Page 51 of Broken Pregnant Mate
“Lost count,” she says, voice like tissue paper in the wind. Tilting her head, she adds, “Why?”
“I’m going to get out of here,” I say, lowering my voice, though it’s clear that the guard isn’t listening. Apparently, he doesn’t even think it’s possible that we might work together to get out.
“Ha.” I turn to find a different woman on my other side, rail-thin but still with some spark in her eyes. She finds mine, and I realize hers are a startling blue. “Good luck, kid.”
“Thank you.” I press my lips together, then ask, “Why are we here?”
“You can’t tell?” the woman asks, raising her thin, white eyebrows at me. “They’re mining us like a natural resource, running us bone-dry. They force visions, record them, andanalyze them. Sometimes they bring in objects for us to read, superglue them to the hands so we can never put them down, never get away from them.”
“Everyone in here is a psychic?” I ask, watching as the woman reaches down, takes a sip of her water, and leans back against the mattress, her eyes starting to cloud over.
“No,” she says, simply, “but you’ll do anything—including faking a vision—if it means avoiding the torture room.”
I think of Beth, how she’d gently guided me through exploring my abilities, always careful not to push too hard. This is the opposite—exploitation in its rawest form. When I glance around the room, I see what this situation is—a database made up of psychics. A life-size computer for the alpha to use.
“Jerrod Blacklock isn’t the alpha here, is he?”
The woman eyes me, and I realize she’s slipping away, her lids slowly closing even as she mutters, “No. Not as far as I can tell.”
“Is he dead?”
She blinks slowly, considers the question, then says, “Not dead, not alive. Somewhere between the two, trapped in a purgatory of being. It’s unfortunate, but it’s what he deserves.”
“How often do they check on us?” I ask quietly.
The woman follows my gaze to the other side of the room, where the guard is fully asleep now, then shrugs, laughing a bit as her voice grows heavier, sleepier. “They switch out every twelve hours. Nobody wants the brain shift, so they’ll fight over it. We were all weak, even before they put us in here.” She laughs, shakes her head, rolling against the mattress. “Between the starvation and the drugs, it’s not like we need them to keep us in line.”
I straighten my shoulders and begin to take in every detail of the room—the ventilation system overhead, the rhythm of movement, the sturdy, unmovable metal of the chain around my wrist. Most importantly, I note which of my fellow captives still have fight left in their eyes, and which are completely comatose, still.
“We’re getting out of here,” I say, shaking my head and pulling again on the chain around my wrist. “I amtiredof being locked up.”
When I turn around, the girl with the brown hair is watching me, her quiet gaze contemplative. When I look down at my little station, I realize there’s a bottle of water there, and hers is tipped over, empty.
They must be keeping water from her, not letting her have it to wear her out. Stretching out as far as I can, I push my water across the floor to her with my foot, nodding for her to take it. “You go ahead.”
She shakes her head, sneers at the water, and knocks mine over, too. I blink at her, wondering if she’s insane.
Then, she raises her hand and makes a little loopy sign around her temple, before pointing at the rest of the room.
Of course—putting the drugs in the water. Either drink it, or die.
And the woman beside me has chosen dying, rather than giving in. Our eyes lock, and I finally realize the thing in the back of my mind—what’s been bothering me about her. Shock rolls through me, and I crouch down to her eye level, eyes darting to her tattoo.
“You’re Hysopp,” I whisper, voice barely audible.
To my surprise, her eyes widen, and she looks at me with renewed interest. I’ve spent my entire life reading every book about the coven everyone says is hidden in that forest, and somehow, my brain managed to retain the knowledge of that tattoo on her wrist—that faint star.
It was in one of those books.
“So, you can cast?” My voice is so faint, I’m more mouthing the words than actually talking to her, but she seems to understand what I’m asking, and she nods slowly, but brings her fingers up, splaying them out and holding them palm up, then she mimes eating, glances down at the empty tray by her bed.
It’s covered with dust, like it hasn’t seen food in a long, long time. So they’re starving her out—but why? If she has energy, she might be able to cast? To get us out of here, or even just free herself?
With no water, and—I look at her station, devoid of food—no fuel, she can’t generate any magic. Veva told me that using magic requires a lot of energy, which is why she’d pulled back when she found out about her pregnancy.
Then, as though literally sent from heaven, I feel the jar of jam in my pocket. The one I grabbed just before I left Aidan’s apartment, tucking it away for good luck.
“Oh, Kira Fields,” I whisper, slipping the jar from my pocket and watching the woman’s eyes light up at the sight of it. “You are my new best friend.”
