“Ew. Strike four.”
She snorted. “Judgmental. I don’t have my kitchen unpacked yet.”
“If I was out of here, I would help you unpack.”
It was so unexpectedly sweet of him to say, she didn’t know how to respond. Her stomach dipped with butterflies, and she pursed her lips against a mushy smile. “Admission—I’m not good at unpacking because I never stay in one place long enough, so what’s the point?”
“A roamer?”
“I guess. I’m restless in general. Are you going to say strike five?”
“Nope. I wish I could be a roamer right now. Pacing this damn cell isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.”
“What are you doing now?”
“Pulling the pillow off my face, giving up on sleep, and I’m going to do pushups until my arms won’t hold me up anymore. Your bedtime stories weren’t boring enough.”
“I’ll try harder then. Tell me every ten pushups so I can cheer you on, though.”
“Ten.”
“Already?”
“Twenty.”
“Good, lord. Okay, tell me every hundred pushups or I’ll never get through a bedtime story. Once upon a time…”
Vyr huffed a laugh.
“There was this badass who Tasered Emmitt for fucking calling her a princess, and there was this hornball dragon who—”
“No, I want a real story. One about your life. One hundred.”
“Go, Vyr, go. Do all the pushups.” She wracked her brain for a memory. “Okaaay, let me see. We used to have peach trees.”
“Oh, good, this sounds super boring. I think I’m getting tired already.”
“Not polite. We had this orchard behind the trailer I grew up in. I loved it out there. My dad was normal. Human with no powers, and he worked a lot so my mom didn’t have to. She couldn’t.”
“Why not?”
“Because she had powers like us, but she couldn’t control them very well. She had anxiety around strangers and would lose control. Shifters were just coming out to the public, and we were watching all the fights and protests on the news every night. My parents were scared of someone finding out about my mom. There aren’t many natural-born witches, so we were very careful. We didn’t have much, my dad was a miner, but we had enough. But when the peaches grew, my mom would always get brave and sell them at a farmer’s market. She would prep herself for weeks to be around people, collecting herbs that would stunt her powers, casting spells that would keep her steady. Keep her numb to all that extra energy of the market maybe, I don’t know. But we would work so hard, my mom and I, picking these peaches and loading them into crates, and we would drive our old dodge pickup to the farmer’s market and sell those peaches. They were the best. I still remember exactly what they tasted like. Sometimes my mom and I would get hungry and tired of picking, so we would sit down and just…pig out. They were the juicy kind too, so we would be covered in sticky-sweet peach juice. Bees were always buzzing around us. The last few years, my mom would make peach preserves, and we sold those, too. Farmer’s market months, we would get to go buck wild at the grocery store because we had extra money. My mom would let me get Jell-O, candy, Fruit Roll-ups, and the expensive cereal.
“What happened to her?”
An explosion flashed in her mind. Her outstretched fingers, sobbing…the predators. The animals. The pain of the power she hadn’t been able to control. She flinched away from the memory. “Subject change.”
A soft, prehistoric growl filled her head. “Two hundred.”
“Tired yet?”
“No. If I don’t make it out of here—"
“Don’t say that.”
“No listen. If I don’t, I need you to do something for me. I know it’s rude for me to ask you something when we don’t know each other, but I don’t have a connection to anyone else outside of here. I can’t reach my crew. I’ve tried. For some reason, you’re the only one I can communicate with on the outside.”
“Okay.” She swallowed hard and curled on her side in a ball. “Ask.”
“If something happens and I lose this battle…tell my people I went strong, okay? Tell them I didn’t let the New IESA and the prison break me, even if you see it differently…fuck.”
“What’s wrong?”
“Nosebleed. Hang on, I’ll be right back. Don’t go to sleep yet. I want to say goodnight. I’ll hurry.”
“Hurry and do what?”
“It’s too much blood. I’m trying to get a guard’s attention. Everything is okay.”
And then there was deafening silence.
“Vyr?” Riyah sat up in bed. “Vyr, are you there? Are you okay?”
By the time ten minutes had passed, Riyah was up and pacing the room. “Vyr, are you there?” Shit. She pulled on a pair of jeans, high heels, and a nice black blouse. Grabbed her bag and jogged as best she could in her work shoes to her Xterra. Shit, shit, shit, Vyr was bleeding. It had been too long since he Changed, since he’d been around his crew and his mountains. He was being dragged to his knees, and she couldn’t just lay in bed when he was going through another wave of The Sickening.
Wait. She sat in her car, gripping the wheel, panting. Riyah needed to think clearly before she acted. She had access to the prison whenever she wanted. She was on call at all times in case one of the inmates needed her services. But if she ran in there, guns blazing at the same exact time Vyr was bleeding, it would throw suspicion on them both. If the New IESA didn’t know he could read minds, she had to protect him from them finding out. “Vyr, please. Just tell me you’re okay. Tell me now or I’m coming to you.”
Another minute passed. She muttered a curse and turned on the SUV.
“Stop. Riyah, it’s late. Turn off the car. I’m okay.”
“Where are you?”
“I’m sitting in my cell, on the bed, leaned against the wall. There is a hazmat team cleaning up the mess. Everything is okay. I’m calm.”
“Is your fist clenched?”
“What?”
“Is your fist clenched?”
There were a few seconds of hesitation and then, “Yes.”
He wasn’t okay then. Not really. “Someday I want a peach orchard of my own. I want peach trees. I want to pick the fruit and sell it at a farmer’s market because those are some of my favorite times.”
“What happened to her, Riyah?”
“I can’t tell you now because it won’t help you. But in a week, when you’re still here, still fighting, still being your badass self, I’ll tell you all about it.”
“I have a pet swan.”