CAGED (#3, of Crows and Thorns)

Chapter 20

A cold sensation twisted around my gut. "What's wrong?"

"It's Nelle. She's not right. There's something wrong with her," Penn replied.

Fear was a stranglehold around my throat. "What do you mean?"

"She's ill...maybe... We don't know. It's unnatural whatever's ailing her. We can't get anyone in here, because you willed everyone out, and I can't get her out because you've got that damned rope around her neck."

Penn wasn't one for being pushy or rude, not because she was a member of our staff, but her instinctive nature was to be quiet, or maybe that wasn't right either, she'd been broken in her childhood to be that way—quiet, unassuming, fade into the background and to tiptoe around others.

It was telling how worried she was because she'd forgotten herself and verbally snapped at me.

"You don't stop for anyone or anything, Graysen. Get home now."

She ended the call, not me.

I stared at my phone blankly. Fear and terror and worry washed through me like a dirty wave, pushing me under and choking the air from my lungs. "I've got..."

"What? What's going on?" Mela asked, already worried.

"I've got to get home, now, fast."

Mela didn't ask, she acted, and I loved her for that. She scooped up my daypack, grabbed the keys to my car, and tossed them my way. "Go. I got this."

I surged ahead, then something made me slam to a halt. I spun around. Mela looked at me in confusion.

"Elyse's isn't dead, Mela. They didn't kill her—they took her."

Her soft round cheeks tightened, along with every single muscle in her body. She glanced upward, biting at her bottom lip, trying not to cry. "She may as well be."

"Not yet. She won't be just yet. If you want to free her, find someone to get you into the Pelans' laboratories."

Her gaze shot to mine, incredulous. "Go against the Horned Gods?"

"Is she worth it?"

A fearsome look came upon her, and she nodded.

"Then do it," I told her.

I went to twist away, practically in a blind panic, when Mela lunged forward, her plait bouncing with the motion, and her palm outward to warn me to stop. "Wait!"

"Yeah?" I asked her, silently cursing myself for mentally screaming at her to hurry up and speak her piece, because every single molecule I was made from was roaring at me to go, find Nelle, now.

"Whatever is going on with you. Whatever it is you've got yourself into, you know you can come to me anytime, right? I can help you fix it, make it right." She couldn't, but I gave her a nod anyway. She smiled fleetingly, a flash of white teeth, just before she added, "Gray, who's to say you have to choose? If there are only two players in the game, only two choices—then become the third." She made a shooing motion with her hand, and I took it as the release she was gifting me. I spun around and ran.