Page 33 of Her Magic Light

I wanted to explore this strange dynamic switch between them, but the longer I stood contemplating the darkness, the more tired I felt. Drained, almost. Exhausted.

I slumped against the glass. “Geez. I’m tired.”

Locke took my arm and guided me into the cell. “This way. There’s a bed in here.”

We followed a bobbing flashlight glow as it danced in front of us, and as I glanced over my shoulder, Coop shielded the glowing end of his flashlight with his hand, dimming it.

“Dammit, Coop. I can’t see when you turn it off.” Locke stopped walking.

“Your eyes will adjust.” Coop’s tone was almost bored. Like this part of his job was beneath him.

Locke drew a stiff inhale through his nose before he began to walk farther into the cell, past a half partition.

I reached out to grasp it as we walked by, looking for something to help my balance, but it wasn’t even a wall. It was just a damn fixed screen.

“Stand still for a moment. Get used to the light level in here.” I heard Locke rather than saw him.

“What sort of fucking light is this even supposed to be?” The venom in my voice surprised me. I tugged on the metal bed frame, but it didn’t shit. “Is the furniture all nailed down?”

No one replied.

“It is, isn’t it?”

No one even moved. If I hadn’t known there were two men in the room with me, if Locke’s hand hadn’t still been on my arm, I would have thought I was alone.

“I have fixed furniture and you’re keeping me in the dark?” I barked out a short laugh. “What? Did you guys neglect to pay your electricity bill? I bet the costs for a place this big are sky-high.”

“We run on solar. There are no costs. Not in the way you mean.”

I ran Locke’s answer through my head again. He appeared to have spoken with unexpected honesty. Maybe the dark had made him more candid.

“Then I don’t think it would kill you to turn some lights on for me,” I countered, keeping my voice light. I would have batted my eyelashes if it would have helped.

“Oh, but it might.” Locke’s voice sounded darker than I’d ever heard it, and there wasn’t a trace of humor in it.

“Cut the crap, Locke. You say things that don’t make any sense, and I’ve had it with this place. Take me fucking home.” I wanted to rattle the bed to make my point, to prove my anger, but it wouldn’t budge even a fraction of an inch. “What else is in this room with me?”

Coop was about to speak. He did that inhale of breath thing he sometimes did before words started coming. “There’s a bed, a chair, a toilet, and a sink behind the privacy partition. On the other side of this, you have a couch. You will be escorted to communal showers when it’s your turn in the rotation.”

“That’s it?” My lower jaw nearly fell off. “That’s all I have? What the hell am I supposed to do in this empty room?” Empty and frigging dark. “Did you bring me here for this? To sit in a dark, empty room?” I’d lose my mind completely. “This is torture.” Until I spoke the words, I hadn’t even considered it, but hell, yeah.

What they were doing to me was torture. One of them shrugged. Locke had let go of my arm by now, and I held the bed frame to keep me grounded. My eyes were growing used to the lack of light—enough to see dim shapes, anyway, but I still couldn’t tell who had shrugged. I only heard the movement of fabric as they moved.

While they were still here, though, they were a captive audience, and I had questions.Lotsof questions. I walked around the bed, even more used to the gloom now, and I sat heavily on the thin mattress. I’d expected the groan of springs, maybe something saggy and lumpy, but this was little more than a thin piece of foam on what felt like a cement surface.

“Where am I?” I started with my standard question and waited a moment.

I no longer expected an answer to that one, but their quiet breathing in the darkness suggested they were still listening, at least. “What is this place?” But they weren’t taken in by the same question from a different angle, either. I blew out a sigh. “I know you’re both still here. Can’t you tell me anything? Like what’s going on? Who all those people are? Why I seem to be in the nocturnal area of a zoo? I can’t even see where everything is.” It wasn’t quite true. I had a vague idea from the different shapes, but they hadn’t exactly shown me around in person.

Coop did his weird sigh thing again and his flashlight snicked quietly on. He pointed it quickly around the room. “Toilet, sink, chair,” he said. “And you’re sitting on the bed.”

Nothing was illuminated for more than two seconds before he switched the flashlight off again.

“That’s the room.” That was Locke, of course, with another unnecessary sentence, and I rolled my eyes.

“Thank you.” I kept my words clipped, making it obvious I wasn’t entirely genuine. I mean, there was some appreciation that Coop had made an effort, even if I’d felt Coop freeze, the tension from Locke had been palpable as soon as he switched the small light on.

“What can you tell me?”

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