Page 76 of Mud

Whyhad she cared enough to come get me, especially since she knew what I was now?

Calm down,I told myself before my thoughts got away from my control completely. There was a cup full of tea in front of me on the table, and I needed it. It was going to calm me down. It was going to wet my lips, my tongue, my throat. It was going to set things in motion for me again, pressResumeon my life, on time, because right now in this setting, it felt like I was stuck onPause.

So, I reached for the cup.

“Don’tyou dare ruin my cup, too, with your filthy hands.”

Her voice was calm, steady. Ice-cold, just like always.

Madeline reached for her own cup again and brought it to her lips, eyes on her newspaper. For a second there, I thought I might have imagined her speaking, but I hadn’t. Of course, I hadn’t.

“It’s enough that I have to throw away that armchair.”

She finally put the cup down, folded the newspaper, and met my eyes.

Ice-cold needles pierced my face—a reminder that I was to be as motionless as if I were frozen. I breathed in deeply through my nose, my body shaking, but I still tried.

When she was there, I still fucking tried. I couldn’t help it. It was some broken sensor or instinct inside me that I did not know how to fix yet.

“What happened?” I forced myself to say because the faster she got to the point, the sooner I could get out of here.

IfI was ever going to get out of here…

I turned right, looked at the polished doors at the end of the room with suspicion. With longing.

Was I ever really going to make it out of here? Because Madeline had been very clear in that infirmary room. She said she wanted to be the one totake care of it—itbeingme—and I had no doubt in my mind that she was capable of killing me. Of course, she’d make it look like an accident and she’d be so thorough that the whole world would believe it, but she’d do it, nonetheless.

“What happened is that I was proven right,” she said, resting back on her chair with a sigh that said she knew she was about to be exhausted. “You are weak. You were never worthy of being an IDD agent.”

My eyes closed, but that’s as much as I let it show on my face how she got to me. “I was in a basement. There?—”

“Oh, yes, you were. Chained like a dog—you were. Because you failed to do your job. You failed to protect the one thing that was good about you—your magic.” Slowly, she raised one leg and put it over the other. The hatred in her wide brown eyes was something else. “And then you ran away from the IDD and got captured by the likes of the Tivoux brothers.Hmph.”

“So, then how did I get here?” I said, and it was getting really hard to speak. “I need water, Grandmother.”

She pretended she didn’t hear that last part at all.

“Why, I sent for you, of course.”

“How did you know? How did you track me?” I had no tracker on me that I knew of.

“I didn’t,” she spit. “Do you realize what you’ve done, Rosabel? Do you understand what has happened to you?”

I shook my head. If she didn’t track me, how in the hell did she find me? “Grandmother, I?—”

“You areMud.”She whispered the word as if she was afraid of hearing it said out loud, even by her own voice. She visibly shivered, hands fisted so tightly her knuckles were white.

“Not by choice,” I said, though I wished I hadn’t bothered. “They attacked me. Michael and Erid—they attacked me. They tried to kill me. I was just trying to protect myself.”

Her thin brows shot up. “Don’t be ridiculous,” she told me. “Michael Perez was your team leader.”

“Yes—and he tried to kill me, Grandmother. He shot me.” I showed her my leg—bandaged and dirty and so goddamn painful, but I moved it up a bit anyway. “He and Erid tried to kill me.”

For a second there, I even considered that she might believe me. For a very short second.

“By Iris, what did I do to deserve such a fate?” she muttered. “Do not put your own shortcomings on other people, Rosabel. It’s nobody else’s fault you’re weak. You should have protected your magic at all costs.”

“I did,” I whispered, closing my eyes, shaking my head, trying to get those images out of my head—of Michael and Erid coming for me. The way they’d poured their magic on me and the way mine had sprung out of me, without aim or direction, just trying to protect me. “I really, really did, but Michael?—”

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