Page 7 of Angel Condemned

Axton

Jody stared at me like she couldn’t believe what I'd just said. Did she think we were at a spring festival and going to have some wine and cheese in a bit? I told her what I wished someone had told my sister when we first arrived here. That this place was a death trap—a fucking prison—and that she should take any chance to escape. Even if that meant sacrificing your brother.

My chest turned to ice at the memory. It was my fault Celica was dead. Four months after they captured us, she had a chance to flee. The Roulex thought her wing was broken, but it was only sprained, so her heal time was faster than they expected. She played up her pain though and the double-jointedness of her wings threw them off. I squeezed my eyes shut, the ice in my chest spearing my heart. But then she’d come to my cell and had freed me.

“Let’s go,” she had whispered, the cut on her lip healing as she spoke. “Hurry, they do a guard switch in two minutes and we need to get Knox.”

“No, we need to get out now.” I yanked her to the window at the end of the hallway. I could taste freedom like crisp, fresh air over our mountain home.

“Not without Knox,” she’d hissed.

“Fuck Knox.” I growled and plowed forward with her in tow.

“Stop,” a Roulex shouted.

I slammed him up against the wall and he slumped over. “Quick. You can squeeze through the bars. Go!”

But then four more Roulex had rounded the corner. I fought them off, but they put the fucking tractor beam on me, and I couldn’t move.

“Come away from the window or he dies,” one of them growled.

I couldn’t even speak with them controlling my body, but I willed her to go. Leave me and Knox…save herself. Her wings had sagged, and she let them take her away.

I slammed my fists against the floor at the memory that tore me apart every single fucking day.

“What’s wrong?” Jody asked. “Are you in too much pain? I can ask the Roulex for some medicine and—”

“Are you kidding me?” I stood, hunching over when a fresh wash of pain raked over my side. “Medicine? In this place… I don’t know how prisons are on Earth, but I’m sure they are a picnic compared to this.”

She pressed her back against the wall, her breaths high and fast. “I-I’m sorry.” She licked her lips. “You’re right, but I’m sure if you do what they Roulex want, then—”

My roar vibrated the bars on the door. I expected her to faint or cower. Instead, she lifted her chin, but her body trembled.

Shit.

I clenched my fists and paced in the cell. Why was I letting this human get under my skin.

I turned away from Jody’s doe eyes that widened from my outburst. Didn’t need to gawk at her no matter how curious I was about her life on Earth. No matter how much I wanted to ask her a million questions about what it was like being a human. All I had were books and snippets of shows that I caught on a satellite radio I'd rigged up at home.

“How about we start over?” She took a shaky breath. “I’m Jody and you never told me your name.”

A muscle in my jaw twitched as I turned away from her. Didn’t matter our names because we were nothing but breeding scum to the Roulex. Except it sounded like she trusted them. I let out a bark of laughter. She would understand soon enough how wrong she was.

Unable to resist seeing what she was doing, I looked over my shoulder at her.

“You know.” She placed her hand on her hip, her breathing still shallow and shaky like she was putting on a front. “I’m kinda leaning toward Dilbert.”

“What are you talking about?” I whirled around. The Roulex had given her a choice of another to mate with? And why the hell should that irritate me?

“Yeah, I can’t call you horns or wings. I’d think that would be rude. Can’t call you angel because they don’t have horns—or as many muscles, that I know of,” she said under her breath.

“Call me whatever you like, I don’t care.”

“Really? Dilbert it is then.”

I ground my teeth because the name sounded like squealing nails against a rock.

“So, Dilbert, where are you from?”

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