Page 167 of Love & Heart Braking

“Can you listen?” I asked Lerome.

He squinted. “They’ve moved into a no-gossip. Or there may be one around the lab. The sound cut off.”

Dammit. “I wonder what’s going on.” On the other hand, there was no one watching us in the lab. “Don’t suppose you can get free?”

He wriggled. “Nope. I used my talons on the first day and they pulled them out.”

I gasped. “Lerome, that’s horrible.”

The griffin lifted a shoulder. “I only have so many talons. Once they’re gone, they can’t do it to me again until they grow. Which takes a long time.”

Our tech rebel had no shortage of bravery. “Let’s be friends once this is all over.”

The older man smiled. “I’d like that, Cerys.”

The thin purple ribbon between us shone brightly. “I want to look around. Any ideas?”

He scanned the room. “Nope. Got any tricks up your sleeve?”

Maybe. I just wasn’t used to showing them. Though the twelve already knew about my tricks, and Lerome knew I was more than what I seemed too. So why not?

I twisted my strapped hands until they were palm up. White blazed and my bow thudded onto my stomach.

Lerome didn’t make a sound, but his eyes rounded.

I gripped one tip of the bow, then set to slipping the other end under the leather cusp holding one of my ankles to the bed. I wedged the tip in and pried the leather strap free of the metal buckle.

“There’s a prong holding it,” Lerome mumbled. “Hold on.”

He bounced his chair forward and then leaned forward, gripping the cuff in his teeth to pull upward.

I kicked free of it. “Can you do the other one?”

“Haven’t done this kind of stuff since my wife was alive.”

I snorted, already busy wedging the end of the bow in under the other ankle cuff. This one was harder, but I steadied the bottom of the bow with my free foot and managed to get the strap free of the buckle.

Lerome yanked the strap up using his mouth again, and it pulled off the prong.

Two legs free.

I wedged the top tip of my bow under the strap holding down my right wrist. The position was too awkward. “I can’t pull the strap free, but it’s raised.”

Lerome bounced around on his chair and eventually loosened the cuff, then freed it of the prong too.

Yes! Hand free.

I quickly undid the last cuff, then banished my bow.

Slipping off the bed, I rummaged through the drawers and found a scalpel. I sawed through the knots of the rope tying the griffin to the chair.

“We need evidence,” I said low. “Anything you can find.”

Was anyone watching the cameras? If so, they’d be on their way, if not nearly here. I ran ahead of Lerome to the biohazard room and grabbed a gas mask, not stopping for the germ-killing spray to do its job.

A pin pad stopped me in my tracks.

Lerome side-stepped me. Using the scalpel, he pried off the cover, then rummaged with the wires. “Idiots.”

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