Charmed (17 page)

I
quickly release her wrist, but it’s too late. An alarm sounds, and a red beam of light flashes across the hall. And over it all is Paige’s screaming.

Four more guards appear in the glass cubicle. The first one points me out to the others.

No, no, no
.

I get up and grip Paige by the forearms. She shrinks under my touch. The action burns like a slap to the face.

“Paige!” I cry. “Come with me. We have to get out of here. There’s still time.”

Tears well in her eyes. She glances around nervously, like
an animal backed into a corner. I hear heavy footsteps behind me.

“Paige, it’s me! It’s Indigo. You have to remember me.”

I’m grabbed from behind. Her eyes are full of apology, but she gives a little shake of her head.

“I—I don’t know who you are,” she mutters.

I’m dragged away, but I don’t fight back. The room has gone silent, the weight of dozens of eyes following me as I’m pulled away. I don’t know if I could stand if it weren’t for the people holding me up.

The next few hours pass by in a blur. I’m brought to some sort of examination room with only a steel table and a chair, and lit by a single bare bulb. One guard after another takes turns coming in to try to coax answers out of me (“What really happened in the mess hall? Why did Paige scream? Do you know that private conversations are strictly against the rules and can be viewed by the Chief as conspiracy to commit treason?”), but I don’t talk to any of them. My tears have dried on my cheeks. I’ve finally stopped crying. I don’t have the energy left.

It’s impossible to tell time here, but it feels like I’ve been gone from Los Angeles for ages. I keep waiting for the head-splitting pain to signal that I’m getting shot back home, but it never comes.

Finally, a female guard lets me out of the examination room. I think she must be taking me to the Chief for some sort of punishment for insubordination, but I’m surprised when she opens a door to a dormitory full of military-style steel-frame bunk beds. The kids from the mess hall are inside. They stop chatting and watch as I’m led down the aisle between rows of beds.

My stomach is coiled into a knot at the thought of seeing Paige again, and I sweep my eyes over the room looking for her. The guard stops at an empty bunk at the back of the room.

“Change into the nightgown,” she says dryly. “Bathroom is at the back.” She turns to leave.

“Wait!” I say. “What happened to Paige?”

She looks back over her shoulder at me, one eyebrow quirked high. “The screamer? You’re no longer allowed to associate with each other until one of you tells the truth.”

She gives me a pointed look before spinning on her heel.

I stare slack-jawed at her back as she retreats, her words spinning inside my head. Two male guards step aside from the double doors as she passes, then resume their post and watch over us.

I realize I’m smiling—Paige didn’t tell them what I said. Strong, rebellious, independent Paige is in there somewhere.

I can feel everyone staring at me, so I wipe the goofy grin from my face and sit down on the hard bed. There’s a thin green bedroll at the end; laid over it is a white nightgown
and a ziplock bag containing a toothbrush, travel-sized toothpaste, and deodorant. I guess kidnapping is okay in their books, but not smelly victims.

Slowly, the silence gives way to chattering. The girls pass back and forth as they use the bathroom to get ready for bed and, I suspect, to get a better look at the crazy new girl. But I don’t pay them any attention. I split my time between thinking about how I can find out where they’ve taken Paige, and how I can get her to come with me once I’ve found her.

A girl walks down the aisle toward the bathroom, and an idea strikes me. I grab the nightgown and bag-o’-supplies and follow her.

The bathroom has a dozen or so stalls opposite a wall of sinks, plus a row of open showers at the back. The girl I followed is standing at the sink, squeezing toothpaste onto her brush, when I enter. She freezes when she spots me.

“Hi,” I say.

She must sense my intentions, because she runs, her bare feet slapping the gritty tile. I leap in front of her before she can pass me. She opens her mouth to scream but I clamp a hand over her mouth.

“Shhh, I won’t hurt you,” I whisper. “I just want to know where they’re keeping Paige.”

She whimpers, shaking her head.

“The girl from the mess hall—the one who screamed. Where would they be keeping her?”

The girl keeps shaking her head.

“Look,” I hiss, my patience running out. “I said I wouldn’t hurt you, but I will if you don’t tell me the truth. Where is she? Speak. Now.” I lower my hand to her chin.

“I—I really don’t know,” she stammers. Tears spill down her cheeks onto my hand. I drop my arm to my side.

“Say anything to the guards about this conversation and you’ll regret it.”

She stumbles out of the bathroom, whimpering quietly. I’ve hit a new low.

I go into a stall and change into the nightgown—the last thing I need is to arouse more suspicion. When I come out, I catch a glimpse of myself in the mirror. My bruises have faded to a pale purple, but dark rings lie under my eyes and my skin is the sallow kind of pale you see only on the sickly and those from Minnesota. I almost don’t recognize myself.

When I walk back out to my bunk, I sweep my eyes over the room as inconspicuously as possible, looking for another exit besides the guarded double doors at the front. But there’s nothing but rock, rock, and more rock. Obviously, these sorcerers don’t care about fire code violations.

As soon as I crawl back into bed, the lights flick out. A few people have whispered conversations in the dark, but it’s not long before the room goes silent, the only sound that of slow breathing.

I can’t believe I’m spending the night in Los Demonios. The witch said the length of my visit would vary each time,
but I must have been here for more than twelve hours already. Aunt Penny will have noticed my absence by now—and Bishop too. I cringe thinking about their reactions when they discover I’ve gone MIA again. Aunt Penny might try to send me away to that witch boarding school after all. I won’t get another chance to come back here. I have to make this one worth it.

My eyes adjust to the dark, and the shapes in the room come into focus. The guards are silhouetted against the pale strips of light around the door. Surely they don’t stand there all night. And when they leave, I’ll make my escape. Finding Paige and getting out of a fortified mountain compound shouldn’t be too difficult.

I groan inwardly. Sure, I passed long expanses of empty hallways when those guards dragged me in here earlier, but all it would take is coming across one sorcerer who sees us trying to escape and everything would be ruined. I need a weapon.

I rack my brain for something I can use against a guard, but the only thing remotely weapon-shaped I own is my sorcerer-issue Oral-B.

I get an idea.

I grip my toothbrush in one hand, then roll over in the bed and let my arm dangle over the side. Like I thought, the ground under my bed is made of rock. Huzzah. I press the handle end of my toothbrush firmly into the rock, then begin quietly grinding it back and forth. After a minute of
this, I check my progress and am pleased to find that only a few more centuries of grinding should result in a fine shiv for combat. But I keep working at it anyway. It doesn’t take long before my arms feel like they’re made of gelatin and my eyelids are heavy with sleep.

I’m starting to doze off when the doors click quietly open. My breath hitches. A third guard enters, and the three of them talk in the doorway in low tones that I can’t make out. I’m already planning my escape when the original two guards exit, leaving the new guard in their place. It must be change of shift.

I sag with disappointment, and I have to tell myself that this is still an improvement—one guard is better than two.

He starts padding down the center aisle, scanning the beds, for what I don’t know. Ace pops into my head. What if he’s returned to get another shot at me? I stiffen with fear, but I tell myself it can’t be him. He was dead. Or very near it. This guy walks with a breezy swagger that would be near impossible after the beating Ace received.

Still. My heart races hard as footsteps approach. I’m not going to get a better chance than this—I need to get rid of this guy, whether it’s Ace or not. If I can take him down, then maybe I can escape before anyone notices that something has gone wrong. And before anyone wakes up and screams loud enough to draw attention.

There are serious holes in the plan, but I don’t see a better one emerging, so I choose to ignore them.

I grip my half-sharpened toothbrush and slowly slip out of the bedcovers, trying to make as little noise as possible.

The walkie-talkie clipped to the guard’s pants hisses white noise as he nears. Each one of his footsteps sends a fresh bolt of fear through me, and when he’s right next to my bed, my heart thumps so hard it’s a miracle he doesn’t turn and beam a flashlight in my eyes. But he doesn’t stop. He passes right by me in the dark.

It’s now or never. I leap out of bed and in one fluid motion land on his back as I jab the toothbrush into his neck. The guard grunts, but he doesn’t go down like I expected him to. My arms cling to his neck, and I strain with all my muscle power to cut off circulation as I hit him hard and deep with the toothbrush. He stumbles left, then right. A few people shift in bed. Someone coughs.

“Stop, it’s me,” the man gasps.

I keep strangling. The singular goal in my mind is to get this guy down, one way or another.

“Stop. It’s Cruz.”

Finally, his words sink into my kill-happy mind. I let go of his neck and slide down to the floor, my bare feet landing on the cold tiles. My heart goes rapid fire in my chest as Cruz feels his neck for damage.

“Damn, girl,” he whispers.

“I didn’t know it was you,” I hiss back.

He grabs my wrist and leads me quickly to the bathroom.
He lets go of my hand when we’re inside and paces away from me. I shift from foot to foot.

“Sorry about the toothbrush,” I say.