Page 57 of Consume
So how to use this to my advantage? Even if I broke through the metal, I couldn’t just walk out of here. But it would certainly help if I found another way...
The door clicked open, and I shoved my warped cuffs underneath the table, blanking my face of everything but innocence.
A man stepped into the room dressed in a black suit and tie and hugging a briefcase, his black mustache as generous as the rest of his body. He stopped and stared, his bloodshot blue eyes magnified behind thick glasses. For a moment, he stood there, long past uncomfortable.
I stared right back. If he was mentally undressing me and planned on going for a grope, my warped cuffs might allow me enough slack to slam his head into the table. Oh, that would be fantastic.
Finally, he shook himself out of whatever trance he was under, cleared his throat, and sat across from me.
“Ms. Jones,” he boomed, flinging his briefcase onto the table. “Today is not your lucky day, I see. I need a couple signatures from you stating that yes, you will be completely honest with me as to the events that led you here to the best of your recollection—”
“I have to explain everything again?” I snapped. “Just listen to the rusted recording. It didn’t change at all the first hundred times I recounted everything.”
“Oooh.” He shivered. “I pity those who’ve gotten that look from you. It’s positively chilly. Best not to use that face in the courtroom, Ms. Jones.”
I leveled him with a fierce glare. “It’s my only face.”
He raised his eyebrows as he pulled out a tablet from inside his briefcase. “If you say so. I’ll also need you to sign saying that yes, I will be representing you in a court of law. I’m afraid you don’t have much choice on that one. I’m the only public defender that offered to help you.”
“Why?”
“Because I like to think all of my clients are innocent.” He slid the tablet across the table. “Even if they aren’t.”
I sighed down at the legalese and swiped left until I came to a spot for my signature.
“There’s more after that page.” He stood. “I’ll be right back. I need to go to the little boys’ room.”
While he crossed toward the door, I signed my name and then swiped left again. A message was scrawled across the tablet page in red ink:Ad astra per aspera.Get as low as you can.
A jolt ran through me. I flicked my gaze up. The man’s blue eyes connected with mine, but I didn’t know them. What was he playing at? He turned and settled his hand on the doorknob. A hand that didn’t quite match the size of the rest of his body. A dainty girl hand, so much like mine when I’d boarded theViciousship as a boy.
Was that...was thatMoon? Theater-major Moon Dragon? It didn’t look or sound anything like her though.
I glanced at the one-way mirror to my left as whoever that really was walked out.Ad astra per aspera. Latin for ‘To the stars through difficulties,’ a phrase used to honor the lives lost in the Black War.Get as low as you can. Pretty sure anyone lurking behind that glass would see me duck underneath the table. Yet I couldn’t risk not doing it either if it somehow helped get me out of here. I bent over my knees and fiddled with the boot closest to the mirror so they might think I just had an itch. With their attention hopefully zeroed in on that, I yanked hard on the chain of my other hand, trying to break it loose. Did this rescue mission include keys to my handcuffs in case I couldn’t free myself with hungry parasites?
A great explosion from overhead pummeled my eardrums. Glass and plaster rained down on top of my back. It bit into my lower arms and back, but otherwise I was unhurt. I popped my head up to see an enormous, jagged hole in the ceiling and a cloud of dust blotting out the sky.
I yanked again, the cuff digging painfully at my knuckles.
A shout came from above that sounded like, “Look out below!” but I couldn’t be sure and I couldn’t tell who because of the insane amount of noise from the building imploding around me.
Then something hard smacked me in the face. The end of a rope, I realized.
With my teeth bared, I pulled harder, willing the parasites to eat the metal faster.
The door slammed open, and the detective barreled toward me. But moving like lightning, my lawyer appeared next to him and sprayed something into his eyes. He yelped and slapped his hands over his face.
Finally the cuff scraped over my knuckles.
“Heads up, roomie,” my lawyer hissed. He tossed me the detective’s keys, which I caught with my now free hand. Then he grinned, a devilish one I recognized. “See you soon.”
I laughed, already feeling freer than I had in a long, long time. Quickly, I unlocked my other hand and ankles and started to climb the rope. The weightless relief in my chest floated me even higher. The rope swung out into a thick, gritty haze I couldn’t see through, but I trusted it. “Absidy, hang on!”
Now, I trusted it even more. I cried out at the sound of the voice, my eyes prickling, as I scrambled to face the source, so close I could taste him. My Mase.
A pair of strong arms gripped me behind by the shoulders and hauled me to my feet on solid ground within the lower level of Parker’s spaceship. Mase’s musky warmth enveloped me. He crushed me to him, and I crushed him right back, clinging to him with the power of all the fears and doubts that had gripped me for far too long.
The hatch in the floor closed, sealing me off from Mayvel and silencing the roar of the engine. The ship lifted us higher toward safety.Ad astra per asperaindeed.
