Page 65 of Pulling Strings

As the gas masks were passed around, Donovan offered one to me.

Grimm stopped him with a shake of his head. “Fitch has a date with the Capitol tomorrow. Wouldn’twant him to miss it.”

“But the trial’s tomorrow.” Donovan turned toward me, but I dodged his gaze. The lump in my throat worked as effectively as a gag, not that I had anything to say.

“My point exactly,” Grimm said.

Donovan’s face washed pale. “He can’t go to court. They’ll kill him!” Again, he looked at me and, again, I stared at the floor.

“I happen to believe otherwise.” I heard the smile in Grimm’s voice.

Donovan fell silent, leaving the room quiet until Avery huffed a breath.

“Is there something you’d like to add, Mister Hale?” Grimm asked him.

“Nope,” came the clipped reply.

“Fitch,” Grimm rumbled. “The visitor pass? I’d like to be out of here before morning.” His chuckle grated on me.

I looked up to see Ripley watching with the faintest hint of judgment in his eyes. Anger flared, and I snatched the badge from my pocket, ready to throw or drop it and make him pick it up off the floor.

Before I could do either, commotion in the hall outside piqued my interest.

“We’ve got company!” Avery announced.

“That shadow bitch must’ve led them right to us,” Vinton added with a growl.

The visitor pass had been forgotten in my hand until Ripley skirted by and plucked it free.

Weight from the prison’s antimagic poured over me. I swayed, abruptly queasy and too dizzy to focus on the supposed healer as he marched alone toward the hallway I imagined to be crawling with guards.

“Masks on!” Grimm roared.

Voices clamored outside, too, but I didn’t bother to discern them. My attention lingered on Ripley, who stood with his back to us while drawing an impossibly deep breath.

He expelled it in a soft, hissing sound like a pressure valve releasing. Sickly yellow smoke followed. It didn’t billow in clouds or plumes. Instead, it spilled like incense in a fountain, flowing down then across the floor.

More shouts came from the hall, accompanied by what sounded like a call for retreat. Boots dragged against the cement floors, but I had a feeling they wouldn’t make it far.

Grimm pressed a gas mask against Donovan’s chest. “Time to go, my boy,” he said, his words muffled by his own mask.

Donovan looked from our leader to me. “Come with us,” he said.

“Donnie, I can’t—”

“You break the rules all the time,” he argued. “Why not now?”

A glance at Grimm found him wordlessly watching.

“Don’t worry,” I told Donovan. My mantra of late.

The smoke, which had first moved only forward, began to roll back into the close quarters of the infirmary. Was it deadly? I hoped not. For Grimm’s plan to progress, I needed to survive this.

I grabbed the gas mask from Donovan’s limp grip and placed it over his head. The antimagic was staggering, causing the room to spin around me. I closed my eyes in a hard blink, then opened them to Grimm’s summons.

“Get up on the bed, son.” He gestured to the nearest gurney. “We have to give you a story you can sell.”

The handful of steps to the rolling gurney felt like slogging through mud. I was trembling by the time Grimm came beside me and used the handcuffs to secure my wrist to the bedrail.

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