don’t know how to feel about the fact that he knows that. It’s like he’s been watching me closely, while I’d pretty much forgotten that he was even here.
“Who are you?” the girl asks, her voice wary. “Are you sure she’s even alive? She doesn’t look…” she trails off, and the loss that I hear in her tone befuddles me.
Why would this stranger care if I’m alive or not?
“She’s alive,” he replies quietly. “She seems to shut down after a certain point when Morax is…”
He doesn’t say torturing her, but he doesn’t really need to. I heard her wake up, heard her gasp when I was being cut. She can see the state of my body.
I file the word Morax away. I haven’t heard it before, and I don’t know if that’s Ophidian’s real name or something else. When I have the use of my mouth and vocal cords again, I’ll have to ask.
“Who are you?” she asks again, not missing the fact that he hasn’t answered that portion of her question.
“Does it matter?” he asks, and I can hear the defeat in it.
“Well, yeah it matters. You just want me to call ya hey, you while we work together to get out of here?” she questions, and it’s as though she has no doubt that we will be getting out of here.
I’m not that optimistic.
The chained guy scoffs quietly, like he’s also not at all impressed by her positive thinking.
I wonder how long he’s been down here? How long has he suffered under Ophidian’s wrath before I showed up?
I feel my wings disappear at my back, and relief cascades through me. Ophidian cut those up too, so it’ll be one less thing I’ll feel healing when my control kicks back in. I’m not really sure what to think of the appendages and their blinking in and out. I find it ironic that I’ve gone from people flickering in and out of being monsters, to me doing it.
My wings disappearing seem to draw the girl’s focus from our green-skinned cellmate back to me. “Sable, I don’t know if you can hear me, but my name is Medley Bell. I’m gonna get you out of here. My mates’ll be lookin’ for me. So will Delta and her mates. We just gotta hang on until they find us,” she tells me, and I wish I could reach out and clutch the hope I hear in her voice, but I can’t.
It’s not real.
If there’s one thing I know, it’s that Ophidian will come back, and when he does, either she or I or maybe both will start to wish we’d never even been born. I just hope I can shove the darkness out of my limbs fast enough to get some answers before that happens.
5
I must’ve passed out at some point, because when I wake up again, I’m back in my cage, lying on nothing but the shredded remains of the scratchy blanket. There’s a plate of food waiting near the bars, and even though it doesn’t look anywhere near appetizing, my stomach clenches at the sight of it.
I test my fingers and toes before I try to sit up, and when I can successfully wriggle all twenty of them, I tentatively push upright. A groan slips past my lips, and I look down to see some black and blue bruises still marked up my sides. I grimace as I press against my ribs slightly, and even though it’s tender, I’m glad to find that my ribs don’t feel broken. You never know with Ophidian. It’s not like he goes easy on me.
My bare legs look terrible with pink healing lines marring them all over. I look like I got in a fight with a crew of razor blades and lost. But at least they’re not bleeding or even scabbed anymore. Yay for healing quickly—even if I don’t understand how.
“Sable?”
My eyes snap up to the woman who’s peering at me through the bars that separate us. I pull my knees against my chest, because other than my filthy bra and panties, I’m still naked.
The woman has pale lavender hair and wings that are the same color. I can’t look away for a moment, because her face...there’s something familiar about her.
“Here,” she says, and then she’s pulling off her shoes and handing me the socks right off her feet.
I don’t move, my eyes flicking from her outstretched hand back to her eyes. Her gray eyes.