Page 83 of Renegade Queen
All I needed to do was get one hand free, and then maybe I could break through the lock on the other chain.
It was a shit plan that seemed doomed to fail, but I didn’t care. Because it was hope, and I really fucking needed some of that right about now.
Looking up at my shackled wrists again, I knew what I needed to do. I gritted my teeth as a wave of determination swept over me. “Glory and madness,” I muttered before letting my legs buckle, and my full weight fell onto the metal secured around my right hand.
The pain was blinding as the metal bit into the skin of my hand, but I felt myself drop lower than I had been before. Warmth trickled down my arm, and I ignored it as I panted each breath through my teeth in a hiss.
I could do this.
I would fucking do this.
Laughing in the corner of my cell had my gaze snapping in that direction. I hadn’t heard the cell door open, but that didn’t mean it hadn’t. I was pretty out of it.
“This is honestly hilarious,” he crowed as he emerged from the shadows and strode across the cell to me. “Did you actually have a moment where you thought you could escape?”
He laughed even harder, and my teeth gritted for an entirely different reason.
Who was this fucker? I hadn’t seen him before, but then I barely remembered anything outside the armoured guards who brought me here and shackled me in these fucking chains.
“No answer?” He pouted, casting his eyes around the cell with a look of disgust. “Humans. Your capacity for hope when you should have none is frankly astounding.”
I looked him up and down. He didn’t seem like much of a threat. If anything, he looked like he was standing at death’s door, just waiting to be invited inside. The sallow dullness of his skin made the grey hollows of his eyes stand out even more. They had that cloudy quality to them that I’d grown up around that screamed of someone with an addiction that was a second away from killing them.
“Who are you?” I asked.
Perhaps I could get enough information from him to figure out how much trouble I was in here. He obviously had free rein of this place, and perhaps when I got my hand free, I could force him to get me out of here. It wouldn’t exactly take much to overpower him, even in the condition I was in right now.
“Me? Oh, no one special. It’s unfortunate, really. For you, that is. You’re just the juicy fly I’ve strung up in my web to lure in my real prey.”
I squinted, unsure that the analogy worked, but he’d given me more information than I needed. Motives could go a long way to understanding what was going on here. However, knowing this guy wasn’t the brightest of the bunch was priceless.
“She thinks she’s hidden amongst the humans. She actually has the ridiculous notion that she’s safe where she is. But she’s exactly where I want her to be. I’ve watched her for years. Moving the pieces in the shadows, playing with her life.” He paced the cell as he monologued. I had no fucking clue what he was going on about, but it worked in my favour that he kept himself so distracted. Because I was still letting the shackle cut through the flesh on my right hand, and it wouldn’t be long before I got it free. “It’s time, though. I need her back in Nymeria, and you, my poor little fly, are exactly the bait I need to bring her here.”
With a clank of chains, my hand slid free in a wave of nauseating pain and a wet sound that made me unwilling to look at the damage I’d done.
It was perfect timing, though, as my arm whipped out and grabbed this fucker around the throat, hauling him closer.
I pinched my bleeding fingers around the column of his throat, using the last of my strength to make it clear how easily I could rip it out if I decided I wanted to.
The wet rasp of his laughter wasn’t what I’d expected. Nor how his hand clamped down around my wrist with more strength than I’d anticipated.
“Always. So. Fucking. Amusing.”
I could see the madness dancing in his eyes as he grinned at the look of surprise on my face.
The moment stretched out as my mind raced with what to do next. I could follow through on my threat and revert to the earlier, impossible plan. Maybe this guy had keys? He’d gotten in here somehow.
But before I could make my move, I saw the creature crawl out from his collar and climb onto my hand as it started its slow creep up my arm. Similar to a centipede, its legs dug into my skin as it climbed, four massive jaws spread from its black body, tipped with red and dripping a clear liquid as it gnashed them in my direction. Barbed horns curled back from its head, and I felt a shiver of revulsion rush down my spine as I stared at the strange insect.
“Isn’t she beautiful?” he whispered, laughing again as I tried to break his grip and pull free. It was useless; he’d latched onto me with a strength that shouldn’t have been possible. “I call them nightmares. She’ll make sure we strip that pesky hope from your body. Everything will be so much easier for you once she makes you my little puppet. My new favourite toy. I’m going to have fun dangling you in front of her and then crushing her dreams.”
I thrashed then, trying to shake the nightmare off my arm as it slowly reached my shoulder.
This was bad. This was so fucking bad.
I felt the pinch in my skin as it dug those spiny little legs in, continuing its slow crawl up my neck.
“It’s better if you don’t struggle,” he said as he watched the creature in fascination, licking his lips hungrily for whatever was about to come next. “It will only make her burrow deeper if you try to fight her.”