Page 16 of Expose Me

Why didn’t I report it?

Why had I been ignoring all their calls and messages?

Why did I help him escape to No Man’s Land?

Why did I fight members of my own House out in the street?

What were we planning?

How long had we been colluding?

Blah, blah, fucking blah.

With every outrageous question and dismissal of my perfectly honest and reasonable answer, I got more and more pissed.

Twelve yearsI’d busted my ass to prove myself, to get to a position of respect in the House of Spirit and Sapphire. Twelve. Years. And my word was still not worth shit. They were treating me like a criminal and not listening to me at all.

I tried not to be hurt by the cold, dismissive look in Reg’s eyes. He was just my boss; I hardly even liked him as a person anyway. But he’d been my direct superior for five years now. We worked closely on a lot of things. I thought we had—if not a friendship—then at least some semblance of mutual respect and camaraderie. Yet, here he was, not willing to even lift a finger to help me out of an unfortunate situation that was in no way my fault.

Fucker.

After exactly one hour of this bullshit, Reg checked the time and declared he had a meeting to get to. I was just another item on his to-do list.

“We’ll have you transferred to Sydney soon,” he said to me on his way out the door. “Until we figure out this situation with the new portal and get to the bottom of your involvement, you’ll remain under guard.”

With that, he left, Marina on his heels.

I kept my face still and breathed through the feelings of betrayal tearing my insides apart. There was no use in getting emotional. Emotions made you sloppy, and I couldn’t afford to be anything other than sharp. Because there was no way I was going to just take this lying down.

I rested my head on the brick wall behind me as I shoved my emotions down and locked them up tight. Then I formulated a plan and reached out for the items in my storage facility that I’d need. The ribbons in my mind unfurled and slunk around them immediately, but I left them loose, at the ready.

The next part would be the hardest. I had to wait.

Reg had ordered that I be kept under close watch at all times. He knew me and what I was capable of. But the guard standing by the door didn’t and neither did most of the people in the Melbourne office. It was only a matter of time before Reginald had to head back to Sydney—before the guard got bored and tired.

Unfortunately, the guards were switched out every hour; fortunately, it was the same three guards rotating through.

Hours passed. No one came to give me food or water. My resolve hardened. Sometime in the evening—when the office staff would’ve gone home for the day and everyone else would be tired—I made my move.

The guard startled a little when I shifted to face him. I’d moved so little throughout the day, they’d probably started to wonder why they were even guarding me.

“Hey, I need to go to the bathroom,” I said as I summoned a little key. The exact key that would fit into the lock on these cuffs.

“You’re not to leave this room,” he said, voice flat.

“Seriously?” I laughed, using the sound to cover the click of the lock and the cuffs opening. “I’ve been in here all damn day. I will quite literally piss myself all over this chair if I can’t go to the toilet in the next five minutes.”

The guard sighed and glared at me. I held his stare and slowly raised one eyebrow in challenge.

“Fine,” he grumbled. “I’ll need to get another guard.”

“Ooh! Two big strong men to escort little old me? I’m flattered.”

“It’s just orders.” He turned, opening the door magically coded to only unlock at his unique signature. I didn’t have anything in my stash that would bypass that. I needed him to open that door.

But I did have a powerful sedative. The powder was sold by a fae in Mumbai by the gram. I’d only been able to afford three doses. I summoned one of them into my fist as I dropped the cuffs.

They clattered to the floor as the guard whipped his head around, eyes wide, hand still on the door.

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