by Amber Garr
“No, no, no,” I sobbed.
“It is all right, my dear.” Iain’s quiet voice was hard to hear over the sound of another tree trunk hitting the earth. “Please send my love to Gabriella…” his words disappeared just as the last of his ashes dropped to the ground. The pile of grey remains sat by my feet like they’d never been alive a moment ago.
Iain was gone forever.
Through my crying eyes, I did the best I could to scoop him back into a pile. Perhaps Noah could bury him again later. But then you’d have to tell him how it happened. Ignoring the voice in my head, I searched the area for the metal box. When I spotted it a few feet away, I reached over the mound of ashes to get it.
And then someone kicked me in the ribs and white hot pain flashed over my vision in an instant.
“Ah!” I cried out, afraid I’d heard bones cracking. When I tried to take a breath, a different foot found the same spot to kick again. “Stop!” I shouted.
“Take her now!” Ethren commanded to whoever was standing over top of me.
Two pairs of arms lifted me in the air, unconcerned for the amount of pain they were causing. I think I tried to fight back, but every time I moved the right side of my body, piercing stings radiated all over like venom. I couldn’t inhale a full breath and I feared one of my broken ribs might have also punctured a lung.
“Cressa, no!” Noah’s shout was cut short when Ethren punched him in the side of the face and he dropped to the ground.
My captors hauled me closer to the fight, feet dragging through the soil behind me like useless weapons. With the way my arms were lifted, I struggled just to stay conscious. A streak of red flashed in front of me and then the redheaded tracker from the library shoved her boot into Noah’s back. She spat some incantation that held Noah to the ground like a paralyzed dog.
“Do you see this, brother?” Ethren asked as he spit blood on Noah and wiped his mouth with the sleeve of his leather jacket. “They are here to take her. Thanks to you, she will be in the Reformatory for many years to come. And you will have to live with the guilt of forcing her into her demise.”
Noah made a noise although no coherent words came out. But when our eyes met, a thousand messages passed between us. And I knew, right then, that he hadn’t lied to me about everything. Some of what happened between us had been real.
“Take her.” Ethren commanded again. “I still have some more things I’d like to discuss with Noah.”
The two male trackers yanked me away, only the sounds of Noah getting punched roaring through my ears. That gave me some strength though, and I started kicking at anyone within foot-reaching distance.
“Stop moving,” one of the guys said. “Charlotte, spell her!”
The redhead jumped in front of us with an evil grin plastered all over her face. She was tiny, like Brit tiny. But I barely had a moment to think that before she grabbed my forehead and pulled my head down toward her.
“Hello necromancer,” she purred. “I’ve been waiting a long time to meet you.”
“The pleasure is all mine,” I snarled.
Her smile fell and she narrowed her eyes at me. “Sorry, but this might hurt a little bit.”
“What—” As the word brushed over my lips, a jolting pain seized my head. Where I had thought the broken rib and possible punctured lung had been bad, this type of agony couldn’t even be described. Swarms of bees, jellyfish, and fire ant stings would not have put this hurt to shame. I tried to cry out, but my jaw wouldn’t move, instead it stayed locked in a call of permanent torture.
I barely remembered them dragging me through the meadow because by the time we’d reached the tree line, I’d passed out from the pain.
The sharp smell of ozone jolted me awake. I opened my eyes first, fearful for what I might see. But the blackness around me calmed any fear. I wiggled my nose and discovered that a blindfold covered my sight.
I was in a car, but we were no longer moving. Metal cuffs bound my wrists and I was lying on my left side in the back seat. When I opened my mouth, the tightness of a fresh cut tugged at my face. I tasted blood in the back of my throat but I wasn’t sure if that was coming from Ethren’s little present or from my broken lungs.
“Welcome Cressa Ravensdale,” someone said a second before I was pulled out of the car. My head hit the top of the door, causing a shooting pain to race through to my toes. “Oops. Sorry about that.”
I recognized the voice now. Charlotte. The redhead who’d been following me.
She ripped the blindfold from my eyes, the artificial light temporarily blinding my vision and causing even more hurt in my head. “Come with me.” With bony fingers digging into my skin, she dragged me through a building entrance and down a hallway.
As my eyes adjusted, I noted the circular reception-like desk in the large foyer we’d just entered. And the white walls. Every single space in this building was made of white. Ceiling tiles at least two stories high—stark white. The recently waxed tiled floor—white. Even the clothing of the handful of workers flitting around the entrance area and disappearing behind closed doors—white.
Everything was white, except for me and Charlotte. “Where are we going?” I asked. “I want to see my brother.”
Charlotte huffed. “Oh, I don’t think so. You’re not ever going to see your brother, magic whore.”
She yanked me around a corner, paying no attention to my injuries. We passed a set of double doors—bright, shiny stainless steel double doors that contrasted with everything around us. And when I caught my reflection in them, I almost cried out. From the top of my head down to the shallow neck of my sweater, dried blood encrusted my skin. I didn’t know where it all came from, but I really needed to see if it was mine.
“When can I clean up?”
Charlotte looked at me and wrinkled her otherwise pretty face up into a ball of rage. “If I had my way? Never.”
“Why do you hate me so much?” I asked when she “accidentally” slammed me into another corner. “I’ve never done anything to you.”
“No?” she spat at me. “People like you will ruin it for everyone. There’s a reason we have rules in our world.” Charlotte stopped short and pushed her finger into my face. “You should have just stuck to your stupid parlor tricks.”
She knew about that? Not that my job doing mundane card magic was illegal, but just how long had they been watching me?
We reached the end of the hallway where a lone door sat quietly by itself. But this one was red and screamed at me to turn around. Charlotte pulled out a small plastic card from inside her jacket and swiped an invisible keypad. Several locks clicked and with a whooshing sound that blew back my hair, the door opened.
Inside was a tiny room, not much bigger than my bedroom in the apartment. Brit! I suddenly remembered that I had a roommate and I knew she would be worried about me. Why that hadn’t crossed my mind earlier, I didn’t know. At some point the overload simply shut down my capacity to think.
“Sit,” commanded Charlotte.
I glanced at the metal chair placed in the middle of the room. Then I looked up and saw the cameras in every corner. This was the Reformatory. Even though no one had officially introduced me yet. I knew. I wasn’t in one of the cells, but I was being watched.
Charlotte shoved me forward and my ribs throbbed. “I said sit!”
I decided to comply. To take in my situation before acting irrationally. To study my surroundings and come up with the most logical plan. To figure out a way to get even with her.
So I sat.
“Hands up,” she demanded again.
I shook my head. “I can’t. You broke my ribs.”
“Hands. Up.” She grabbed the metal cuffs and yanked my wrists up over my head. I bit my lip hard enough to draw blood just so I could misdirect the agony. Even with my eyes squeezed shut, I felt her smirk.
The cuffs broke free and as soon as she let me, I lowered my arms. Rubbing my wrists, I watched as Charlotte sauntered slowly around
me, taking me in like her prized possession. “Do you see that black ring?”
How could I not? I noticed it the second I’d walked through the door. It was the same type of ring surrounding my mother in her cell. “Yes,” I finally said.
“You will not be able to use your magic in here. That,” she pointed to the floor for emphasis, “will stop you from ever using your magic again.”
“Well, it’s not like I can raise anything from the dead without having a corpse first,” I mused. I thought I’d kept it within my head, but when Charlotte leaned forward and grabbed my shirt with a scowl, I knew I’d said it out loud.
“I could make you a corpse,” she sneered in my face.
I tried not to react. I really did. But the look on her face was priceless. All angry and wrinkly—it really didn’t suit her. Plus she sounded like some old detective movie.
“What are you smiling about?”
“Nothing,” I said, biting my tongue so hard.
Charlotte held me close a few seconds longer before slamming me back into the chair. The legs screeched on the tile floor when I slid back several inches. “Enjoy your time in here, whore.”
Without any more exchanges between us, she unlocked the door with another invisible keypad and left my sight. Once I was sealed back in the room by myself, I looked up at the camera facing directly in front of me. “Where did you find her?” I asked with a smirk. I didn’t expect an answer, but I knew someone would see me. And that was all that mattered.
In the silence, the hum of the electronics and the awful florescent lights created an orchestra of background sound I couldn’t stand. Tapping my foot in a steady rhythm, I tried to drown out the noise. When that didn’t work, I stood and walked the perimeter of the room. As I stepped closer to the lodestone in the floor, my stomach twirled with nausea and my body felt like it was being pulled down into the tiles. Heavy. It was a heavy and awkward feeling that forced me to stay closer to the center.
The red door suddenly opened and in walked an older man with downcast eyes and an uneven gait. Just as tiny as Charlotte, he looked like he might wither away at any moment, should a gust of wind hit him.
The man didn’t speak while he shuffled through the opening. Behind him, another worker in white scrubs wheeled a small metal table with equipment all over it to the center of the room. I didn’t move and instead just watched, hoping one of them would make the first introduction. The second worker, a woman somewhere in her fifties, lifted the sheet off the table in a dramatic wave and turned to leave the room. When she closed the door behind her, the old man cleared his throat.
“I am Dr. Ferrell. They sent me here to assess your injuries.”
He wouldn’t look at me and in fact kept his face hidden from the cameras on the walls above us. Curious as to why that might be, I leaned forward and whispered, “Is there anything else you need to tell me?”
His brows shot up in surprise and he quickly shook his head. A very small movement, and one that was only meant for me to notice. At least I hoped so. “Please sit down,” he said slightly louder.
I complied, moving a little slower than I would have liked. The pain in my right side was getting worse. The throbbing at an uncontrollable level now. And when my elbow banged into the chair and I jerked it away in reaction, I let out a cry.
“Is it your ribs?” Dr. Ferrell asked. He placed a stethoscope around his neck and prepared to listen to my heart. I instantly liked his old fashioned ways.
When I nodded because I couldn’t speak through the daggers piercing my lungs, he smiled. “We will get you fixed up Miss.”
“My name is Cressa,” I breathed. “Cressa Ravensdale.”
At the mention of my last name, Dr. Ferrell’s body tensed. He stopped listening to my heart and only his eyes moved to find mine. “You’re the brother of River? The daughter of Gabriella?”
“Yes, I am.”
He stood up straighter and removed the antiquated equipment from his neck. “I see,” he said with a nod. His feet scraped the floor as he moved around the portable table beside me. Searching through a pile of medical necessities on the shelves, he finally pulled out the small, hand-held scanner. When he pressed the green button on the top of the machine, a high-pitched wailing filled the room. I lifted my good arm to cover my ear.
“It just takes a minute to warm up. Then the noise will go away.”
“How do you stand it?” I asked in disgust.
He smiled and pointed to his head. “I’m partially deaf.”
I chuckled and tried to ignore the irritating sound. Dr. Ferrell set down the scanner and pulled out a few wipes from a tissue-sized container. He then moved closer to me and started dabbing at my face. The stinging plunged straight through my cut and entered my blood stream. Or at least that was what if felt like. In reality, the alcohol and antibiotic laced wipe barely scratched the surface.
“The cut is large but not too deep,” Dr. Ferrell said softly. “You will heal.” Just like I suspected I would. “There is a bloody mess here though.” I caught his kind smile and returned it. “Did you resist?”
“Excuse me?” I asked, taken aback by his seemingly random question.
“Did you earn these injuries resisting arrest or did you turn yourself in like your mother?”
When I jerked my head up in surprise, the wipe Dr. Ferrell was holding accidentally hit the inside of my mouth. The putrid taste of chemicals and antiseptic flooded my tongue and I tried to spit it out. Once I could speak again, I asked, “You know about my mother?”
“I do,” he nodded.
The silence stretched while he finished cleaning up my face. He’d moved to my cut palm before I spoke again. “I resisted arrest,” I mumbled.
“Yes. I suspected so.” Dr. Ferrell’s gentle touch soothed me at a time when I would have thought nothing could. He reached for the scanner again and asked me to stand. “Now I know you can’t raise your arms too high, so just stay as still as possible.”
“Okay.”
He ran the scanner about one inch off of my body. Up and down. Up and down he moved the tiny equipment around me. Five minutes later he was combing through the images on the small screen. “Yep. Here we go. Broken ribs. Two of them actually.” He flipped the scanner around so that I could see the picture and then quickly turned it back. “But the good news is that your lungs were spared. No punctures.” He motioned for me to sit down again. “You’re just bruised and you will feel like it’s hard to breathe for at least the next few days. Unless they let someone heal you.”
I sat back and sighed. “I doubt that’s going to happen.”
“What did they grab you for?”
Grab me? Such an odd expression. “Using unsanctioned necromancy.”
Dr. Ferrell pressed his lips together. “I see.” He fiddled with something on the table again and then reached underneath the top shelf. “You need to put these on.”
He handed me a long-sleeved white shirt and pair of loosely fitting pants folded in a neat pile. Just like the outfit my mother was wearing in her cell. “Thanks,” I grumbled. “Hey, do you know if—”
My question was cut off when something, or someone, crashed into the door. It didn’t open, but we could hear the muffled voices quite well.
“I need to speak to her!”
“No. You are not authorized—”
“Do not give me that bullshit, Charlotte. You know as well as I do that I can go in there. Now open the fucking door!”
It was River and for the first time in a long time, his presence felt like a welcomed embrace. Even if he was angry as hell right now, he was still the only person who might be able to help me.
Dr. Ferrell and I stared at the red door like we could see through it. And we both jumped when another body slammed into the metal. “I said now!” River growled.
The alarm beeped twice in rapid succession and the door flew open. River tossed Charlotte to the floor like a ragdoll. Her hands squeaked on the tile as she skidded to a
halt.
“You will pay for this!” she growled.
River flung out his hand and she slid, faster than what should be possible, all of the way to the far end of the hallway. She made a noise when her back hit the wall, slumping slightly and head barely moving.
“Did you—” I tried to ask River about his use of magic in a room where it was stripped, but he clenched his jaw and shook his head.
“Dr. Ferrell,” he said with a slight nod. “Can I please have some time alone with my sister?”
Dr. Ferrell looked at me, waiting for my approval. I gave him a small smile, not really knowing what River had planned. But my gut said it would be okay, so I trusted it once again.
“I will check in on you tomorrow,” the doctor said. “Mr. Ravensdale.” He bowed his head ever so slightly at River and proceeded to push the small, wheeled table back out of the room. I listened to every squeak of the wheel until the door closed, wondering what was in store for me next.
I glanced up at River. His color and skin tone looked better than it had in the library, but the bags under his eyes had darkened to a visible grey. His black hair had been slicked back like he was trying to grow it out long enough for a ponytail. Small wrinkles crept over his face every place he scrunched it up in concentration. He’d aged several extra years since joining the Imperium.
“Well this is just perfect,” he finally said after pacing in front of me for several minutes.
“River, I—”
“Wait!” He cut me off, let out a deep breath, and looked directly at the camera on the wall behind me. “May I?” When nothing happened, he sighed in frustration. “Come on, man. You know I’m good for it.”
A second later, the high pitched whine of the electronic cameras disappeared and the red lights turned off. I glanced at each one, double checking. River had just given us privacy.