was no way around it.
Isabelle threw herself at me.
I fought Isabelle, getting in a good punch, knocking her down to the ground. She immediately wrapped her legs around mine and pulled them out from under me.
But as I fell, I twisted, landing heavily on top of her, driving my elbow down into her gut. I felt the impact ripple through my elbow, tingling up my arm which wasn’t entirely under my control for a moment, but I was already moving to pin her anyway.
The two of us rolled over and over, jostling for control, trying to get a blow in anywhere we could.
When I finally pinned her, she panted up at me. “Maybe I can believe you are a friend of Keen’s.”
“More importantly, I’m a friend of Silas’s,” I said, and her face changed. I kept her pinned though. “Can we talk? Less violence, more friendly chatting?”
“It’s safe here,” she said, although I wasn’t entirely sure it was safe for me, the way she’d reacted. She pulled a face. “Get off me.”
I rolled off her and offered her my hand. She reluctantly took it and let me pull her to her feet.
“I hate not having magic,” she said. “Makes everything into such a fair fight.”
At least she could acknowledge being bested. It almost made me like her, except that my jaw hurt like a bitch and my teeth felt a little loose. I fingered my jaw absently, trying to push away the temptation to wiggle my tongue against my teeth. Since shifters got new teeth every time we changed, I normally didn’t have to worry much about dentistry, but the past few months my teeth had become a bit more precious than they ever were before.
“Where’s Keen and Sebastian? Are they all okay?” I demanded, even though that question had let to a bit of drama earlier.
She stared at me for a second. “Where’s Silas?”
“He’s working on a plan to get you all out of here.”
She huffed. “That’s not going to happen.”
“Why not?”
“Where is he?” she demanded. “Is he still on the outside?”
“Are you sure it’s safe to talk here?”
“Believe me,” she said, giving me the thinnest smile, “no one is going to double cross me again. I’ve got this barracks locked down. It’s safe.”
Again.
Somehow I could believe it. Even though I’d knocked her on her ass, something about Silas’s best friend was terrifying and not the girl I remembered in his memories. There was just something about the way she carried herself that screamed that she wasn’t a person you tested. I suddenly wasn’t sure if we could even trust her.
But Silas did. I decided to take a leap of faith for now, because if Silas believed in someone, I trusted his judgment. And that meant I had to trust her, at least a little.
“Silas is posing as a guard,” I said, “and I’m here to rescue you.”
I left Jensen and Rafe out of it. Maybe I only trusted her halfway for now.
“Oh?” She came to my side in one quick stride and seized my wrist, pulling my marked hand up between both our faces. “How exactly are you going to do that, genius?”
“It was fake,” I admitted. “Until…”
“Yeah, they had an escape attempt a few months ago and they really lost their senses of humor,” she said. “They’ve tightened the security ever since. Everyone hates the bastards who tried to escape and failed.”
From her wry tone, I was pretty sure Isabelle was one of those bastards.
“You seem to have a lot of friends, though,” I said, thinking of how the barracks had been crowded.
“I’ve got some special skills,” she said. “Anyway, tell Silas thanks, but I’m not quite ready to leave. He can go back where he came from.”
There was a bitter edge in her voice, as if she felt like Silas had abandoned them, even though he’d been assigned to his own mission. She dropped back into her chair beside the woodstove.
“He’s not going to do that,” I disagreed. “You’re all supposed to be headed to the colony at the Grave Sea.”
For a second, emotion flashed across her face, but then it was gone. “Ah. That is unfortunate.”
“We’ve got to get all of you out of here,” I said.
“Well, Keen isn’t going anywhere.” She stacked her boots on top of the tabletop, leaning back. “And so I’m not either. Unlike the others, I’m not leaving her.”
I stared at her. “You are leaving, though. I can’t imagine the Establishment is going to take your no thank you, rather