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iii. Big Dogs

As soon as Luke made his decision, he could feel the prison opening up to him. Apparently everyone had been listening to his verdict, because two more people moved to sit by him. The dark haired girl in the recording booth-like cell and the boy who was frozen over came to sit beside him. The girl who screamed had a kind of muzzle over her mouth, Luke understood why. She moved her hands around in a way that tickled a fuzzy part of Luke's memory, but he couldn't place.

"She says hello." Shadow spoke up, watching her hands intently. She's signing, Luke thought. He and Phoebe had learned a little bit of sign language when they were young children, though it was such a long time ago, he couldn't even remember how to sign his name. "Luke, this is 'Canary'." Canary made a sign that Luke knew too well, her hand, balled up into a fist, slammed into her opposite palm. Shadow held his hands up in surrender. "Mary Ridici, though most of us call her Canary."

Luke nodded a silent hello, too intimidated by the girl's intense green eyes to say words.

Canary narrowed her eyes and began to sign in an almost mocking tone. Shadow sighed before he spoke up.

"She wants to know why you're so quiet." Canary reached across the table and smacked Shadow's shoulder. He let out a yelp of surprise before holding his hands up in a surrender. He turned to Luke with an explanation. "Mary has a rather strong vocabulary, I thought it might be a better introduction to censor. She thinks I'm an idiot for doing so." He cleared his throat and Luke raised and eyebrow. "What she actually said was, 'what the fuck, pup? Don't you talk?'"

"What is it with everyone in this prison and dog metaphors?" Luke muttered. That was when the boy from the frozen cell spoke up.

"It's because you've got sad puppy eyes. When I got here, all they were physically capable of doing was make Frozen jokes." He cracked a wry smile and held out his hand. "They call me Blaze." Luke reached out to shake his hand before D, with diamond fingertips, to block his hand.

"If I were you, I wouldn't." D was smiling when Luke's attention was drawn to Blaze's white hot fingers. They were literally glowing with heat. Blaze sent Luke a wink.

"Look, D, I know there's a certain level of stereotype we have to uphold, but do we really have to scare the hell out of the new pup?" Shadow sighed. Luke guessed he had sat through many of these intimidation techniques. The idea of Shadow's powers scared Luke shitless, so he was glad to be done with this circus before Shadow joined the show.

Canary started signing with her head tilted to the side and wide, teasing eyes. She was pleading. D laughed and everyone paused to look at her. Luke couldn't help but feel a tiny bit impressed that she had so much power without saying a word. He was glad he'd decided not to put his own head on the chopping block.

"No, Canary, baby, we should be good to him. He's going to help us."

The sound of those words made Luke's blood run cold. D's smile seemed to freeze time in the prison; she made icy eye contact with Luke and raised an eyebrow. The silent verdict was louder than if she'd screamed it. Luke couldn't bring himself to object, though every fiber of his being was pulsing with rage and fear. He could only bring himself to nod in agreement. The tiny, controlled shake of his head was all D needed.

"Good boy."