Page 90 of Caged Kitten

Ahead, two guards fussed over an elf’s peach collection, insisting some were too ripe, a pair of twin metal doors behind them that led to the magically enhanced shipping department. On the outside, it was just a garden shed. Inside, I’d been told it was the size of an aircraft carrier, another of Lloyd’s “legit” businesses removing product each evening.

Maybe it was cooler in there.

Not exactly a thrill to lug boxes and cartons around, but maybe it—

Fintan’s reflection suddenly caught in the glass wall to my left. I stared at it for a moment as he drew nearer, marching into the processing sector without a cart—without a single fruit or vegetable or herb in hand. Belly looping, I forced my head down, like raspberries were way more fascinating than the fae who made my pulse race and my heart happy, and I pointedly ignored him as he stalked right by me.

He marched by everyone, actually. Swallowing hard, I peeked up, feeling safe enough to watch his back as he sauntered to the front of the herd, a pair of chunky shears hanging off a belt around his waist.

Wait. A belt?

None of us had a belt, especially not one that looked so eerily similar to those on guard uniforms—

Casual as sin, Fintan strolled right up behind one of the guard’s bitching about the peaches, reached around him—and snapped his neck. Crack. Just like that, the crunch and pop of breaking bone thundering through processing. Every inmate in line fell silent, and my heart plummeted down and out the other side. What the hell was he doing?

As soon as that guard dropped, nothing but a limp pile of black uniform at Fintan’s feet, his companion immediately went for his wand—but Fintan was faster. So. Much. Faster. Fae speed was legendary, but I’d always chalked it up to their wings spiriting them along. Fintan whipped the shears off his belt and hurled them in the time it took me to blink, and the blade embedded into the other guard’s skull so violently that it knocked him backward. He collapsed to the stone floor with a thunk, blood pooling around his head like a renaissance halo.

“Fae are warriors,” Fintan announced gruffly in the shocked silence that followed. He then swept a hand through his hair, boyishly charming again in an instant, and shrugged one shoulder. “We’re not fucking garden gnomes.”

Shock rippled through the group, the hum of the fans and the magic-powered generators barely making a dent in the high-pitched whine that stretched through my skull. Inmates glanced nervously at one another, but one of the elves finally wrenched off his gloves and hurled them toward the crumpled corpse at Fintan’s feet.

The fae raised a hand, eyebrows arched. “So… Anyone up for a riot? Prison riot, anyone?”

“What about the ward?” the female mage in grey demanded, her red ringlets doubled in size courtesy of the greenhouse humidity. Sweat glistened on her forehead, her cheeks, and I wiped at mine subconsciously, roasting alive in this jumpsuit even as ice-cold fear slithered through my veins.

“We just need the caster to break it,” Fintan remarked as he stepped around the fallen guard. “Rumor has it Guthrie made the wards—so let’s have him break them.” Lashing out, he toppled the peach cart, plastic containers spilling everywhere, perfect peaches tumbling across the ground, and then hopped onto it. “Time to storm the keep and behead the king, ladies and gents. Enough is enough.” He tapped at his collar, his grin slightly manic. “These fuckers only fry us if we try to take them off—not if we use a trowel to disembowel a guard.”

Oh gods. Was that where he had disappeared to? I coiled my trembling fingers around the metal handles of my own cart, thoughts racing, heart pounding. Escape had been on my mind from the second I woke up in this hellhole, even more so after I’d met Guthrie. But… But this wasn’t it. I hadn’t imagined butchering warlocks before riding off into the sunset; any attempts I’d mulled over—attempts that would probably fail but were satisfying to imagine—had always been much more subtle.

Only subtlety wasn’t Fintan’s forte. Apparently it was this—that brilliant tongue capable of doing such exquisite things to me now spurring a crowd into action. He fell back on a few more clichés to inspire the troops, but without much prompting, the greenhouse rebellion was underway. Inmates scattered in pairs and groups, gathering weapons from the vast array of gardening tools at our disposal, arming themselves for war. One witch even snatched the wand off the guard with the shears still stuck in his face—not that she could actually use it, but I understood the need to hold it, to pretend. Maybe it gave her courage to wrap her fingers around a wand again.

Courage that I found faltering inside me…

Until Fintan strode to my side, smirking, casual once more—like he had kick-started some teenage hijinks, not an outright rebellion where people, most likely inmates, were bound to die.

Or fry.

“What are you doing?” I hissed, grabbing his arm and hauling him away from the unfolding chaos.

“Me and the boys had a chat,” he said as he twisted out of my hold—easily, like he wasn’t even trying—and caught me by the chin. “Time to get out of here, darling.”

I blinked up at him, smitten butterflies flitting to life in my chest, affection and incredulity and outright terror colliding, mashing into something that almost tipped off an anxiety puke.

“And this is the plan?”

Fintan chuckled, then booped me on the nose. “Well, no, I’ve gone a bit rogue. Let’s just run with it, shall we? See what happens.”

“See what happens? Fintan—”

Before I could rip him a new one for starting a prison riot on a whim, he snatched my hand and dragged me away. Our fingers threaded together so naturally, finding strength and support in each other, and I power walked after him, body aching and adrenaline soaring. While a flurry of activity erupted all around us, blurred purple, green, and grey jumpsuits racing by, Fintan led me down one long row without breaking his pace, headed for the main doors of the building without delay. I barely managed to grab a pair of scissors along the way, clutching them in my free hand as I clung to him with my other.

Since the attack, I hadn’t moved this much or this fast, overly cautious with my recovering body, but the fight-or-flight instinct kicking into overdrive blocked out the painful reminders of that night. The only time I stumbled was when I spotted the corpses of dead warlocks near the front; not exactly disemboweled with a trowel, but Fintan had been quick and efficient with his takedown. Slit throats for the both of them, one missing his belt—and his wand snapped in half.

Which, honestly, was almost as cruelly intimate as snapping his neck.

“So, we’re attacking Guthrie?” I asked breathlessly, mind still scrambled but body oddly calm as we paused at the main doors. No trembling or shivering. No weak knees or sweaty palms. Fintan poked one of the front doors open and peered through the crack, squinting against the afternoon sunshine, then shook his head.

“No, they’re attacking Guthrie.” He tossed a thumb over his shoulder at the coalescing inmates. “We’re going to pay one of the guards patrolling the perimeter to sneak us through the front gate.”

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