Page 142 of The Girl Who Should Be Dead

Deep in the shadows, so deep she can barely perceive, in a cage so small the figure has to crouch, is another demon.

Ambra tilts her head at them.

They’re not in a dead body, instead far more incorporeal, but somehow still trapped. She can’t see or sense the wards that must be everywhere around it, or else it would shatter the cage.

It’s a cage meant for a dog.

“Can you hear me?” Ambra asks, even though most stasis cells also block noise from escaping.

No response, just a huddled figure, the shoulders hunched and unmoving.

She can’t even tell if they’re looking at her, not with these human eyes.

The stasis chamber was probably for them, and Boltiex evicted them fast to put in Ambra.

It’s probably why she got that snippet of time with Gurlien, the time to press the heal into herself with the magician’s energy ‘food.’ The time to breathe and get a littlemore of her power back. Boltiex had to prepare a space for her.

Makes sense. He wanted to get her into a place where she couldn’t fight back as soon as possible.

It’s one more thing making Ambra’s blood run cold, and she shivers. Boltiex shouldn’t have access to any demons, to anything, much less store them in a crate better suited for a large dog.

This is why they made five handlers. For all his brilliance and out of the box thinking, Boltiex is just another unstable scientist gone mad with the ideas of power he could control.

So gingerly, not pushing the wound, she prods at every seam in the room, her heart pounding uselessly. She has to get out, it’s not a question, but every aspect of herself is cut off from the world.

The cell’s not perfectly built, one edge of the floor sloping downwards, one of the walls a bit crooked, but all the connectors are flush, not giving her a single bit of leeway.

A light illuminates up the stairs, and she stills once more, letting her eyes flicker to it.

The easiest way out of here would be Boltiex coming down and doing something stupid.

But no footsteps echo downwards, and nobody appears before her.

Careful, Ambra lets her hand rest on her pants pocket, on the tiny multi tool pocket knife tucked inside.

Once, in the Toronto base, they had mistakenly left her with a metal clipboard that she broke into shards, and she carved up every surface of the cell with scratches. It did nothing to get her free, but they had to move her to a clean cell after that, the cell next to Stella.

She bets that this cell is a little less sturdy than that one.

Not telegraphing the motions, not trusting that she’s not being watched in some way, she pulls out the multi-tool, flicking the screwdriver out, picking the one less likely to snap. Gripping it tighter in her hand, she scratches along the seam next to the sloped floor, and it digs into the tile.

So the very tile is softer.

Something between determination and hope, she sits next to it, gouging at the floor.

Until the single screen of electronics blooms to life in front of her, startling her into blinking out at it.

It’s staticky, almost difficult to make out the picture, before it sharpens into a black and white surveillance image.

It’s hard to make out, a figure sitting in a box of a room, before the figure shifts and she catches a glimpse of a familiar silhouette, a familiar set of the jaw.

Careful, she grips the pocket knife, continuing to work through the floor.

So he’s showing her surveillance of Gurlien, and the horror settles deep into her stomach.

And, as Gurlien had said, manipulation.

She keeps her eyes locked on the screen, despite how much they ache with the bright lights. He’s just sitting there, leaning against the wall, his legs awkwardly bent, his hands nervously fussing.

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