Page 13 of Practical Boots

"Which isn't suspicious or impossible at all," Cat breathed. She could feel Rick shrug.

"Well, it’s a fucking setup, of course it is, they’re not legit scratch cards or anything, but how it all works is the fixers, not me. I just make sure they buy a card. It’s not taking money from anybody or anything bad."

"And yet here we are," Cat breathed.

"Swear to god, I was just leaving a party and somebody grabbed me. Not like a mugging, though. They put a hood over my head and threw me in here. Said I'd give them what they wanted and they'd wait for me to break."

The cold that had crept down Cat's nape reappeared, this time in freezing tendrils that laced through her belly. "Have they been back?"

"No!" Rick's voice cracked. "How can they break me if they don't even ask me for anything?"

"Pretty easy," said a heavy voice from the darkness beyond their cell. "We just had to wait."

Cat dropped her head, teeth bared, and said, "Hi, Davos."

* * *

A hard, rumbling chuckle rolled through the cell bars, followed by a drawled, "Leandra. Long time no see. Funny meeting you here. All that shit."

"What do you want, Davos?" Cat looked up from her crouch as their captor brought a light into being. It had the hard whiteness of an LED, like a phone's flashlight, but Cat doubted something that mundane was its source.

Davos looked human, mostly. Not quite as much as Cat herself did, maybe, but still. Human enough. Huge, but human enough. Broad shoulders, thick body, massive limbs, and a skull of significant enough proportions that he managed not to seem pin-headed, despite the size of his body. He was handsome, in a giant thug kind of way. Last time she'd seen him, he'd shaved his head, which lent considerably to a generally terrifying vibe, but when they'd first met, he'd had flowing, romance-hero hair of old-oak brown. His skin was a few shades lighter than that, and his eyes very green in the darkness of his face.

Cat had never asked what his heritage was, but he hadn't been born on this side of the Waste, and if he'd up and put down roots in front of her one afternoon, she wouldn't have been surprised.

Rick scrambled to his feet beside her, whispering, "Leandra?" Cat glanced at him, making sure he was okay—scruffy, dirty, tear-streaked, and a little smelly, but mostly okay—and put the topic of her name on a long list of things she wasn't in any hurry to talk about, but would eventually have to.

"I need your services," Davos rumbled. "But you're a hard elf to find. I had to go to some lengths."

Cat muttered, "Not an elf," and rose, jerking her head toward Rick. "Let me bring him home and I'll do what you need."

"You'll do what I need and then you'll bring him home. You're not in a good position to bargain, little elf." Davos's chuckle rolled up again as Cat's eyebrows lifted. "Now you're thinking, why not? You canstep, you're a scrappy fighter, and it's hard to do you permanent damage. You know this. You knowIknow it. So why are you in no position to bargain? Tell me, pet human."

After a heartbeat of silence, Rick said, "Does he meanme?" and over him, Davos continued, "Have you eaten well here, pet human? Have you been starved or forced to face thirst?"

"No? I got some pretty decent grub, actually. I guessed they didn't want to kill me?"

"Not quickly, at least. You'd have been better off starving, though."

A sour taste filled Cat's throat. "What have you done, Davos?"

"Nothing irreversible, as long as you're cooperative."

"Don't." The bile in her throat should have made the word sharp, Cat thought. Instead it came out softly. So very softly. "You don't want to make an enemy of me, Davos."

"Don't I?" The big man sounded genuinely curious. "There's not much I've seen that suggests you'd make a bad one."

She couldstep. She couldstep, and he'd be dead before he knew it. Before his thugs could do anything about it. But then so would Rick, and proving a point to another of the Torn-born wasn't worth her friend's life. It didn't really matter whether Davos thought she was a bad enemy. Cat knew better.

And eventually, Davos would learn that. "What," Cat said in the same low voice, "do you want me to do?"

"My sister's gone missing."

"My condolences." Cat kept her tone flat with effort this time. She'd liked Davos's sister, in what few interactions they'd had. "You're resourceful. I'm sure you can find her."

"She went missing in the Torn."

"I don't do reconnaissance in the Torn, Dav." Up until that morning—her time, at least—she'd been afraid to. Now it was more a matter of not letting anybody know she had a vulnerability, stuck working for her father for the foreseeable future.

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