Page 36 of The Master and the Marionette

He starts to jog to catch up to me. “Oh, so you think my muscles are big?”

I choke out a surprised laugh but the sound is cut off.

The ground disappears from under my feet. Without even a moment to react and process the next few seconds, I’m gliding through the air, now smelling like hot rain and moist dirt. I shriek as I hit softer ground, palms down, directly on my chest and stomach. The air deflates from my lungs like a popped balloon.

My joints explode with pain. Muscles are floppy and sore. But my ankle is on fire. Searing white agony stretches up my calf as if I’ve been caught in barbed wire.

“Skylenna!” His voice is finally making its way to my eardrums. A deep gravelly sound echoing in this hole. I hear my name again, this time traveling downward, closer and closer until I feel the earth hemorrhage violently under my limp body. A puff of dust spreads over me.

“Where does it hurt?” he asks, struggling to keep his tone calm. He’s in the hole with me now, kneeling somewhere beside me. The left side of my face is smashed against the dirt. Oh God, I broke my face. The constrictions on my chest loosen and I gasp in air, coughing and choking on my own saliva and particles of dirt. His hands are on my back, examining my bones.

“Nothing’s broken.” I hear him mutter. He pauses. A featherlight movement on my searing ankle. “Skylenna? Can you feel your ankle?”

I finally have enough oxygen back to my brain to release a guttural groan.

“Honey, can you speak?” he asks again, more urgently.

“Yes, I can feel it. Do me a favor and cut it off,” I moan and mumble into my new friend, the dirt.

“I see your humor didn’t break your fall.”

Even with the sharp shooting pains sinking teeth into my pathetic body, I smile at the kind of friendship we have. To still make each other laugh during hard times.

I try to lift myself off this bed from hell with my palms still embedded in the crime scene. I fall back down with a whimper. Welp, safe travels, Kane. Send me a postcard when you reach the next colony.

“Skylenna, please don’t move,” he instructs. A trickle of fear drips down my back like the first stages of a thunderstorm.

“Why do you sound cautious?” I ask three octaves higher than normal. He’s hovering over my legs without touching my ankle. Oh God, did my foot actually get cut off?

“Your foot got trapped in a snare designed to capture larger animals. Your ankle is small, so we’re lucky it didn’t chop it off. It just pierced it. But it’s stuck in there; I have to take it out.”

“I’d rather die,” I say, trying to get a good look at him. The twisty movement sends a bolt of fire through my calf. “Augh!” I lie back down and slap my hand back on the dirt.

“Don’t move until I tell you to. I have to open the trap, and when I do I need you to pull your foot out as fast as you can, okay?”

I grunt in acknowledgment at his request and brace myself. I hear him bear down behind me as the trap begins to rise from being embedded into my skin. It’s like pulling a thumbtack from the bottom of your foot, except a million times worse.

His movements cause the snare to dig farther into my shredded skin. I yelp and bear down at what comes next.

“NOW!”

I yank my foot out and pull my knee to my chest. Crimson blood pours down my foot and saturates the dirt. My grunt isn’t ladylike. It isn’t pretty. The sound is unrecognizable as it whooshes from my chest.

“I know, I know,” Kane soothes. “I’m going to roll you on your back now.” He grips my waist, and I howl as he twists my body until I can finally look up at him. He moves my hair out of my face with two fingers. For just this moment, I forget the painful throbbing in my ankle, my stomach flips and the depth of his stare is pouring into my soul, warming me from the inside out. And he isn’t looking away. There’s a silent breeze of déjà vu fluttering over my heart. A moment of recognition.

“Skylenna…” Kane’s tone isn’t calculated or teasing. It’s heavy with memories. Caring. Kind. Brave. “Is it too soon to tell you this is what you get for telling me I’m out of shape?”

We chuckle in unison.

“You’re so fun—” A low growl startles us. The sound of a bear. Like the times in the early morning, my father would watch them from a window outside of our house.

Kane turns slowly, and we come to the same conclusion together. This hole is bigger than we thought, and we’re not in here alone.

Behind Kane stands a massive shadow, like a tower built behind a cottage. It has thick coffee-colored fur, the body of a grizzly bear, with the face of a—of a cat? Yes, a huge, ugly mountain cat.

“A Saphrine Mountain nadaskar.” Rough. Assertive. Alpha. I know the switch was inevitable. Dessin is now standing over me, and I’m racking my brain to figure how he could possibly get us out of this one. We’re at least ten feet in a massive hole, and even if we could figure out a way to climb out of here, we wouldn’t be fast enough. From what I remember, the nadaskar has the strength of a bear and the agility of a mountain cat. Not a fair fight.

“Dessin,” I whisper, failing to hide the terror choking my voice.

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