transmitters and electromagnetic pulses. That’s not how we do things.”
“That’s not your call to make.” She pokes him in the chest, and he staggers back. “You’re severely out of line by speaking to me this way.”
Metal snapping draws my attention away from their argument. I glance to my right to find Blaise unshackled and rotating his broken wrist … or what I thought was a broken wrist. By the way he moves it, the bones don’t appear to be broken. Either that or Blaise has rapid healing abilities, too.
He puts a finger to his lips, indicating for me to keep quiet. Then he reaches behind me and bends the cuffs until the metal gives way.
“Hold still until I get Reece and Ryder’s handcuffs off, okay?” he whispers.
I nod, keeping my hands behind my back as Blaise shifts toward Reece. He works quickly, snapping the cuffs o
ff them. By the time he’s finished, Zinnia and Wrath are still yelling at each other.
“Should we run?” Ryder whispers to Reece. “Or try to take them out?”
“We need to take them out.” Reece massages his wrists, his eyes trained on Zinnia and Wrath. “If we don’t, they’ll warn everyone, and we won’t make it very far.”
“Yeah, but people at the station are coming for us, right?” Blaise asks, wiggling his fingers on his should-be broken hand. “What Zinnia said about the transmitter, that’s true, right?”
Reece frees a stressed breath. “I sent out a signal, but I never got a reply. Zinnia’s transmitter was outdated. It might run on a different frequency.”
“Shit.” Blaise rubs the back of his hand across his forehead, smearing a trail of dirt across his skin. “So, what? We just snap their necks then try to slip out of the camp?”
“They have guards in lookout towers,” I whisper. “And there are towers all over the place.”
All three of them glance my way, their brows arched in surprise.
“How do you know that?” Ryder leans around Blaise and lowers his voice. “I didn’t notice any when we came in.”
“You were kind of out of it when we came in,” I say quietly. “And I didn’t even notice them until Calla, the girl who brought me to Zinnia, pointed them out. There’s one on each corner of the fence.”
“They have torches set up around the fence, too.” Blaise shoves the sleeves of his leather jacket up, revealing the tattoos on his arms. “My guess is they light them up at night so they can keep watch from the towers.”
“So we blow out the damn torches.” Ryder crosses his arms defiantly. “No light means they can’t see for shit.”
“How the hell are we supposed to get the flames out?” Blaise hisses. “Just walk up and blow them out, hoping they don’t see us first?”
“Or we don’t do any of it and just make a run for it when the Deorum show up,” Reece suggests. “It offers the perfect distraction.”
I steal a glance in Zinnia and Wrath’s direction, making sure they’re still distracted, before scooting toward Reece. “You know what the Deorum are?”
Forsaken (Broken City Book 2) Page 11