Page 26 of Beggars, Sin, and Wine

“I’m just hungry.”

“We’re working on it. Hang in there.”

“Um, is Benji the reason everyone in the basement who works for the Coalition seems to have diarrhea? Does he have magic?”

Pax fell out laughing.

“Benji is magic. You could take away every drop of magic in his veins and he’d still be able to fuck up everyone here. Seriously though, we’re working on getting you some food.”

“How? You’re prisoners like I am.”

“Truth time. There’s not a lot I can tell you just in case something goes wrong, but Benji and I have been here before. We managed to escape the first time. We’re going to do it again, but we’ll get everyone out this time.”

Now, I just felt worse. They escaped here once and now they were back. This place was terrible. There were a lot of questions I couldn’t ask without telling them my secret. Like, why wasn’t Benji in the basement with the other hybrids? How did they manage to get caught again?

“Get yourselves out,” I said.

“Nah, you’ll see when you meet us that we aren’t selfish. Except Cas when it comes to nachos. We’re going to get you all out and then we’re going to spoil you. You’re our mate. Cas might even share his cheesy chips with you.”

“You’re all horrible flirts, aren’t you? You just can’t help yourself.”

“Guilty. Get some rest. We’re all working on a big plan and getting you some food.”

You know, I didn’t really know how they were doing all this, but something told me they were going to do exactly what they said.

And I really hoped this didn’t end with me killing them.

Ihated being back in the Coalition’s clutches. It was different this time. I was older, wiser, and they thought I was one of them. There were people I was trauma bonded with the first time I was here. We escaped together, but once we were clear of that facility, they had no loyalty. They decided I was slowing them down because of my vision and left me to fend for myself.

But the two guys with me now were my coven, and I was their pack. We’d all get captured rather than leave someone behind. And I might not know her name yet or what she looked like, but we were getting our mate out of this place.

It was the distance. We were all powerless until we could get to the angel tears. I was housed in a completely separate building than everyone else. They were super paranoid about one of the demons jumping bodies, so their dormitory was warded, too. The bracelet the bearded man who refused to give us his name gave me still had enough juice to transfigure the walls where I had to sleep and eat to get rid of the silver so I wasn’t totally miserable.

I didn’t like being this far away from Benji and Cas even when we weren’t in danger of being discovered. And I wanted to transfigure this entire place to ash knowing my mate was in the basement being starved.

I wasn’t the type to sit idle and stew. I checked on my mate and she sounded like she was fading. We desperately needed to move up our timeline if we couldn’t get Hannibal to feed her properly. Benji said he admired the woman she killed, so he was probably going to punish her for a while.

Benji didn’t just give Hannibal anal leakage. Hannibal was insisting everyone drink the concoction, even me. I was provided with a glass at breakfast and dinner. I had to think on my feet and say back home, we took our meals in our rooms so we could pray and contemplate how we were going to help the unfortunate demon-possessed in our charge.

Benji’s plan was only funny if my asshole wasn’t leaking, too.

I had a whole-ass nuclear bomb on my cell phone. Father Nathan was a bit of an insomniac. Sometimes, he’d text, and I’d go down the mountain so we could hit up this twenty-four-hour diner. Father Nathan was immensely curious about the various creation myths, including ours.

I had a feeling he would be awake. I’d already checked this room for cameras and bugs. Hannibal was naughty. There were two in my room, but not the bathroom and they were cheap bugs. He didn’t know I knew about them or their range. I pretended like I was going to soak in the tub and went to call my friend.

“Hey, is it safe to talk?” he asked.

“Yeah, I’m in the bathroom.”

“Gross.”

“Yeah, kinda. I emailed you some files before I called. You’ll know what to do.”

I was still speaking in code just in case. Everything here was pretty low tech because Hannibal was a cheap-ass sadist who spent most of their budget on torture shit.

“Holy mother, do you know what this is?”

“Just some patient files. I’m having some trouble with curing them. If you have any insight, don’t hesitate to call me.”

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