Under different circumstances, she would have found the situation laughable, since that was the reason she’d left Torin’s house—to be on her own, trusting no one but herself.
See how well that had gone.
“White gold stops their powers for real?”
Oh, God, that was what they’d put around her neck the moment they’d grabbed her. White gold. No wonder she felt as though there was a lead weight pressing on her soul.
Shea turned her head toward the speaker, the youngest, most excited one of the group. He leaned forward, bracing his forearms on his thighs, and watched her as if he expected her head to start spinning around. As if he were looking forward to watching it. He licked his lips in anticipation and she shivered again before turning her head away.
“Yeah,” someone else said and Shea closed her eyes. “White gold shuts their power down flat. Don’t really know why. Something about it being a conglomeration of an element of the earth or some damn thing.” He snorted and Shea sighed. “Doc Fender figured it out about eight or nine years back and we’ve been using it ever since to trap these bitches and keep ’em compliant.”
“Any of ’em ever get away?” the young one asked. “I mean, you know, do magic even with the white gold chain around their neck?”
Shea listened carefully, longing for a ray of hope. She was disappointed.
“Not a one. The white gold shuts ’em down, makes’em as helpless as kittens.” He drew a breath and released it. “Supposed to act like a sort of a blanket, covering up what they can do.”
“Then why do we have her tied up and gagged?”
“Just cuz she can’t use magic don’t mean she can’t scratch your eyes out or kick your nuts up into your throat. You want to risk it?”
Disgusted with herself for not doing exactly that back when they’d first captured her, Shea tried to ignore the conversation rolling around her. She didn’t care what they had to say anymore. They were just the henchmen. The guys who did the dirty work for the Bureau of Witchcraft. It was BOW she was worried about.
The MPs were probably taking her to an internment center. If she was lucky. If not, she would just vanish until her body was discovered in a culvert somewhere. But no, she thought, if they were going to kill her, they could have done that already.
She stared out the back window of the van and groaned as the wheels hit something in the road. Her body jostled and every square inch of her felt the ache. But pain wasn’t important. What she wanted to know was where she was headed and what she could expect.
Was it only yesterday afternoon when she’d warned her student Amanda Hall to run because her mother wouldn’t be leaving whatever camp she’d been taken to? Now . . . less than twenty-four hours later, Shea herself was in the same situation. Ironic? Or just punishment?
She had killed, after all. There was no denying it.
Outside the van, freeway lights flashed by and the roar of traffic sounded like a caged beast trying to get inside the van.
“Did she really kill a man today?” the young voice again. “She looks so . . . helpless.”
“Helpless? Not likely,” someone growled with a snort. “Bitch flipped that poor son of a bitch the bird and he went up like a tiki torch at a barbecue.”
A couple of the men laughed and Shea closed her eyes on a wave of sorrow. She’d have to live with what she’d done—if she was allowed to live at all.
“Shut up, Dave.” The strongest voice spoke up again. Then he leaned out over Shea so she could look up into his face.
He had dark eyes, short dark hair and a jaw that looked as though it could have been carved of granite. The name stitched into his uniform read L. HARPER. In another life she might have found him attractive, until she looked into his eyes long enough. His dark eyes were filled with hatred. There was nothing soft or merciful about him and as his gaze met hers she tried to cringe back from his hard stare.
“Don’t you get fooled by how a witch looks, kid,” he said, speaking to the other man as he stared into Shea’s eyes. “They’re all evil. Right down to the core. Kill you as soon as look at you and do whatever they have to, to escape.”