I held up my ID. “What about the testament of a former ANC Regulator, asshole?” I seethed.
I heard a slight laugh that sounded like approval from either Caressa or Ms. Fields-Gerrity.
“Bring it here,” Judge Thorne said with little humor and even less patience.
“Dulcie, don’t do this,” Knight said but I refused to give him eye contact. I wasn’t going to let him pay for my mistake.
I strode up to the podium and handed my ID to the judge. He inspected it for a few seconds, frowning all the while, and then faced Caressa. “It appears to be genuine.”
“Take her into custody,” Caressa said with tight lips. I turned to face her and nodded, holding my arms out for her to cuff me, letting her know I was ready and willing to go.
“Please, Caressa,” Knight said with a rough voice, his eyes pleading. “Please leave her out of this.”
Caressa swallowed hard and when she faced Knight, I saw compassion in her eyes. “I can’t let you pay the ultimate price for something you didn’t do, Knight.”
“Caressa, damn it…” he started but I interrupted him.
“Knight, this is how it has to be,” I said as I forced my eyes up to his at the same time that Caressa snapped one handcuff onto my wrist.
“You have no idea what you’re doing, Dulcie,” he said, shaking his head and clenching his hands into fists at his side. Then he faced Caressa again. “They want me, Caressa. You know that as well as I do. There’s no reason to sacrifice Dulcie.”
Caressa inhaled deeply and paused in her task of cuffing me. She swallowed and then brought the second handcuff to my un-cuffed wrist and secured it. She avoided even looking at Knight. “I’m sorry,” she muttered but I wasn’t sure who she said it to, Knight or me.
“Who are they?” I demanded but neither of them would so much as even acknowledge me.
Instead, Caressa pushed me forward, toward the hallway of the holding cells.
“Caressa, please,” Knight repeated.
“It’s too late, Mr. Vander,” the judge spewed back at him as he approached Knight, grabbing his arm. “It’s too late for her and it’s also too late for you.”
I had no time to consider the judge’s words because before I knew it, Caressa was leading me down the hallway and into my holding cell. She unlocked the cell, which was empty, and escorted me into it.
“If you need anything,” she started, facing me with kind eyes, “please don’t hesitate to let Alexandra know.” Then she turned to Ms. Fields-Gerrity who was just behind her. “I’m leaving Alex here to ensure you and Knight are treated well.”
I nodded and offered her a small smile. “Thank you.”
“I don’t know what your relationship is with Knight,” Caressa started but was interrupted when we both turned around to see the judge push Knight, none-too-gently, into the only other cell, which happened to be right across from mine. “But he must really care about you,” she finished.
I nodded but said nothing, as I watched her step outside my cell and lock it. Then she walked over to Knight and stood with her back to me. “You will both be transported to High Prison within the hour, I imagine.”
He nodded as he sat on the cot, sighing. “Don’t let the same thing that happened to me happen to her.”
“I will push for a quick hearing for her,” she started and then added. “And I’m going to do my best to ensure your release.”
Knight chuckled but it was a sound drenched in acid and sarcasm. “Caressa, you know I’m not getting out of this. He has me right where he wants me.”
“Knight…”
“I just don’t want her to suffer for… her connection to me.”
Caressa’s shoulders sagged. “I will do my best.”
Then she turned around, offering me an apologetic and hurried smile and motioned to Alexandra, before they both stepped outside. That was when I understood she’d done so on purpose—to allow Knight and me a cherished moment of privacy, perhaps the last one we would ever get.
“Knight, what were you talking about earlier? Who has you right where he wants you and why do you think this was planned all along? Who are they?” I demanded, my voice rising with alarm.
Knight shook his head. “It’s too long and complicated to explain and I don’t know how much time we have before they cart us back.” He stood up and took the few steps separating him from the cell bars. Grabbing them, he wrapped his hands around the bars and sighed. “Why did you do this? Why couldn’t you have left damn well alone?”
I shook my head. “I could never let you die for me, Knight.”
He smiled and I felt something break inside me as the tears that threatened to fall for the last hour suddenly filled up my eyes and began pouring down my cheeks.
“Don’t cry, Dulce, please. I… I’ll get you out of this somehow.”
I shook my head. “I’m not crying for myself,” I muttered, wiping my eyes on the cuff of my shirt. “I’m just so sorry I involved you in this mess.”
“Dulcie, it was my decision and I don’t regret it for a minute. I only wish you could’ve left things alone. But, shit, that’s who you are, isn’t it?” He chuckled and I felt a smile bursting through the cloud of my tears.
“They aren’t going to release you, are they?” I asked, the small smile fading right off my mouth again.
He shook his head. “No. They’ll find something to find me guilty of and that will be that.”
“I’m so sorry, Knight.”
“None of that matters at the moment, Dulce. What does matter is that you stay alert at all times while you’re in High Prison. I hope to Hades they put us in the same cell but if not, remember that you are a fairy and, in this world, you’re in high demand.”
“I know,” I grumbled. “Bram warned me as much.”
“Bram?” Knight repeated, shocked. “Is he here?”
“He came with me but who knows where he is now? If he’s smart, he’s on his way back home.”
He nodded and then took a deep breath. “Then you know what to expect?”
“Yeah, I’ve been schooled in that lesson.”
“And you know your magic won’t work here?”
I nodded. “Yes.”
“You have to rely on your ANC training, Dulce, purely self-defense.” He glanced away for a second or two and then brought his gaze back to mine. “And whatever happens, I want you to know that I…”
But he never had the chance to finish his sentence because Alexandra appeared in the hallway with Caressa just behind her. “We are moving you now,” Alexandra said in a small voice as she offered Knight an apologetic frown.
#
The High Prison was nothing like what I’d imagined, given my experience with prisons in Splendor. This was more along the lines of something from a horror movie.
As Caressa led me through the double-bolted high security door, a prison guard who happened to be a goblin, the genus of which I wasn’t certain, met us on the other side. He nodded to Caressa and then eyed me, his gaze raking me from head to toe before he smiled, revealing discolored, broken teeth. I swallowed hard and, assuming this bastard was going to give me trouble, narrowed my eyes and shot him the look of death. He averted his eyes and set to securing the door behind us. The sounds of the bolts locking reverberated through my head and I don’t imagine I will ever forget it. Then the goblin turned his warthog-like face in my direction, where he sniffed around me a few times and grinned broadly.
“She is off limits,” Caressa said sternly. Her distaste was evident as she glared at the hideous creature that towered over us both. Even though it was well over six feet, it was hunched over and bore a huge growth on its back. It narrowed its eyes at the reprimand but remained quiet. “Did you hear what I said?” she demanded.
The guard nodded dumbly but still said nothing.
“She is to be in a cell with no other creatures. Do you understand?”
“Aye,” the creature said finally with a strange sort of ac
cent. Its breath filled my nostrils with the putrid odor of rotting flesh and I thought I might lose the contents of my stomach right there.
Caressa faced me and smiled awkwardly. “I will try to rush your hearing,” she said, as if preparing me for a very unpleasant stay.
“Thanks,” I answered, although I wasn’t really sure why I was thanking her. The guard grabbed my arm none-too-gently and jostled me forward, toward the dark hallway. I took one last glance at Caressa, who was just watching us, the worry visible in her pretty features. “Please do what you can for Knight,” I called out.
“I will,” she replied.
I took a deep breath and pulled my arm from the guard’s vice-like grip. “You don’t need to drag me,” I muttered.
The goblin remained silent as he continued limping beside me. We walked down a long, dank hallway that smelled of urine. There were a few uncovered light bulbs that buzzed and flashed as he escorted me through what felt like a maze of winding hallways. On either side of us were walls that appeared to be made of plywood, painted grey. There were splotches of mildew and what looked like dried blood all over the cement floor.
We hit another door and the guard pulled out an O-ring, containing about four skeleton keys. He selected the third from the right and unlocked the door before giving me a healthy shove through it.
“Where is Knightley Vander?” I demanded as soon as I stepped across the threshold and saw the cells on either side of me packed with creatures. Some were crying, others were laughing maniacally, while some screamed out in anger, and others begged for food. I refused to look at any of them, keeping my gaze fixed directly in front me, on the wall at the far end of the room.
“Don’t know ‘em,” the goblin responded, giving me a push, the cue to start walking. I did.
So that meant that Knight either wasn’t here yet or else this wasn’t the only High Prison? I was somewhat surprised to find the male inmates hadn’t been separated from females. Instead, all the inmates were lumped together in this hell-hole.
“Is this the only prison here?” I demanded, turning to face the goblin who lurked behind me as he grinned at my ass.
“Aye,” he answered and I felt relief. Knight probably just hadn’t arrived yet. Maybe it was only a matter of minutes before I’d join my Loki again. The one thing I hoped for was that he and I would share a cell. I never felt as if I needed Knight’s company more than I needed it now. Badly.
“A fairy!” Someone shouted.
All the creatures suddenly piled against the prison bars and began screaming profanities at me. I felt my skin crawl.
Just focus on that wall in front of you, Dulcie, I coached myself.
“This is you,” the goblin said as he paused in front of a cell that was next to last, on the right. He pulled out his key ring and fumbled for the correct key. I peered at the cell and noticed the toilet came complete with a yellowish looking ring inside the basin and a small, mildewy sink. The cot appeared to have once been white, but now was a cross between dingy grey and crap brown. Either way, it might as well have been broadcasting: “Lie here and you’ll die here.”
The goblin opened the cell door and gave me another hearty shove. “Make yerself comfy,” he said with a smile that looked more like a grimace. “Yer gonna be here a while so ya might wanna werk the kinks outta dat bed, if ya know what I mean. I can help ya wif it.” Then he laughed like he considered himself a regular comedian.
I shook my head and frowned but said nothing. Then I appraised my new digs, trying to figure out where to sit. The cot was out of the question but the floor looked equally disgusting. After observing a cockroach scuttling across the ground just in front of my shoes, I decided to remain standing.
Twelve
“Don’t touch me, you son of a bitch.”
It was Knight’s voice.
I looked up from my huddled position in the corner of my cell where I’d finally collapsed in exhaustion after standing for hours on end. My knees were drawn into my chest and my head was resting on my knees while I tried to figure out what the hell I was going to do. It had been three hours since I was first introduced to my Spartan accommodations, three hours of not knowing where the hell Knight was and three hours during which I could only imagine the worst. My ultimate nightmare had been that his punishment had already been carried out; that he was… dead.
“Knight!” I called out and gazed up at him, feeling pins and needles in my wobbly legs as I willed myself upright. My wings came to my aid again by letting me hover until the circulation returned. I rushed to the bars of my cell as I watched another guard, different from the goblin, thrust Knight into the cage opposite mine.
The creature who had occupied the cell prior to Knight’s entry, melted back into the wall and huddled there, as if trying to hide in the shadows. Seeing it skulk away as soon as it saw the second guard alerted me that this guard probably wasn’t going to be the most merciful or lenient. The goblin guard didn’t worry me. As I did a double-take on the creature again, I couldn’t decide what it was. It was smallish—maybe my size, bald as a billiard and albino white. It sort of reminded me of a hairless cat. At any rate, owing to the fact that the guard obviously intimidated it, I figured it posed no threat to Knight. I hoped so anyway.
As soon as the guard released him, Knight immediately rushed the cell door but the guard, who I realized was a Cyclops as soon as I got a view of the eye in the center of his head, slammed it shut and locked it before Knight could overpower him. His snide smile oozed of pride and self-importance at the fact that he’d overpowered a Loki.
When I looked at Knight, I felt my heart swell just to know he was still alive. Sadly, it appeared that he’d been roughed up again. His inmate uniform was ripped and stained with drops of blood, his hair tousled and another shiner darkened his right eye. But he was alive and, at that moment, that was all that mattered.
“Knight,” I said again, my voice softer.
He glanced over at me and smiled, his lower lip split and swollen. Those assholes…
I watched the Cyclops take out his baton and shove it through the cell bars just to get a rise out of the occupants in the chamber adjacent to Knight’s. For one moment, I wanted nothing more than to wrest the baton from him and crack him over the head with it… hard… and repeatedly.
“You’re here,” Knight said, drawing my attention back to him. I could see relief in his face—but it only lasted a few seconds before it was replaced with angst, probably at the reality of my being here. Since “here” wasn’t exactly the ideal place to be.
The Cyclops, suspiciously concerned as to whom Knight was talking to, turned his massive, hulking body around and faced me with his one eye. He scowled at me before he recognized exactly what I was. Then the scowl ran away and a filthy smile, complete with missing teeth, replaced it. It was a smile that said exactly what he wanted to do to me... Yep, this one might cause me problems.
“Ah we gotta fairy, ‘ave we?”
Before I could say “F yourself,” the goblin guard blocked him and shook his head in a mock apology. “Can’t tetch ‘er,” it said as it sneered in my direction. “Orders from above.”
The Cyclops stepped closer to my cell and I backed away, feeling suddenly nervous under his intense stare. It’s funny how a monster with one eye is so much more disarming than one with two. And as much as I hated the goblin, I secretly wished he was the only guard on duty—at least he knew his place. This Cyclops was a lawless wild card. But then, most Cyclops usually are…
I’d only ever seen a Cyclops once before and this one was nothing like it—aside from the one eye bit. This guy was huge, probably over seven foot five and was incredibly fat. But it wasn’t a pudgy, weak sort of fatness. You could see the muscle beneath his rolls—he was fat, yes, but he was built like a tank—like a Sumo wrestler. He appeared to be relatively young—maybe in his early twenties but he had already lost most of the hair on his head. Only a few strands delineated where his hairline once existe
d. His face was broad and ugly with a pointy nose, thin lips and missing teeth, as mentioned earlier. But, without doubt, his deeply sunken, round eye that occupied the center of his forehead seemed to demand all my attention. It was just so… weird.
“I ain’t never seen a fairy befer,” the Cyclops said as he licked his chops like he was about to sit down to Thanksgiving dinner.
“You stay the hell away from her,” Knight said in a cold, calculating voice.
The Cyclops glanced at him sideways and laughed. “What’re ya gonna do ‘bout it, pretty boy?”
“Yer gonna git in serious trouble, Clyde, if ya tetch her,” the goblin said. He shook his head to emphasize how steadfast he was in his decision to avoid the wrath from his higher-ups. I was beginning to like him even more. Well, I was beginning to tolerate him even more, I should say.
Clyde, the Cyclops, nodded but made no motion to retreat from my cell. Instead, he continued staring at me with that round, unblinking eye. Then he finally closed it and inhaled deeply. “She smells so good.”
“Dulcie, back away from the bars,” Knight said in an angry voice. “Get as far away as you can.”
I didn’t argue and did as he instructed, retiring to the far corner of my cell. The Cyclops, now no longer enchanted with the intoxication of my smell, I suppose, opened his eye and seemed back in control of his faculties…whatever faculties he possessed, anyway. What was boldly apparent to me was this guy didn’t have a whole lot going on upstairs. He was primitive and impulsive and those two adjectives were going to make my stay here a very difficult one. I felt sure this monster had no moral compass to discourage him from whatever he had in store for me.
“We should git outta here,” the goblin said as he reached for his friend. The Cyclops said nothing but backed away, still gawking at me with absolute lust pasted on his face. I was preparing for him to attack me, feeling sure it was going to happen all along. When he suddenly turned tail and followed the goblin back up the hallway, I was not only surprised, but more like shocked. They disappeared from view and I heard the sound of the heavy door opening, followed by the sound of deadbolts. I sighed in relief, grateful I was finally alone with Knight, well, as alone as we could be, considering we were surrounded by inmates.