Children Of The Sky (The Scripts Of Neptune, Book 2)

Chapter 18

Nyle woke in the rough, cold arms of a sandstone cell floor. The slats were too small to fit through in his animalia form, the door equipped with a daunting lock, the walls windowless.

His eyelids were heavy, limbs thick and difficult to move. Groaning quietly, he rolled onto his stomach and clumsily tried to push himself up, finding his arms too weak from the drug to support his body. Resting his forehead on the damp, cold floor, he lay there with his arms bent beneath him and breathed in the musty, mildewed stench of the prison, mind fuzzy, heartbeat slow, muscles sore.

He didn't know how long he laid there before the faint echo of footsteps reached his ears from the corridor beyond the door. It was haunting in the underground, that noise, haunting in the way a storm was as it sat on the horizon and grew darker, waiting to break.

Nyle knew this storm would end badly for him. He'd known it when he found the note, and he knew it now as his cell was opened and rough hands dragged him up. He didn't fight when two guards pinned him to the wall, nor when he found himself face-to-face with Michael's cold expression. There was no emotion in that face, those grey-blue eyes, not even anger. It sent a chill down Nyle's spine.

"I finally caught you." The words were soft, almost a breath. Michael's hands were slow and firm as they took hold of Nyle's shirt and pulled him forward so they were eye-to-eye and nearly sharing breath. "You," Michael whispered, his voice shaking. Nyle realized, as he stared, that he'd been wrong. There was anger in those eyes, that tone. It was cold anger, frozen in place, laced with a fear that scared him as much as it likely did Michael. "You took everything from me. And I have decided to collect what is due me."

"Lillian." Her name on Nyle's tongue, a whisper, tasted bitter as hell.

Michael smiled slightly, the corner of his mouth inching up. "That," he said, letting go and stepping back, "and the life of the man who killed my father."

Exhaling through an open mouth, Nyle shut his eyes and raised his chin, breathing a prayer to whatever gods cared enough to listen. It was a prayer for Lillian, for himself, for any small measure of mercy that could be spared in his last bit of time on this earth. One word, given him by Lynn from the language of the desert Nemaru, one of the few with a direct translation.

Lehímor.

Please.

"Get on with it, then," Nyle said, opening his eyes, words sluggish in his mouth. "Take your revenge."

Michael smiled again, leaning in close and taking Nyle's chin in his hand, holding so tight Nyle winced. "Soon," he breathed. "Very soon." Releasing Nyle's jaw, he turned sharply to go, pausing in the doorway. "Don't damage him too badly. I want him conscious and able to walk for tomorrow."

Nyle furrowed his brow as Michael shut the door behind him. A fist hit him so hard in the stomach that he fell to his knees, and an elbow to the spine sent him to the ground with blood on his tongue. The pain set in. He surrendered.

***

It was the ceiling that kept Lillian sane. The panic that tempted her stayed at the edges of her vision when she laid on her bed and stared up; this led to several hours of laying in solitude on her back, watching as the light faded outside. The windows that let in that light, windows she'd used for escape six months before, were gridlocked with metal casings fitted firmly over the frames. She'd tried to find something to pry them off; the room was stripped barren of nearly everything.

Everything except the lamp and matches. Lillian rolled her head to the side and looked at them for the fifth time in an hour, mulling over her options in her head. Break the glass, injure herself "accidentally," find an escape when they came to help her. Or she could risk a fire. Neither was anywhere close to failsafe, nor was anything else she tried to concoct in her addled mind. Breathing out long and slow into the cool, light-stained air, she turned her head back and stared at the ceiling again, watching the rainbows the sun cast through the glass fade as it sank along the western edge of the city remnants. It took a full minute before the urgency edged further into the forefront of her mind, demanding her attention and making her itch to move.