The walls echoed with tortured moans, and the stench inside the room overwhelmed her. The tears she had been fighting finally broke free and slipped down her cheeks unchecked. This had to be a nightmare. It could not be real.
Even as she repeated that to herself, the cold seeped up from the floor and chilled her to the bone. The one saving grace was that it made her too numb to feel any more pain, and she sat deathly still.
The room was about twice the size of the room Bones had kept her in. As her eyes grew accustomed to the dark, Arista could make out dozens of bodies sprawled across the floor.
At the far end of the room, a figure detached from the shadows and started toward her. A misshapen figure, walking with an awkward shuffle-thump gait. Arista pushed clumsily to her feet, trying to force the cold from her limbs, at least enough so that she could move if needed. Others were stirring awake now, and several sat up, rubbing their eyes until they saw her.
Arista pressed back against the steel door, but it would not give under the pressure. A scratching sound came from near her and Arista saw a young girl cowering in the corner. There was something so familiar about the look in her eyes. The fear. Arista took a step toward her, but the girl scrambled back until she had wedged herself in the corner. She had the look of a wild animal about her.
It was a look she remembered well.
“Are you a lady, then?” a different woman asked. She had on a dirt-stained shift and her feet were bare and black. Her hair had been nearly all chopped off, and stood out from her head in uneven peaks. “We don’t get many hoity-toities in here. That dress would fetch me a nice hot meal.” A gleam came into the woman’s eyes as she stood.
Arista watched the woman warily. She’d had run-ins with people like her before. They weren’t all there in the head, and that made them more dangerous than if they were in their right mind. Arista slowly wrapped the extra chain around her fingers.
The woman crept closer, licking her cracked lips.
The others would be no help—already they were cowering away from the crazy one. A low whimper came from the girl in the corner. Arista’s stomach rolled. A sour taste coated the back of her tongue. It would not be the first time she had fought for what was hers. She could scream, but her voice would only be one among hundreds. No one would come to her aid here. She gripped the chain tight in her fist and waited. There would only be one chance to take the woman by surprise. The woman outweighed Arista by at least four stone.
“Time to pay up, your ladyship.” The woman lunged at her. Arista waited until the woman’s hand was almost at her neck before she swung her chain-covered fist as hard as she could at her jaw. Her fist connected with a thud, and the woman’s head snapped back. She moaned low in her throat and fell to the ground in a heap. Arista stared down at her, panting for air, but the woman didn’t move.
Everyone in the cell froze, looking at Arista. The girl in the corner pushed herself to her feet, and her gaze kept darting to the woman lying on the floor. Arista didn’t know what to do next. She loosened her grip and the small length of chain unraveled. There was blood on her knuckles, but she wasn’t sure whose it was.
A woman leaned over the body. After a moment, she looked up. “She ain’t dead. Don’t matter much—heard you’ll be swinging from the rope at dawn. Corpses don’t need clothes, so they’ll be hers come morning.”
A loud metallic clink sounded on the door right by her head, and she jumped away as it swung open. “You.” The jailer pointed at Arista. “Outside.”
She looked over her shoulder, then took several hesitant steps out of the cell.
“I warned you, gypsy.” Nic stood in the doorway, his arms crossed over his chest.
What the hell was he doing there? Had he come to gloat? Rage filled her, fast and fierce, and she yanked free of the guard with a primal growl. Her fists hit his chest, but it was like striking a stone wall. Nic grabbed her hands and held them with just one of his. He leaned down very close to whisper in her ear.
“What the bloody hell were you thinking, going back to the party? Huntington couldn’t wait to tell Wild what you wanted.”
“I needed something on Wild. Raffer is blackmailing someone I care about, and I have to help them,” she sobbed. “You have to help me, Nic.”
“You should have listened to me, gypsy. There’s only so much I can do to protect you now. The next time I say run, you run,” he hissed low in her ear before spinning her around and shoving her back at the guard. Instead of catching her, the man stepped back and Arista sprawled onto the cold stone floor. A sharp pain shot through her knee.