Maybe he’d wanted me to see that napkin to dissuade me from attempting to slip my bonds.
After I’d wolfed down the sandwich and chugged the juice—because my chances of survival were hardly going to get better if I starved myself—I examined the cuff around my wrist and the chain that attached me to the cot’s frame. I’d melted metal with my fiery powers before. The first time just a pop can, sure, but I’d also wrenched through the bars of cages in one of the Company’s facilities.
Even those bars had been significantly thinner than the links on this chain, though. I’d have given it a go anyway, but a twist of uncertainty in my gut held me back.
Fraught emotions always seemed to set my flames veering in unpredictable and sometimes undesirable ways, and I wasn’t feeling all that fine and fancy-free at the moment. I’d say there was a not insignificant chance that if I tried to exude enough fire to reduce those rings of steel into a puddle, I’d become a pile of ashes in the process. I didn’t have anyone around to toss a bucket of water at me if I turned the mattress or, y’know, myself into an inferno.
No, as long as I suspected I wouldn’t be able to escape the prison even if I got loose from the chains, I wasn’t going to risk it. I might laugh in the face of danger, but only when I was reasonably certain I could dance around it at the same time.
It didn’t take long before I started wishing I’d been a little less hasty with my meal. At least eating had been something to do. Being essentially a prison cell, there wasn’t a whole lot to occupy myself with other than counting the ripples in the beige rock walls or mulling over exactly how painfully the Highest would have me killed as revenge for evading their grasp for so long.
After a while, I flopped down on the bed and grimaced at the ceiling. At this rate, my actual cause of death would either be boredom or stomach ulcer.
To try to pass the time somewhat constructively, I considered what new arguments I might make to persuade Omen that I wasn’t anywhere near a big enough threat for him to worry his houndish head about. I mean, I didn’t want to blow up both the realms—or even any substantial portion of either of them. I might have fried a few things I hadn’t meant to here and there, but I’d always been able to rein those over-zealous flames in before I did serious damage. If I got really concerned about my self-control, I could just not use my powers in the first place, right?
But even as I thought all that, the heat in my chest continued churning so furiously that I wasn’t totally convinced. Fuck a flipping flounder. Had my parents gone into this hybrid baby-making scheme with any idea just how much hassle they were inflicting on me as a theoretically impossible being?
They’d loved me enough to pull out all the stops to bring me into this world, but I wasn’t sure they’d thought the whole plan through all that well. No offense to Mom and Dad, may they rest in peace.
It might have been one very long hour or a dozen short ones when the shadows around the door wavered. Omen formed in pretty much the same spot I’d last seen him, standing next to the lantern. He had another plastic bag that appeared to contain food. Apparently it’d been long enough for me to get hungry again without realizing it, because my stomach gurgled at the sight.
Well, I had to assume he wouldn’t be feeding me just to lead me to the slaughter. I held out my free hand, and he threw the bag to me.
He’d ventured farther abroad this time to bring me something more dinner-like: a fast-food hamburger and a carton of fries, as well as a bottle of water. The fries had gotten a little droopy during his journey through the shadows, but I wasn’t going to pick a fight about that or the fact that he hadn’t brought any ketchup to go with them, as grave an offense as that was.
I popped a fry into my mouth, the salty greasy flavor buoying my spirits a little, and waggled another in his direction. “How did all that brainstorming go? Have you figured out the meaning of life while you’re at it? Inside tip: I hear the number forty-two is involved somehow.”
The hellhound shifter glowered at me. “You still don’t seem to be taking this situation anywhere near as seriously as it warrants.”
“Would you rather I was slumped on the bed groaning like I need my appendix out?”
“No. Just—” He cut himself off with a huff, maybe not sure what exactly he would have liked to see.
My life was still in his hands. And until today’s events, I had actually been starting to like and even trust this guy. How could I remind him of the woman he’d been starting to care about before this whole Ruby problem had exploded in our faces? He needed to see me as a real person and not just a walking disaster.
I lowered the fry and tamped down on my urge to shoot my mouth off, speaking more honestly instead. “I understand I’m in an incredibly serious situation. If I let myself dwell on it too much, I’ll end up rocking in the corner like I belong in a mental institution, and I don’t think that’s going to help either of us. But I definitely don’t think it’s a laughing matter either.” I spread my arms with a clink of the chain. “You’ve got me at your disposal. What can I tell you to help you make up your mind? Ask away.”
Omen gave me a narrow look, as if he suspected me of setting him up for some kind of prank, but he leaned himself against the wall opposite me as if he was settling in for a longer conversation. “Well, since you’re offering… Why don’t you tell me some more about what it was like growing up with that fae woman who helped your parents? Now that you know the whole story, is there anything that stands out? She must have known the Highest and their minions were after you.”
I sucked my lower lip under my teeth, thinking back. “I don’t know what other bits of memory Luna might have glamoured over—but maybe you’ll notice if there’s a gap I don’t realize while I’m talking.” He’d been able to break one glamour in my memories already.
“Start talking then.”
Lord knew when I’d ever get another invitation like that from him. I drew my legs up on the cot. “Honestly, it was pretty predictable considering I was an essentially mortal kid being raised by a shadowkind. Luna would find us an apartment in one city or another—I’m not totally sure how she even paid for them, but maybe her glamours did the job there too—I’d go to school and all the usual human things, and then every year or so she’d get nervous that the people who’d killed my parents might find us and we’d move to a pretty similar apartment in a different city.”
“She never said anything to indicate she was watching to see if you’d show any powers, or that she was worried you might hurt someone?” Omen asked.
I shook my head. “No. I would definitely remember that. Maybe she didn’t realize that’s what the Highest expected to happen. She was pretty carefree about most things other than avoiding getting murdered.”
Even though it’d been twelve years since the Company’s hunters had killed her, a pang shot through me at the loss. I could picture so clearly how she used to sashay around the apartment to whatever ‘80s band she was currently particularly obsessed with, her sparkly hair swishing in its scrunchie-d ponytail, her wings showing in glittery glimpses here and there when she completely let loose. The way she’d always find the perfect joke to make in her melodic voice to reassure me if some asshole kid at school had picked on me. The joy she took in dressing me up in frills and sequins, and her playful grousing when I’d developed enough of my own taste to start chucking those clothes in the back of the closet in favor of darker hues and simpler designs.