by Martha Carr
“You mean, to get your ass kicked.” Cheyenne thought about rejecting the man’s hand when he offered it to help her up, but only for a second.
Rhynehart pulled her to her feet, and she gritted her teeth at the new wave of pain searing through her hip and up her side.
Folding his arms, Rhynehart nodded. “You have no idea what I’m talking about.”
“You think I wouldn’t have used a shield if I could?” Cheyenne blew strands of bone-white hair away from her face. “No. I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Berserker.” He nodded and turned away to head toward the double doors. “But only when things get real bad.”
“I’m not…I can control it. Most of the time.” The halfling limped after him, the chains draping from her wrists jingling with every uneven step.
“Sure. You could’ve ripped me in half like my weapon, but you didn’t. So, there’s that.” Rhynehart stopped and faced the doors. They buzzed and gave a click. He pulled both handles, and the doors opened. “You can control yourself enough not to destroy everything around you, which means you have a conscience. That’s not the number-one trait we’re looking for, but in a drow halfling, that’s about as rare as a full-blooded human with magic.”
Cheyenne pushed to keep up with the guy as he led her through the lobby with all the desks. None of the magicals stationed around the room acknowledged the operative or the limping halfling. “Are you trying to convince me drow lack consciences?”
“No.” Rhynehart stopped at an empty cubicle at the end of the row and paused. “All the ones I’ve met, though.”
“How many have you met?”
“Enough.” He picked up a tablet that resembled the one Dr. Cheery had carried and tapped on the touch keyboard. “Before you ask, no, we don’t keep any drow on the compound, and we don’t enlist them for our operations.”
“Cool. So I can go home.”
“Not yet.”
“What?”
When he finished typing, Rhynehart set the tablet on the cubicle desk and gestured at the other side of the lobby and the common room. “We still have to figure out what to do with you.”
“You said you don’t keep drow at your beck and call.” The halfling gritted her teeth as she matched the man’s pace. “Which, to be clear, I’m not interested in anyhow.”
He stopped and turned halfway toward her. “You have an alternative in mind?”
Careful, Cheyenne. This might be the part where they decide whether to leave you alone or pack you up and ship you off to somewhere you don’t wanna be.
She blinked. “Letting me go would be awesome.”
Rhynehart studied her and narrowed his eyes. “Not looking like that.”
A glance at her purple-gray hands reminded her of her necessary return to human form. She closed her eyes, took a breath, and thought of the woods outside her childhood home way out in Henry County. Her skin prickled with the change, and that was it. When she opened her eyes, Rhynehart was stalking off down the short hall toward the common room.
“You’re still hangin’ around for a little longer, halfling.”
What the hell do they want from me?
She took off after him. The limp was still there, but the pain in her hip had receded to an annoying but otherwise dull ache.
When they reached the common room, the place was almost empty. One female troll in black—she had deep-purple skin with scarlet hair braided tightly to her head and spilling down her back—sat at one of the round tables at the far end of the room. She didn’t look up from a thick stack of paper bound with plastic rings when Rhynehart headed toward the side with the TV mounted above the fireplace.
“What’s next, then?” Cheyenne stopped as Rhynehart bent toward the empty fireplace and snatched something off the wide stone hearth wrapping all the way around the wall. “Now you know I’m not trying to kill you, so, test complete?”
“Yep.” The man dropped onto the closest couch in the half-circle of lounge furniture facing the fireplace. “The results were inconclusive, so we’re gonna try something else.”
“Inconclusive? Because I broke your toy?”
“You like Stranger Things?” Rhynehart lifted the remote toward the giant TV and turned it on. “I haven’t had the chance to watch it yet, but I’ve heard good things.”
“What are you doing?”
“I’m gonna watch Stranger Things.” He nodded toward the other couch, then returned his attention to the TV and scrolled through the menu. “Take a seat. We have at least an hour to kill. Who knows? Maybe we’ll find we have something in common.”
Cheyenne folded her arms. “You want me to watch TV with you?”
“It’s not a requirement. Feel free to pace around the room or meditate or pick your black fingernails for all I care. But you can’t leave this room until we have our last meeting, and that’s scheduled for thirteen-hundred hours. Up to you.” The TV settled on one show, and while the volume wasn’t particularly loud, the sound still filled the common room enough for everyone to know what was playing.
To Cheyenne, it sounded like the thing was on full blast.
I’m not sitting here doing nothing for an hour.
She turned around and headed back toward the lobby, which had to have some kind of exit. When she got within three yards of the short hallway leading from the common room, purple light flared in a shimmering wall ahead of her, held in place by the female troll’s outstretched finger.
“I wouldn’t.” The troll didn’t look up from her massive stack of light reading.
Cheyenne scowled at her. “Yeah, I bet.”
“Come on, halfling.” Rhynehart waved her back as he stared at the giant TV. “It’s starting.”
With a last glance at the troll, Cheyenne limped four tables down. That put two rows of round tables between her and the mental FRoE operative with his arm slung over the back of the couch. Not close to enough personal space, but I’ll deal with it.
She pulled out a chair and sat, folding her arms. The TV droned on and on, and the half-drow stared at the chipped edge of the table. Two o’clock on Tuesday. I’ve missed three days of classes, and who knows what else. Now I’m sitting here while Mr. TV binges his soap opera. This meeting better be important.
* * *
Fifty minutes later—Cheyenne was keeping track with the digital clock on the wall above the vending machine—Sir marched into the common room and thumped the armrest of Rhynehart’s couch. “You called, I answered. Let’s go, Rhynehart.”
“Sir.” The operative glanced over his shoulder as his superior kept walking, wrinkled his nose at the TV and the end of his show, then sighed and turned off the screen. The remote clattered onto the stone hearth, and Rhynehart stood.
“Blakely.” Sir stopped at Cheyenne’s table and pulled out a chair. “Let’s make this quick. I’ve got another debriefing in half an hour, and I could be combing my mustache right now instead.”
The halfling frowned as he sat. Everyone here is nuts.
Rhynehart joined them and grabbed his own seat, leaving an empty chair between him and the others at the round table.
“So.” Sir clasped his hands and settled them on the table. “You got your tests out of the way?”
“That’s what he told me.” Cheyenne glanced at Rhynehart, who folded his arms and stared at her.
“And the results were inconclusive.”
“Okay, what does that mean?”
“It means the terms of our deal have changed,” Sir said.
Cheyenne shook her head. “I’m not staying here any longer unless you guys knock me out and tie me up. I’ve been cooperative since I woke up chained to a hospital bed, and you told me I could leave after those ‘inconclusive tests.’”
“You can. And you will.” With a nod, Sir reached into his back pocket and pulled out a cheap burner phone that looked like the one her mom’s housekeeper had had since 2010. “As long as you agree to do things for us when we tell you to.
”
With wide eyes, Cheyenne glanced from Sir to Rhynehart and back. Their blank faces regarded her without any emotion. “You want me in your pocket?”
“We want this phone in your pocket.” Sir slid the old rock of technology across the table and folded his hands. “You’ll be on call. As raw and untrained as your abilities are, Blakely, we think we might be able to use them. And you.”
“For what?”
“For whatever we want. No questions asked.”
Cheyenne stared at the phone and pressed her lips together. I have something they want, but they’re not willing to tell me what it is. They think they can keep an eye on me by giving me my own crappy phone. “I have to keep this phone on me all the time?”
“Day and night,” Rhynehart said.
“In the shower,” Sir added. “It’s waterproof.”
“Right. And I’m guessing it’s part of the deal that every time I get a call, I have to answer.”
Sir blinked and raised an eyebrow at Rhynehart.
The operative shrugged. “She’s a lot better at guessing than she is at mastering drow magic.”
Cheyenne shot Rhynehart a warning glance. I’m gonna let that one slide.
“If you take that phone,” Sir added, pointing toward the item no one made a move to touch, “you’re agreeing to uphold every aspect of this little arrangement on your end. Understand?”
She studied the two men studying her, then reached toward the phone and paused. They think I can’t read the fine print. Or at least they’re hoping I won’t. Better lay some ground rules now. “If I take this phone, it’ll be on my terms.”
Sir released a dry chuckle. “I’ll add to it, Rhynehart. She’s better at negotiating than you are. Okay, halfling. What are your terms?”
“Nobody follows me. Anywhere.”
Sir’s and Rhynehart’s stoic expressions didn’t change. They waited for her to keep going.
“If I get a whiff of one of your guys within a hundred yards of me, I’m tossing that thing in the trash.” Cheyenne nodded at the phone. “Then you’re out one anonymous drow halfling living off the radar.”
“Done.” Sir slapped his hands on the table and turned toward his operative. “Show her the way out, Rhynehart. Take her wherever she wants to go.”
“Sir.”
Both men stood, and Cheyenne stayed where she was.
“Don’t let yourself get too busy, Blakely.” Sir nodded, looked her up and down, then shrugged. “You’ll need to start moving your schedule around soon.”
He turned away and clomped out of the common room in his heavy boots. Rhynehart stared at her when the halfling looked at him. He shot a pointed glance at the phone, and she slid it across the table before pulling it into her lap.
“All right, halfling. Let’s go.”
After she stood, Cheyenne slipped the burner phone into the pocket of her baggy pants and scooted her chair under the table, doing it mainly because Sir and Rhynehart hadn’t scooted theirs.
The man cast a longing glance at the giant TV over the fireplace, then sighed and headed across the common room toward the lobby. The troll still sat at the table on the end, but she glanced up this time when Rhynehart and the drow halfling, who looked like a disheveled Goth girl without her makeup, padded past. The purple-skinned woman lifted her fingers from the table and wiggled them. “Have fun.”
Whether the troll was speaking to the FRoE operative-turned-chaperone or the half-drow, neither of them knew.
Chapter Forty
The lobby did have an exit, a dull-slate-gray door with a crash bar and zero indication of where it led. Cheyenne squinted against the bright afternoon sun. Her vision adjusted before the door clicked shut behind her.
Rhynehart marched across a bare concrete parking lot surrounded by barbed-wire fencing. The fence went all the way to the tree line of the thick forest around the FRoE compound. Cheyenne turned to survey the vast, innocuous gray building stretching far in either direction, with trees around it for as far as she could see.
Two lines of Jeeps, Land Rovers, Humvees, and other SUVs stretched across the parking lot. Rhynehart strode alongside the row to their right and slid a hand into his pocket. Cheyenne limped to catch up.
“I get escorted off the FRoE premises in one of these monsters, huh?”
“Something like that.” Without taking his hand out of his pocket, the man unlocked a car from a remote fob. A vehicle at the end of the line chirped and flashed its headlights before Cheyenne could see what it was. “Where am I dropping you off?”
Not anywhere they can find me later. The halfling shrugged. “Corner of Plazaview and Berkley will work.”
Rhynehart turned around to shoot her a curious frown, then shrugged. “Sure. That’s not too far away.”
They reached the end of the cars, and the man stepped between the last glistening black Range Rover and a silver Toyota Sienna. He opened the front passenger door of the Sienna and held it for her. “Hop in.”
“Oh, I get it. The halfling didn’t sign on full-time, so the halfling gets driven around in the soccer-mom van. Nice touch.”
“Don’t flatter yourself. This is the one with a full tank of gas.”
“Whatever.” As Cheyenne walked past him toward the open passenger-side door, Rhynehart removed his hand from his pocket and brought it down on her shoulder. A sharp sting flared down her arm and up her back, and the halfling whirled to glare at him. “What the hell was that?”
“Get in the car.”
Rubbing her shoulder through her fishnet overshirt, Cheyenne scowled and climbed into the minivan.
Rhynehart shut the door and strode around the front of the van to get behind the wheel. The engine turned when he pressed the keyless start, then he strapped himself in and waited for the halfling to do the same. He turned in his seat and stared at her.
The second Cheyenne clicked her seatbelt into the buckle, she felt sick. A wave of dizziness and warmth washed over her. He did it. The asshole drugged me.
She lifted her head and cast him a sideways glance beneath heavy eyelids. “That was…”
“Protocol. Mostly.” Rhynehart shrugged. “Wasn’t quite sure how much it takes for a drow, even a halfling, so it’s a little bit heavier than normal. But it’s quick. Long enough to make sure you can’t track your way back here before we’re ready to have you back.”
“And you still want…” Cheyenne’s tongue was thick and heavy in her mouth. She gritted her teeth against the next onslaught of warmth, except she couldn’t feel her teeth.
“I’d tell you not to fight it,” the man gave her a sympathetic shrug, “but I can wait.”
He didn’t have to wait long. Cheyenne couldn’t do anything about the darkness overwhelming her. Her head slumped against the passenger seat’s headrest, and she began to lean sideways toward the window.
* * *
Cheyenne woke up with a snarl and slammed her fist into the passenger-side door. Crackling purple sparks raced across the interior, and Rhynehart lost control of the power steering for a moment.
“Hey, put that shit away!” He swerved to the right side of the road, which was fortunately straight and empty of other cars.
“Or what? You’ll drug me?”
The steering wheel creaked under Rhynehart’s tightening grip. Cheyenne took a deep breath, closed her eyes, and thought of the woods. The flare of heat overwhelming her body disappeared, and she was simply a pissed-off Goth girl who’d woken up from a super-sized sleeping cocktail.
“You didn’t have to do that,” she said through clenched teeth.
“We do it to everyone, halfling. You’re no exception.”
“What happened to blindfolds or a black bag over my face?”
Rhynehart shot her a glance before returning his attention to the road. “Yeah, and let you map out an auditory route back to a FRoE base of operations? Nice try.”
“You people have some seriously misplaced self-importance.” Cheyenne swiped
her black hair out of her face and reached up to feel the tip of her ear. Completely round and human. “I spent almost five days sleeping in your base of operations. Why the hell would I want to find my way back there?”
“Same reason you showed up at that event center on Thursday.” Rhynehart cocked his head, and the corner of his mouth twitched. “Because you could.”
She didn’t have anything to say to that, so she focused on where they were. Definitely in Richmond, and close to her drop-off point. They pulled up at the corner of Plazaview and Berkley two minutes later, and Cheyenne had her seatbelt off and the passenger door open before the man had shifted into park.
“Thanks for the ride,” she muttered. “I had a blast.”
“Yeah, me too.” Rhynehart looked at her with raised eyebrows. “My favorite kinda drive. Nice and quiet. Don’t forget about that phone—”
Cheyenne shut the door and didn’t care that she still heard him finish his sentence. She shoved her hands into her pockets and stormed down the sidewalk. Rhynehart drove away, beeping the horn as he passed her, and headed off to who knew where. Cute.
When she was sure the minivan was out of sight and out of range, the halfling turned and walked in the opposite direction toward her car. She’d left the thing by the landfill Thursday night before she’d gone to the event center and the meeting of high-level magical thugs.
I’ll be some kinda lucky if my car’s still there.
She could have slipped into drow form and covered the distance quickly, but it was the middle of the afternoon in broad daylight. She wasn’t in any particular hurry to get there to find her car stolen or towed or something else extra inconvenient over the last five days.
But it wasn’t.
Her Ford Focus with its peeling, matte-gray paint was where she’d parked it that night. No broken windows. No graffiti or massive scratches. No boot or tickets. At least something’s going my way today.
She opened the driver-side door and scowled. “Guess somebody had a good time camping out in here, though.”