Page 25 of Witches Be Damned

Thank you, Mads! I’ll wash your damn baby nappies. Get them clean and smelling fresh. Kiss your damn shoes if you want, too.

Consider it a freebie for your unjust incarceration,he replied.

Yep, Hell was freezing over. I never would have picked Mads for a generous guy. Then again, Knoxe said the thief avatar admitted to going soft since his relationship with Cupid. Nothing else explained the golfing trips with Hades when they traditionally hated each other in the comics.

“I’ll keep praying then,” I pretended to joke with the doc, while smiling inside at Mad’s generosity.

The doctor smiled awkwardly, spelling I’d have an easier time catching a unicorn. “Nurse Adams, please assist me.”

The nurse came in and assisted him in lifting me into my wheelchair. One of the guards brought it from the Terra Room where I stored it before leaving for the mission.

“Thanks, Doc.” My back ached at the thought of perpetuating this ruse until I earned enough points for freedom, when I wanted to get straight back into training, running, stretching, and fighting gantii. “Am I discharged? Can I go and question the vamps and give them hell?”

The doctor wheeled me to the door. “The warden wants you to meet Mr. Mathieson in your training room, where he’s assessing your exoskeleton.”

Of course, he did. Vancor wasn’t going to make it easy for me to sustain this lie. He’d catch me eventually if I wasn’t careful.

“Catch ya’, Doc.” I coasted away, rubbing my ribs, where they took a beating from my pounding heart. Round two of the boxing match was on.

I rolled into the training room with a fake smile. Vancor leaned on the wall, a phone plastered to his ear. Cole hunched over my exoskeleton, removing a damaged part and examining the bend in the metal from where I hit the wall.

“My man!” I stretched out my fist for him, and he bumped it back.

He looked different from his last visit a month ago. Exhaustion circles were purple underneath his amber eyes. Chaotic strands of dark brown hair betrayed the hand constantly running through it. Winter pale masked his usually tanned skin.

“What’s the damage?” I held my question to Cole as level as possible under scrutiny. “Can you fix it? Don’t tell me I’ll be stuck in here.”

“Nothing I can’t fix.” He set aside the busted scrap.

“That’s what I like to hear.” I slapped my knee.

“Tell him he’s not getting a thing!” the warden shouted and marched outside to continue his rant.

Cole tapped his wrench on his palm. “What I can’t solve is how you walked back into the prison with these electrical connections broken.”

I snapped out my arm and grabbed him by the shirt. “Astra somehow healed me. If you blow the whistle, she’s going to max security and won’t see the light of day for twenty years.”

Cole squeezed his wrench as if considering slogging me with it. “I won’t say a word. Astra’s my girl’s best friend, and we protect our friends.”

I released him and rubbed my hand from clenching it so tightly. “Fuck, I’m sorry, man. You didn’t deserve that. You’ve been so kind to me, creating me this device and coming in to fix it.” It was my turn to stab a hand through my hair to ground me. “I don’t act smart or sensible if my girlfriend’s threatened.”

Cole resumed screwing a new part onto the device. “No apology necessary. I’m the same way with Luna.”

“Glad I’m not the only one,” I muttered, leaning my forehead between my fingers and thumb, rubbing it.

Things got more heated on the warden’s phone conversation, his face going redder than it did when he confronted my team.

I didn’t know how much time I had with Cole in private, so I gave it to him straight, figuring he’d want to know. “Your mom is in the infirmary. Will you swing by to visit her?”

He wrenched the bolts so hard I worried he’d bust them. “Yeah.”

“Your mother’s a good woman.” It probably wasn’t my place to offer advice when—one, there was some obvious tension between mother and son, and two, I made rash and stupid decisions. But Serena supported me when she could have put me on disciplinary action, and I felt compelled to advocate for her.

Wrench. Wrench. Wrench. “A mother who cares more about getting revenge than she does being a family?”

Boom. Walked right into a landmine.

I almost leaned forward to place my hand on his shoulder and caught myself at the last moment. “Listen, I don’t know what went on between you two, that’s your business. Make amends for whatever you’re angry about, man. I lost my father after a fight and never got to say goodbye. This is a rough place, and not everyone survives it.” The rest didn’t need to be said.

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