rubber ball bouncing off the ground, which was another level of torture, another way to break us down.
I wasn’t the only one crying myself to sleep, but I tried to keep my grief tucked into my blanket, finally drifting off again before a shrill bell bolted my eyes open, my head jerking up. Panic puffed air through my lungs. Confusion swung my gaze through the bars. Across the way, I noticed inmates stirring, figures moving to their doors.
“That’s the wake-up bell.” A small voice came from the corner of my cell.
“Az istenit!” Shit. Fuck! I scrambled back, my spine smacking into the wall, my eyes searching the dark for the owner of the voice.
I thought I had been alone in my tiny cell.
“The door will be opening soon,” the male voice said, making my gaze bob and weave around, trying to make out any shape in the corner. Was I already losing my mind?
“Show yourself.” My back stayed pinned to the wall, my knees up to my chest.
“Hell, Bitzy, this one is demanding. Not even a please,” he muttered.
A squeak responded to him. I slammed my head into the hard stone. What the hell was going on?
“Where are you?” My pulse thundered against my neck.
A deep shadow shifted in the corner, and a small man dragging a broom behind him stepped into the dim light streaming into my cell.
A sharp inhale burned up my throat as my eyes locked on the being. His huge nose was the first thing I noticed, dominating his heart-shaped face, his ears slightly pointed. Brown eyes, brown hair and beard, the man was less than a foot tall, wearing what appeared to be a large orange nylon pot scrubber as shorts or possibly a tutu, and a stitched sock for a shirt.
“Are you…” I gulped. “Y-you’re a brownie, right?”
I had heard about them. Seen pictures, but had never seen one in person. Istvan made sure sub-fae were kept out of HDF by poisoning them like rats. Brownies inhabited houses and helped with tasks around the home. However, I heard they did not want to be seen and worked at night or when no one was around.
“Yes. And you are a human. Good thing we have that all cleared up.” He rolled his eyes, peering over his shoulder at a figure nestled in a doll-sized backpack on his back. “The naiveté is strong with this one. Won’t last long here.”
“Oh, my gods.” My hand went to my mouth, my gaze latching onto the tiny, hairless creature on his back. It somewhat resembled an aye-aye, with its bat ears and huge eyes. Less than four inches big, it had three long jointed fingers on each hand. It was both cute and scary. “What is that?”
“What is your deal, fish? You act like you’ve never seen a brownie or an imp before.”
I hadn’t. Here was another moment that made me realize how sheltered my life had been within the walls of Leopold. Fae dominated our world, but except for fairies and a few shape-shifters, my encounters with them had been minimal.
“Fish?”
“It’s the term here for a newbie. You’re a fish out of water. Fresh meat.”
I’d been called worse things.
“Who will soon turn stinky, your corpse rotting and smelling up the joint.”
Oh.
“This is Bitzy.” He nodded at the thing on his back. The animal thing tilted his head at me, its lids narrowing. “Bitzy, this is Fishy.”
Bitzy’s huge eyes blinked at me, and it squeaked, then picked up its three-pronged hand, curling two of them down, leaving the middle one.
“Bitzy,” the brownie exclaimed through a chuckle. “Sorry, Bitzy can be a bit of an asshole.”
“And you are?”
“Oh, I’m totally an asshole.”
The first smile tugged at my mouth. “I meant your name.”
“Opie.”
“I thought brownies didn’t like being seen.”
“Oh, good! I love stereotypes.” Opie waved his arms around while Bitzy flipped me off with the other hand. “Sure, we’re all the same. No individual personality, and next you’re gonna say I should enjoy cleaning.”
“Don’t you?”
“For fuck’s sake!” He stomped his foot. “Would you like washing up after people? All their shit—literally. And humans are the worst. Lazy. Selfish. Think everyone else should tidy up their mess for them. So don’t for a moment think I will be cleaning after you.”
“Then what are you doing?” I flicked my fingers at him, trying not to smile.
He glanced down, his arms dragging the broom back and forth across the floor.
“Damn it!” He chucked the sweeper to the floor. “I have anxiety issues, which makes