Page 31 of Her Psycho Beasts

“Sir, this isn’t sanitary!” Rowan whines. “If the parents hear about this?—”

Damien laughs. “I’m sure your parents are thanking me for long overdue discipline.” He waves the guards forwards. “I will have your complete obedience, or nothing at all. Hence, I will make this discipline memorable.”

“I’m hungry!” one of the eagles shout. “You have to feed us at some point.”

Damien shrugs and gestures to the guards. “Only good students get fed. You are not, in fact, good students.”

We all watch on as the guards heave at something next to our cell. It takes two big felines to do it, but they manage to pull at whatever it is.

Our entire cell begins to shudder.

Minnie lets out a little, “uh oh” just as we begin to descend. The dirt floor isn’t actually a dirt floor, but the bottom of a metal cage covered in a thick layer of packed dirt—which falls away as the concrete beneath opens up like a massive trap door.

The whole thing shudders and everyone panics.

“Oh Goddess!” Stacey shouts.

“This is not fun! This is not fun!” Connor screams.

“We’re lambs to slaughter!” Minnie shouts. “Yeti! What do we do?”

Meanwhile, the nimpins zip around the cell, twittering wildly.

“Oh, settle down.” Damien’s voice follows us as we descend into the dark. With my heightened, panicked senses, I smell salt water. A lot of it. “You will sit in the water until everyone gives up the contraband mobile phones I know some of you keep on your person. They are just as bad as telepathy during class.”

“What!” Stacey whisper-shouts.

I glance at Yeti, who I’m sure has a Scythe-given phone, probably with all sorts of illegal matter he can’t give up to Dolores.

“There are at least four!” Damien shouts before we’re swallowed by darkness and I lose sight of him completely. “Hand them over and this entire ordeal will be forgotten.”

Us animas clutch onto each other on the metal platform, peering down into the void below. Down, down we descend, the cage shuddering and shaking until?—

My sneakers splash into water.

We keep descending. The water enters our cage.

“It must be a t-tank!” Raquel shouts above the din of the other students. “C-Calm down, they won’t d-drown us.”

“Ya think so?” Stacey cries, clutching onto my arm as freezing water covers my feet and enters my shoes.

There’s more swearing and shrieking as the icy water shocks our skins. We splash around, fruitlessly trying to get away from it. But we’re still descending into the tank and groaning as the water reaches my thigh, then covers my waist.

“My balls!” Connor shrieks.

“My ovaries!” I shout back.

The nimpins shriek as one for good measure.

It’s then that I look over at Minnie only to see that Yeti has her on his shoulders, her legs dangling on either side of his chest.

The cage finally groans to a halt when my blouse balloons about my waist, leaving me shivering.

“Xander,” Yeti growls. “A little help here?”

Obsidian shackles clank purposefully from somewhere behind us. “Can’t,” comes the flat reply.

A chorus of swearing sounds from the animuses.

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