Page 116 of Katya and the Young God

Not that she’s not breathless, not that her eyes don’t blur with the pain, but.

Let them anyways.

The guard twists one of her hands back, handcuffs it to the chair. As if she couldn’t carry the chair out.

It’ll prevent her from garroting anyone with her bracelet, unless she also takes the chair with her, but she’s had worse fighting situations.

The guards snap to attention next to her, as the door opens again.

Leaning heavily on a cane, Feketer walks through the door. He’s even wearing the same flannel shirt he wore for almost the entire time under the mountain.

He locks eyes with her, then limps over to her side of the table, his cane making a harsh clacking noise against the tile.

“They didn’t give me a cane,” Katya says to him, and he hesitates, like he expected her to not say anything. Like they expected her to just sit tight and not have any discernible reaction to everything going on.

The guards have their fingers on their triggers, but she focuses only on Feketer, lifting her chin to him.

“I’d offer you one, but I think you’d use it to kill three men and escape,” he says, easing himself two chairs away. “Ready for some hostage negotiations?”

The pit in her stomach opens up, roiling with both dread and hope.

“Need me to look extra pitiful?” She says, and she can feel her voice get more and more confident with each passing moment. Like she forgot to speak in her three days in the dark, but she’s getting it back.

Feketer gives her a wide-eyed look, like he truly doesn’t know what to make of her under the bright light. “What are you getting at?”

She shrugs, and it hurts. “Trying to figure out what’s expected in all this.” A bubble of rage hits her stomach, at her broken foot and his part in all this. “I really don’t think he’s going to give you what you want.”

And Feketer leans back, his face settling into an ugly, smug look. “He’s agreed to meet,” he says, and she can tell he thinks he won. “A clean exchange, the child for you.”

Katya snipes back the immediate gut reaction, instead raising her eyebrows at the room.

She doubts that.

“So when is he coming?” She asks, and she trains her voice to be neutral, to not show any bit of emotion. Hide behind the specter of professional Katya that everyone knows.

He gives her a side-eyed look, and she really can’t blame him. She wouldn’t give herself any information either.

“How’s the leg?” She asks instead, leaning back the best she can, with one hand cuffed to the chair and one leg propped up.

“It required three surgeries,” he says, and finally, finally there’s a thread of irritation in his voice, the sound of her getting under his skin. “Do you know how difficult it is to find people willing to do surgeries on Pixies?”

She makes a show of inspecting her nails on her un-cuffed hand. “Probably as difficult as it is to find Succubi blood donations,” she says, and again, he blinks out of confusion. “We had to for my secretary, because of Beatriz.”

“I’m not working for Beatriz,” Feketer says, even more irritation seeping into his voice. “She’s working for me.”

“I doubt that.” She looks at him from under her eyelashes. “She likes people to think that, but I doubt that.”

The lines in his face deepen, but there’s no other response to that line of questioning. The lights overhead buzz on, but Katya just lets herself lean back, lets her eyes drink in the sheer amount of detail.

She’s gonna have to get herself so much therapy. If she can find a therapist she trusts, if she can find a therapist who isn’t scared off by the idea of a Demigod, by the idea of an actual child goddess of death, who isn’t scared off by the sheer amount of paranoia Katya has.

She had a therapist after Afghanistan, while joining the Organization, but the therapist recommended she quit her job and travel the world some, and Katya disagreed, so she didn’t last long in that position.

There’s a fine line of tension in the guards, Feketer sits up straighter, their eyes trained to the little area of runes.

So Katya lets her eyes sweep over there, lazy, though her heart jumps in her throat and her stomach clenches. Even a glimpse of Pieter, of him being safe, even if he has to run and leave her there alone, anything would be good. Another lasting memory for whatever hole they put her in when this doesn’t work out.

Because it can’t work out for them. Not with Selene on the line.

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