Page 118 of They Break Beauty

I started as I watched her fingers flex in her binds, nasty zip-ties trapping her to that metal chair just like they were with me a few feet to her right.

Hope blossomed as her head moved and shifted from its uncomfortable lolled state.

And then she raised it, wincing. It had to be from the nasty bruise I’d seen on the left side of her face when they’d dragged her in here and bound her right beside me. I’d yelled so much when I’d seen them manhandling her that one of the bad men had knocked me out. Now I had a bruise the same place that she did. She also had a nasty cut down the right side of her face, though. It had to hurt. But one grimace and she seemed to just shrug it off, as she opened her eyes and fully came to.

Whiskey.

Her eyes were the color of the liquor my dad drank.

His favorite kind. Something he called top-shelf. I forgot the brand. It didn’t matter, I’d tasted the stuff when he’d offered me a sip as some sort of rite of passage, and I’d nearly thrown up, I’d hated it so much.

Oh crap, my mind was wandering all over.

My dad always warned me to keep my focus, especially in tense situations. This was way beyond that, though. Way.

“Hi there.”

I jolted and it took me a moment to realize that the angel was speaking to me.

Her voice was the sweetest sound.

I’d heard nothing for hours on end and hearing her… I’d never forget it.

“Curt Walker’s daughter. Brianna, right?” I whispered back.

“Yeah.” She took me in, noting my school uniform—black pants and a now rumpled and dirtied formerly white shirt. They’d taken my tie, but I still had my school blazer on—royal blue with golden markings and the uppity school’s crest. “Levi Knight. Roman’s son.”

I nodded. “Are you all right?”

She smiled and it was amazing through this awfulness. “Of course.”

I frowned. “You’re lying.”

Her lips quirked. “Why do you say that?”

“Your eye twitched.”

“Right, that’s my tell.”

“Like in poker?”

“In life. Say a lie into the mirror when you get home and see if you have one, then school it. Practice and no one will ever know. It’ll help you out a great deal as you get older, especially in our world.”

“Our world? The badness, you mean?”

She smiled, but this time it was sad. “Yeah.”

A gloomy silence filled the space between us and I hated it. I couldn’t take it again. So many hours of nothing but the screeching of doors in the distance and heavy footsteps all over. The bad men’s footsteps.

“You’re dressed so nice. Were you at a party?”

“In a way. It was my high school graduation ceremony. We were on our way to the party afterward when—” She stopped herself and looked at me. “I mean, when this detour happened.”

“I’m fifteen, not stupid. We’ve been kidnapped.”

She stared at me for a moment. And then she sucked in a breath. “We’ll sort it out, get you home for dinner.”

“And you to your party?”

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