Page 20 of Her Magic Light

The handcuffs decorating my wrists suggested I was under arrest, but no one had actually used those words. Detained, then? Detained for what?

“Where are we going?” I wanted answers, so I waited, and the silence stretched as long as whatever damn road we sped down.

I turned my head in Coop’s direction. I couldn’t see much of him, and he had sunglasses on, anyway, so I couldn’t see his eyes to guess what he was thinking.

“Classified,” he said finally, but I was fast reaching the point where any response from him was a good response.

It was better than silence, and I liked provoking even one word from him. Or a sigh. Anything suggesting he’d heard me, and I’d made some sort of impact or inconvenienced his day.

I jiggled the bracelets on my wrists. “Are these things even necessary? What am I going to do against two big strong men in suits?” My upper lip curled as the words slipped out.

When Coop hissed under his breath, I didn’t hide my smirk. Locke didn’t audibly react.

We were fast approaching the second location—or not so fast; I could only guess—and I knew all the rules said not to go willingly or make it easy on my captors. So I should at least try to get uncuffed, so I’d have a fighting chance once we arrived.

Again Coop had gone silent, so I shook the unwelcome metal on my wrists once more.

“Can we take these off?” I rattled them again. The cuffs were heavy and uncomfortable, and the edges bit into my skin. What if they meant to keep them on me until they… they…

Panic started to seep outward from the center of my chest, turning me cold as it crept through my body like a poison, until it hollowed out my middle. Bright colors danced across the darkness I’d been trapped in. I sucked at the air, but oxygen didn’t come any faster.

Shit. Shit. Shit.

Fabric rustled, and I had the sense of Coop leaning toward me. He rested a hand over mine behind me, where I’d tangled my fingers together in an effort to stop them from shaking.

I needed rigid control to get through this, and I gritted my teeth and tensed my jaw to prevent a sob from escaping.

“They stay.” But his voice was soft and his hand was warm, and some of the fear inside me inexplicably loosened.

eight

We traveled so long I dozed, and my chin inched uncomfortably toward my chest as my head bobbed up and down with the rolling bouncing motion of the car. We barreled down mostly smooth roads, so we still had to be on paved roads.

Wherever they were taking me could have been a mere twenty miles away, and I wouldn’t have known because the route was so circuitous and contrived around lonely roads. They might be purposefully taking extra turns. Didn’t kidnappers do that?

I must have dozed again because a change in the sound of the road under the wheels woke me, and I lifted my head slowly, wincing at the ache in my neck. I looked in the direction of the window expectantly, but I still wore ridiculous shades with the window tint, and the gloom of nightfall outside. Our vehicle slowed, but we didn’t stop.

So, I shifted my position, my jeans sliding easily over the soft leather of the seat and squinted through the windshield. A futile attempt, but I had to try. Coop didn’t make a sound, and he didn’t try to readjust my position, and I shot a quick glance at him and twisted my head one way and then the other. A pain shot through my neck. Though, I’d caught a slight glimpse of Coop.

He faced forward, but that was all I could tell. I could imagine the rest, though. A small frown would be at home between his eyebrows, and his jawline would be angular and tense.

I’d managed to snag one other detail before my neck put a stop to my stubbornness. The building in front of us rose up like some kind of fortress, and as we drew closer, I tried the periphery trick once more. I lost sight of the flat top of the place we’d arrived. Some of the windows gleamed with dull spots of light, but we passed through huge, solid metal gates and into an enormous courtyard containing nothing at all.

“What is this place?” I turned and glanced out of the rear window, and this time Coop let me. The metal gates clanged closed behind us, and Coop’s lack of reaction to my change of position made sense.

Our new location was a secure one, and we’d all just been locked in. What? A castle? We eased down the driveway.

The courtyard was surrounded by high walls and… When I tipped my head, pain screamed through my neck. I squinted before my irritation flared, and I brushed my hands over my eyes, knocking the glasses from my face before Coop could stop me. Maybe he wouldn’t yell at me, but I sure as hell didn’t care anymore.

He swore as they fell to the floor, and I kicked them underneath Locke’s seat. I grinned as I heard what I hoped was the crunch of the ridiculous glasses against something hard.

“Where the hell are we?” I ground out.

Tall walls surrounded the courtyard, and huge spirals of razor wire topped the perimeter walls. There were guard towers at the corners and at regular intervals between, and one man clutching a machine gun peered down at our car as it crept forward. Since I could see properly, I was able to identify scorched marks on the surface of the courtyard like several fires had burned hot and fast on the bare ground. Short tufts of spiky grass grew here and there, but only often enough to be considered weeds.

“Any more spare glasses?” Coop directed his question to Locke, and I held my breath until Locke shook his head.

Thank God for that. I grinned at the small win. I rarely wore sunglasses, even on Sweetwater’s brightest days because they seemed to really affect my vision, no matter which tint I tried.

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