Marry or Kill

22

E L I A S

THE CELLS ARE OVERRUN with spiderwebs, and I'm definite that there's a leak here because, in between the stone tiles, water snakes through. I feel water drip on top of my nose, slipping off, then landing on the tiles. I grimace, using my palm to wipe it off.

Mina storms in front of me with her black boots, green cargos and black shirt. Her dark, chocolate hair spills all over her shoulders, catching the dim lanterns as we walk past at an incredibly fast pace. I catch her shoulder, and she snappily turns around, annoyance tainted on her face.

"Why are you walking so fast?" I ask, wrinkling a brow. There's a dark cell beside us, which I'm glad no one occupies at the moment because I'd hate for someone to see me like this.

Her deep, green eyes peer at me and they adjust slightly, softening for a moment. Then she blinks through her thick eyelashes, looking at the ink black tiles beneath our feet.

"I don't like the spiders in this place." I stifle back a laugh, but clearly it shows on my face because her hand hardly smacks my shoulder. "Remind me not to express my fears to you ever again."

She stalks off, bolting through the murky hall of cells. "No, I'm sorry," I shout after her, hungrily matching my pace behind her. "You're saying that if you move more quickly, a spider won't attack you."

Mina abruptly stops, whipping to glare at me. "I'm hoping a spider lands in your hair."

"They presumably won't since I'm keeping up with your pace."

She opens her mouth to speak, rosy lips twisted in anger, but a voice sharply interrupts. Slow footsteps walking through murky water come nearer. "I was hoping to get a visit soon enough," he drawls, angrily clasping the iron bars behind Mina. "What do I owe the pleasure from the lovers themselves?"

A sole couple days locked in this place and his shirt is torn from the bricks by sleeping on the floor. His black hair is unkempt and wet from the sticky floor with dirt lining the edge of his hairline. Nicolas Amo — a West who tried to kill Noah and I in the boiler room.

Turns out my bullet didn't kill him, but it's lodged in his thigh.

Mina steadily rounds up to him, slightly cocking her head as if she knows something. I think we've got our guy. Fortunately for me, he wasn't killed by my bullet. "I saw you leaving the dining area carrying a needle," she says, then turns to me with a poise webbed in her face. "It's him."

Nicolas bares his teeth and furiously lunges at the bars, causing the metal from the padlock to chime in the quiet cellars. "You wouldn't want to make things worse for me, would you?" he asks, fury brewing in his eyes. "When I slit your throat open, Mina, I'll keep this in mind."

My movements are so quick that I don't even clock them. "If you don't keep quiet, I'll sever your tongue and leave for you to choke on your own blood." My hand tightly wraps around his finger that is plastered around the iron bars, pushing it so far backward that he hisses. "We need our questions answered."

Nicolas keeps his eyes flecked with a mischievous gold glued to mine, I can nearly hear the cogs in his mind spinning, thinking about how far he can pester me. It looks like he's thinking about whether to suffer the consequences of a broken finger or sacrifice his prickly ego.

We have tried to question him before, but Nicolas managed to pester Noah so much that he had stormed out the room in irritation. After that, Noah said he was a lost cause, but I wasn't keen on giving up. Then Mina shed light at the fact that she saw someone running out of the diner room with my mother lying on the ground pale.