A Sea of Blood and Magic

Chapter Two

I pulled my pillows over my head, moaning in protest, and tried to ignore my dad calling me.

My mom fussed from the kitchen. "Let her sleep, Ben." Neither my dad nor she seemed to realize my hearing worked way better than theirs, no matter how many times I told them. It made things awkward when he spent the night.

"She can sleep in when she gets to college," my dad said. My stomach knotted in anticipation. He yelled again, "Hannah! Time to get up, hija querida!"

"Or trade school," my mom muttered, but my dad didn't respond.

I heaved a sigh of relief—no fights, at least not this early in the morning—and shouted, "I'm up!" as I rolled out of bed.

Halfway through my shower, sudden pounding on the door made me start and shriek.

"Get out, Banana!" my brother roared from the other side.

"Shut up, Safari!" I shouted, just to piss him off. "Go use the downstairs bathroom!"

"If you call me that again, I'm not feeding your fish while you're on your stupid senior trip."

"Sorry, sorry." He probably didn't mean it, but I didn't want to take the chance. This would be my first chance to go to Cabo without adult supervision, and coming home to a dead fish would ruin the fun.

Sixty seconds later, the spray became arctic, and I screamed again. Ari must have turned all the faucets he could find on hot.

"You're dead, Safari," I mumbled, and began to surface from sleep. Stupid dreams. If I got up, maybe I could get Mom to make bolemas de espanika for supper. But I was so comfortable.

"Hannah," a voice that wasn't Ari's said.

With a swoop of my stomach, I remembered where I really was. Rolling to my back, I stared up at the ceiling.

"You awake?" Nik asked.

Still not looking at him, I nodded. "Obviously. What's up?"

"I can hear them changing shifts outside. One of the guards said something about breakfast."

I sat up and blinked woozily. "Breakfast? I don't—holy crap, I slept that long?"

"Yeah. I think they must put tranquilizers in the food or something."

"So if I'd eaten the whole thing, I would have slept through till dinner, maybe." I dared to turn my head so I could look at him, though it sent so strong a bolt of pain through my temples that I thought I might throw up again. He mustered a half-smile when our gazes met. "Did you sleep?"

"A little. The steel hurts so bad that even with the drugs I kept waking up."

Being surrounded by this much industrial metal meant my bones felt drained of all their power. I couldn't imagine what constant involuntary contact must be doing to him. "Let me see your wrists."

He extended them toward me. I grasped his hands and turned them back and forth, examining the skin beneath the manacles, which was turning gray and wrinkled. "Shit. That looks really bad. Can you maybe work the corner of your blankets between your arm and the cuffs?"

"I don't know. Lemme see."

After a minute of watching him struggle, I said, "Let me help." He ignored me, still trying to shove the fabric through the narrow space, but his fingers were too big. "Nik, come on. Quit being stubborn and let me help."

He kept working at it for a while, but finally gave up and shoved the blanket at me. "Fine."

Ugh. If we weren't fellow captives I might have told him off. One glance at his face, though, tight around the mouth with obvious discomfort, reminded me he wasn't exactly at his best. Instead of lecturing, I opted to gently work the corner in, edging it back and forth until I had pushed it far enough in to pull it through the other end. Once I repeated the process with the other side, his whole body drained of tension. The answer was clear, but I asked anyway, "Better?"