Page 81 of Phoenix Falling
RISK
Being in jail sucked big, fat, hairy donkey balls, let me tell ya. I’d had plenty of experience being isolated, but right now I needed a distraction, and I needed it bad.
“So what’re you in for?” The question was aimed at either of the two shifters in the cells next to me, but since I couldn’t see either of them directly, I simply threw it out into the hall. Hopefully one of them would answer.
“Working with the enemy,” the one to my left said.
I shivered. “Guess it’s a good thing you’re behind bars.”
He grunted, which I guess was answer enough. The guy across the hallway didn’t take my point all that well, though.
“These bars can’t really keep us in if we don’t want to be.”
“Do you want to be in jail?” ’Cause that was a new one on me. Nick had certainly never mentioned anyone wanting to be arrested. Why would anyone want to be stuck in a cell going stir-crazy?
“Of course not,” he said, his tone implying that I was an idiot. “We’re just trying to be good.”
Again with the tone that said the opposite of what his words were. “Huh.”
“We’re not trying to be good,” the guy to my left said. “We are who we are, Beckan.”
So he wasn’t talking to me. Got it.
“Who are you then?” I asked. Maybe I should’ve started there and they’d be more friendly.
“I’m Beckan,” the one across the hall said.
“I gathered that.”
A big hand appeared in front of the window of my cell. “Baer.”
“I can see why they call you that,” I said, shaking the massive hand.
A quiet chuckle reached me. “And you are?”
“Risk.” It was my name, and I was sticking to it, no matter what I’d said to Sun. I’d told him a lot of things that weren’t true anymore, after all. This was just one more.
Footsteps sounded far down at the end of the hall leading to our cells, then voices on the other side of the main door a few yards away. I angled my head, trying to get an early glimpse of whomever the visitor was, refusing to acknowledge the suddenthud thud thudof my heart behind my breastbone. I didn’t give a shit if Sun came to see me. He could apologize till the cows came home, but I’d never forget the look on his face as they led him away after ripping my mind apart.
Never, ever forget. He could go to hell if he thought forgiveness was even a remote possibility.
Instead of my not so favorite redhead, however, it was a blond who came through the main door. I groaned, realizing it was someone I actually knew.
Cale.
Oh, for fuck’s sake.
“Cale,” Baer acknowledged as the shifter walked by his cell.
Cale grunted. There seemed to be a lot of that going around today.
“Risk,” he said when he reached my door. He got right up in the window as if he could intimidate me with an actual steel door between us. I hated to tell him, but I’d been intimidated by far more powerful shifters than him. Didn’t think that would go over well, though.
“Cale.”
The sour look on his face didn’t bode well for this conversation, nor did his first words. “They might believe you about everything being fake, but you and I know better.”
My desire for company took a swift nosedive. “For fuck’s sake, can you all not just leave me alone?” I asked wearily. “Believe what you want, Cale.”
