That guard didn’t answer, and I was pretty sure I vaguely remembered him as one who had been in that back room.
“Finally,” Fergus muttered, ignoring the Elder Elemental, and…in a heartbeat…the guards neck was snapped, his lifeless body falling to the ground where Fergus absently kicked the guard’s hand to rest against the silver bars. He didn’t have a shot in hell of healing, or anyone healing him, while he stood there, calmly gazing back at me as my mind screamed silently, getting nauseous in fear, not wanting his fate to be on death row, everyone having witnessed him…killing…without a trial or witnessed verdict or…anything Lawful.
“Jesus!” King White barked into the silence descending on the room, even as Fergus reached out and grabbed another guard, slamming his face against the silver bars over the dead guard’s body, making the man freak the hell out, but he shut up nicely when Fergus squeezed his throat tighter. “Fergus! Stop! Make your argument!”
“What the hell is going on?” Elder Jacobs shouted, the sound ringing throughout the room.
Kincaid’s eyes were just as cold and remote as Fergus’s when he tilted his head toward me, glancing wherever Elder Jacobs and Elder Merrick were standing behind the guards. “Sadie’s in there. It’s bad. What they did,” his head jerked back and forth, “it’s fucking wrong.”
Fergus didn’t stop, keeping his hold tight, but stated coolly, “Law seventy-one clearly states that if Law enforcement should unduly beat a Mystical, or if a Mystical unduly beats a Com, per the peace treaty, their punishment is up to death. And my ruling is that she has been unduly beaten. And I choose their deaths.” He slammed the guards face again, asking calmly, “Did you do this to her?”
“She resisted arrest!” the guard shrieked, even as I heard grunting from the mass of guards.
“They took her to a back room after she’d already been taken down and silvered, then beat her,” Venclaire stated, his voice still serene.
“Did you?” Fergus asked voice void.
No answer, except for a pitiful whimper.
His neck was snapped instantly, his body falling on top of the other dead guard, hand also kicked against the silver bars, and Fergus stated coolly to the guard inside the cell, “I said get her out of there.” The air Elemental glued to the middle of the cell snapped out of his daze of staring at the dead guards, and moved toward me, but the grunting from the guards mass was Elder Jacobs and Elder Merrick ramming through their ranks, barging into the jail cell, both of their expressions upset, the other inmates of the cell backing the hell away, actually shoving their backs against the silvers bars. It was Elder Merrick who held my attention, his face trying to be so carefully blank, but his eyes were furious navy blue orbs, his gaze hooded, his hands fisted. Both saw me at the same time, and Elder Jacobs muttered a curse, but started racing toward me while Elder Merrick froze completely until his body jerked and he leapt easily through the air, swatting the guard back onto the floor, the man smacking his head so hard he was unconscious, his own bit of blood pooling from his head. Elder Jacobs only jumped over him as he knelt next to Elder Merrick, who wasn’t saying a word, his jaw clenched tight as he blinked repeatedly before his gaze started running over my frame in a professional manner. Elder Jacobs turned, and grabbed the keys from the jailer, even as Fergus questioned another guard who said no, and it was honest, so was released from Fergus’s hold.
Elder Merrick’s voice was completely void of all emotion as he stated monotone loudly, “We’ll have to take her out on the cot. We can’t move her without injuring her more without it. Both legs and arms are broken in several places, and the way she’s breathing, I’m betting,” he inhaled slowly, carefully, “her ribs are probably also broken.”
I saw Fergus over their heads as Elder Jacobs leaned over me, talking softly, soothingly as he removed my cuffs, not even flinching when he grabbed onto them, working them deliberately slowly as to not cause any more pain on my body. If I could talk I would tell him…a bit more pain wouldn’t matter, seeing as how my brain was utterly disoriented from it, lying in a hazy daze as I was. Fergus finally unfroze, bending slowly, grabbing one of the guns off a dead guard, checking the clip efficiently, probably making sure they were silver, and in a quick round of questioning with Kincaid’s assistance of honest answers, he shot the other two dead in the head. Elder Merrick stated clearly, voice still so cool and emotionless, his eyes as cold as death, “King Bridges or Venclaire, we need you in here before we lift her and someone make sure the medic’s ready.”
Venclaire was inside in a blur, bringing a breeze with him, Elder Jacobs tossing the silver cuffs outside the jail cell’s door, moving to the bottom of the cot, since Elder Merrick had already risen and moved to the top. Venclaire sucked in a harsh breath as he bent, pushing the hair back from my face, revealing the good package of swelling, probably making me appear like a phantom.
Elder Merrick ordered gruffly, possibly a bit too harshly, “Venclaire, if you can’t handle it, get the fuck out and let your King take care of business.”
Instant. “Fuck off.” And then…peace…sweet beautiful peace touched down on me as Venclaire instantly touched me, making me sigh on a wheeze, and I noticed my body had been shaking even worse than I had imagined as it stopped quaking, settling like dead weight on the cot. “She’s good. You can move her.”
They lifted me carefully, but I wasn’t feeling anything but peace even if they did jostle me because Venclaire stayed connected to me while they gently moved through the cell and out the cell’s door, actually stepping on the dead, not even bothering to step over them, earning a small gasp from a few of the frightened guards, but Venclaire stated quietly to Fergus, who walked next to him, Kincaid on the other side on me, “Remember, she doesn’t heal as fast as other Mysticals.”
Brusque words from Fergus. “I remember.” Then Fergus, the Prodigy, who was protecting like the King he would be one day, remained mute thereafter as guards quickly scattered to the bars as we passed, the sound of the three Kings talking quietly behind me as they followed, King White giving barking orders to one of the guards to dispose of the bodies. When the Elders stopped, lowering me in a small medical room inside the Com police station the Mage medic had shown us to, I was fairly sure Elder Merrick leaned more heavily against the wall across the room, everyone cursing quietly, and not so quietly, when the Mage evaluated my body with knowledgeable eyes, asking, “Is there any chance she may be pregnant?”
If Venclaire hadn’t been squatting next to me, keeping his power ramped through me, I might have been in the same predicament as Elder Merrick, because if I was pregnant, any chance of a live baby inside my broken body would be a shot in hell.