Starlight in Crystal City (Book 2)

20: In the Clutches of a Beast

I gasped as I awoke with a jolt. The room appeared in front of me, its blank surface taunting me. The mind-link lingered at the back of my mind, as if shouting at me to remember it this time.

And I remembered.

Ivy stood against the wall, perfectly static. Swiftly, she held out a cup of water like a robot obeying a command. "Would you like a drink?"

My heart thudded in my chest. I tried my luck and asked, "Can I have some juice instead?"

The water in her glass sloshed as Ivy moved, spilling onto the dirty tile. She lowered the cup and tersely replied, "Fine. I'll bring it to you later. Come with me."

She grabbed my bound hands and led me back through the room before shoving me inside. The guard to her left raised a shoe in the air and lobbed it onto the floor wordlessly. It hit the ground a few inches away from my other shoe; the laces were splattered with patches of oily water, and the rubber of the sole peeled back. I grimaced and cradled it in my hands.

At least I still had one lucky teal shoe.

My socks were dripping wet, and I'd gotten a few blisters and scratches from the uneven floors. I sighed as I pulled one of the new shoes towards me, holding the rubber soles of the teal pair under my palms for warmth. It looked mismatched, but I was far past the point to care.

Lexi was gone. I scanned the room in search of her, but it felt like a pointless task. After all, it wasn't like she was hiding from me. There was nowhere to hide. Nowhere to disappear, and nowhere that didn't make my skin crawl at the sense of being exposed. I'd always liked playing hide-and-seek, but it wasn't fun anymore.

"Hey!" I shouted. My voice bounced off the walls, returning to my ears in a sulky tone. "Bring her back!"

Banging on the door gave me a headache. I slammed my hands against it, twice, and reeled backward after the side of the door sliced my knuckle. My stomach growled, and the top half of my body seemed weaker than usual.

I searched around the room for the pebble I'd grabbed earlier. By now, the days had amounted to almost a week, and I had slowly sharpened the edges of the rock. Stepping backwards, I held it in my hands and stabbed the pebble into the doorway. The scraping was like the sound of chalk scratching against a chalkboard, but I continued regardless. The first couple of attempts didn't create a mark, but as I continued hitting the same spot, over and over, I could see that I'd formed a dent in the wall.

From the outside, a deep voice yelled, "Cut it out!"

I hit my fist against the wall. "Shut up!"

In response, the door squeaked and began to open. I dodged out of the way to avoid being hit and watched in horror as Ivy dragged Lexi back into the room. Both women looked harmed, but Lexi had gotten the brunt of it. There was a bruise on her cheek, and blood flowing from her nostrils. She lifted her fingers to pinch the bridge of her nose; there wears a trace of red under her fingernails, and stains of it covering her hands.

Meanwhile, although Ivy's clothes were ripped, and her hair frizzy, she didn't look bothered by it. The crease under her eyes gave her anger away, as clearly as a kettle filled with boiling water. Her emotions bubbled to the surface and poured out as she shoved Lexi against the wall and said, "I warned you not to mess with me. You should know better than that, Gianna. It wasn't an empty threat, and quite frankly, I should kill you for it."

Lexi's head rested against the wall. She sucked in a breath while her left hand batted at her right, as if trying to hold herself back. "But you won't. You can't. If you do that, you're starting a fight that you can't finish."