Page 33 of Elven Prince

Whatever was inside this trailer, though, wouldn’t be as cut and dry.

She felt it in her bones.

The padlock came out of its rings in the door after a quick tug. Rebecca tossed it over her shoulder to send it clattering noisily across the concrete floor. Then she grabbed the bottom of the door with both hands and shoved it up and open.

The rumble of the door sliding open along its tracks momentarily drowned out all other sound before it banged against the front of the trailer and stopped.

Rebecca scanned the inside with a practiced eye, absorbing every detail in seconds.

Archie had definitely completed his supply run and returned to Headquarters.

The trailer was full of stacked boxes meant to replenish Bor’s kitchen stores—Styrofoam cups, table napkins, plastic silverware, more stacked wooden crates of produce, giant sacks of grain, a massive pallet of eggs, plus those filled with nearly every dairy product imaginable, and cooled crates of cut meats from the butcher. Everything the kitchens’ resident cook expected in today’s delivery.

With one additional surprise.

A motionless body sprawled across the trailer floor in front of all of it.

His t-shirt and jeans were torn, ripped, and stained with dirt and blood. More blood streaked across the trailer floor where he lay and along the sides of crates he’d bumped up against on his way there.

There was blood everywhere, in fact, some of it matting his bright-orange mohawk, most of it staining the front of his t-shirt, and a partially dry crust of it across almost his entire face.

A face that had been so badly beaten, his nose was grotesquely crooked, both eyes swollen shut, and a thin trail of blood still trickled from the split across his mangled lip.

Rebeccahopedit was from the split lip and not serious internal bleeding.

If it weren’t for the orange mohawk, it would have taken a lot longer to identify him. He was barely recognizable.

It was Archie.

Rebecca leaned forward into the trailer to look him over as best she could without touching him. The sign she searched for existed, though faint and barely there—the slow, shallow rise and fall of his chest and the barely audible whistle of breath passing in and out of his lungs.

A whistle like that was bad news, but at least he was alive. If they acted quickly enough, he might even stay that way.

“Holy shit,” Titus grumbled behind her.

She spun around to look him in the eye.

The vuulbor’s wide eyes and the grim set of his jaw reflected her own reaction and the vast seriousness of the situation.

“Definitely not an emergency pit stop,” she said.

He puffed out a sigh through loose lips, then grimaced.

“Jay!” Rebecca called toward the stairwell as she backed away from the rear of the trailer. “Get upstairs and tell Zida we need her down here. Now.”

“Oh comeon.” Jay groaned and spread his arms before stomping across the garage toward them. “Listen, whatever he did while he was out, that’shisbusiness. I had nothing to do with it, okay? I’m just Bor’s stupid messenger, and I’d really like to stop doing that as soon as possible—”

The dwarf stopped short when he rounded the back of the trailer for a clear view of what lay inside, up close and personal. While he gaped at the ogre sprawled out in front of Shade’s newest incoming shipment, his mouth worked open and closed soundlessly, but no sound came out.

“Jay!” Rebecca barked, trying to snap him out of it without resorting to physical methods. “Hey!”

She snapped her fingers in his face, making him blink furiously before he slowly turned his blank stare onto her.

“Did you hear me? I need you to find Zida and tell her we have a medical emergency in the garage.”

Gaping athernow, he managed a stiff nod.

“Good. Then get to Security and tell them too. Make sure Hannigan knows so we can work out what the hell just happened.”

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