Page 101 of What did you do?

Hollow bootsteps permeated my cell.

Commander Von.

My mind tried to black out, blurring and darkening at the edges, attempting anything to protect me from what it was about to see.

Orbs of light shot out from behind me with a whirring sound, hitting the creature just before it went limp in my arms.

The commander chuckled from inside the cell door.

“I suppose one way or another you suffer, traitorous bitch,” he chuckled as he closed the barred door with a loud clang. “You must’ve missed me a lot to have come all the way here to see me. Guess you didn’t mind my cock as much as you thought.”

I cried until morning, buried in the feathers of the slain animal, cursing everyone I could think of.

Every night, the creatures appeared from the sky, and then left after destroying their chosen inmates.

All but mine.

The beautiful creatures came every night, and every time, each and every one of them refused to hurt me. Eventually the commander or guards would enter, killing the animal and leaving its body in my cell. I would then spend the rest of the night and the following day using all of my strength to push its lifeless body over the ledge, only to repeat it all in a few hours.

Once they had discovered the giant, white birds wouldn’t touch me, they began sending in various other animals, and to my horror, not one would touch me.

Somany animals had died for refusing to hurt me. The irony was, as it turned out, that was the worst punishment they could have crafted for me. Every part of me that could have possibly been broken had been.

It made no sense.

The creatures in Unseelie had had no problems hurting me. Why, now that I was locked in Malvar, had there been a change? Was it just the Seelie creatures?

I only had four months left to retrieve the other half of my heart before I would die anyway. Even if the queen didn’t destroy it, I was basically dead already.

“Puddle, are you doing okay over there? I thought of another idea…but I’m not sure if you’ll like this one,” my neighbor said in a low voice.

I didn’t bother to look at him; he had lasted longer than most of the prisoners in that cell, but it wouldn’t matter. Eventually, Malvar would weaken their magic, and their wounds would kill them—if they didn’t injure their head first. I learned that most of the more powerful fae, shifters, elves, and several others had to have a really severe head wound to die: something they couldn’t recover from, like a caved-in skull.

Most of the prisoners of Malvar would ram their heads into the ground or put a chair leg through their eye sockets.

I looked at several lionlike creatures lying dead and rotting a few feet from the corner I now sat in. They had been the hardest to stomach yet. Commander had allowed me hours with them. Buried in their soft fur, I had almost felt whole again, like I could actually do something and get out of here. Like there had to be a way to get to my father.

“Puddle?”

I moved a few feet, barely registering my surroundings. I was no longer alive even if I wasn’t dead.

I curled myself into the fur of the bloodied creatures, ignoring the stench of decomposition, and closed my eyes. I would lay here in the bodies of those who had died for me and silently try to coax Aether, the god of the Elysian Fields, to take me, even though I wasn’t Seelie.

Hot, almost scorching hands pulled at my forearm as another slid under my legs, lifting me up.

“Come on, Puddle. I’ll help you move them,” whispered the stranger.

I didn’t fight. I didn’t do anything. I just lay there.

“Edin—”

“I’m already here,” snapped the familiar female voice.

“Oh, shit,” replied the man, setting me back down on the floor in my corner.

“Why are we doing this?” asked the woman.

“Because I think she’s the one they are talking about. Look at her, she doesn’t even know what she is capable of. Come on, we were just like her once,” he said.

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