Page 23 of Wrath

Now that I was on my own two feet, I could take a closer look at the room I was in.

It reminded me of a patient’s room you would see in a hospital—those institutions having long been abandoned and replaced by apothecaries run by mages.

A single cot devoid of any blankets rested against the far wall, with a bunch of strange devices and equipment surrounding it. Lupe would no doubt know the names of each and every one of these things. Nerd.

Opposite the cot sat a tiny stool and a rolling cart that had a bunch of white hospital gowns and rags. It was there I looked first, pushing clothing away until I clasped the handle of a dagger.

“Ha!” I called, satisfied.

“You found something?”

“I wouldn’t be your knight in shining armor if I didn’t,” I retorted, already moving towards the door in the room.

It was stainless steel and had no window that I could see.

Something akin to panic seized my chest.

What the fuck was on the other side of that door?

“Bash?” Z tentatively called.

I must’ve been silent for too long.

“I’m coming,” I assured her, straightening my spine nearly imperceptibly.

I could do this. I had to fucking do this.

For Z.

Gritting my teeth, I pushed down on the handle, half expecting the door to be locked, and then threw it open.

I didn’t know what I expected to greet me on the other side—a one-hundred-pound beast, perhaps, with glowing red eyes, serrated teeth, and claws the size of my forearm—but all I saw was an empty hallway. Dust covered every square inch, and thewindows were boarded up, allowing only tiny slivers of light to penetrate the darkened hallway. Certainly not enough to see by.

Dozens of doors lined the walls on either side, but I knew which one belonged to Z, so I bypassed the others and moved towards where I assumed hers would be.

Only to discover there was no door.

None.

Zippo.

Zero.

I tapped my knuckles against the wall. “Z?”

“Yeah?” Her voice was more muffled than it had been before, almost as if this wall separating us was thicker than the one in my cell.

“There’s no door.”

There was a beat of silence. “Yeah. I probably should’ve mentioned that sooner…”

I pinched the bridge of my nose to fend off the encroaching migraine. “You are so lucky I think your butt is cute.”

“I’ll have to thank my butt at a later time,” she quipped.

“I’ll thank your butt,” I retorted, then frowned.

How the fuck was I supposed to get her out of a room that didn’t have a door?

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