Page 74 of Cage of Starlight
That must be why they’ve tied him to Sena.
“Who are you?” Tory says. The more he blinks, the more his eyes adjust. The cloth they’ve tied around his head is rougher than the water-smooth kerchief Sena used on Tory in training. He can almost make out shapes through the loose weave. A hunched, restless silhouette sits on a box of some sort, a mere few strides away from Tory. “What do you want with us?”
“Boss thinks you might be useful.” The way the man spits his words says he disagrees. Something bounces with an irritatedtap tap tapagainst the man’s knee, catching the light on each upswing. A knife?
A terrible plan begins to take shape in Tory’s head.
He pitches his voice casual. “How ’bout this hospitality, huh? Almost in line with what those bastards at the Box offer.”
The man goes deadly still where he sits. “Don’t you dare compare us tothem.”
A weak spot? “You’re not doing a lot to differentiate yourself.” Tory tries to gesture at his current state but fails again, fibers from the thick rope that binds him to Sena piercing his shirt to prick his skin. “I’d say you’re about even.”
“Stop talking.” Irritation shows in the increased pace of the taps of the flat side of the blade against the man’s knee, the way his leg jumps up to meet it.
But he’s not irritatedenough.Not yet.
The quiet stretches, nothing but the shallow wheeze of Sena’s breath to break it. In this hazy dark, it’s easy to remember the bursts of blood-slick dirt over his skin and the riot of his breath in his ears. Randall, empty eyes aimed at the sky. It’s easy, too, to remember Sena’s terribly casual, Our cores will be deactivated in two days.
There’s no time to do this slowly. “Let’s play a game.”
It’s a flimsy plan: piss this guy off; get him over here. In close quarters, Tory can headbutt him, maybe turn the tables. “I’ll start. If I stood you and the bastard Grand General side by side—”
“Tory.” Sena’s voice. Half exhaustion, half warning. “I hope you know what you’re doing.”
“I’m just saying, their hospitality is shit. Evenyou’rea better conversation partner than this guy.”
“Am I really?” Sena scoffs, a punched exhale that turns into a crackling cough. He stills against Tory’s back, and when he speaks up again, his voice is low. “Tory.”
“Hm?”
“They didn’t drag us far. We’re still in the woods. I’ve heard at least six people since we arrived here. All Seeds, if I had to—”
The man with the knife lurches to his feet and stalks toward them. “You wanna die, lapdog?”
Sena shuts his mouth, and the man retreats with a growl, but he doesn’t go back to his seat. He stalks once, twice in agitated circles around the both of them, wrist flicking like he wants to set his blade against flesh.
Almost there. If Tory can get him to come nearer, if he can stun him and get his hands on that knife . . .
“Maybe you’reworsethan the bastards at the Box,” Tory tries, when the man’s third, angry revolution brings him close again. “After all, if you think about it—”
“What the fuck did you say?”
There.The shadowed shape of the man clenches his blade and breaks from his circle to stalk in Tory’s direction.
“Tory!”
Maybe it’s Sena’s interjection that deflects the man’s rage, or maybe it’s that the guy seems to have it out for the Box as a whole, but at Sena’s panicked call, the man heads for him instead.
There are few emotions more awful than the sudden, searing dread that flushes through Tory.It’s Kirlov’s tent all over again. It’s Sena on the ground, unbreathing while Tory stares down from above.
He wrenches at the ropes that bind him, but there’s no give. They only get tighter, sawing at his skin and squeezing the breath from him. From Sena, too, by the sudden, sharp noise of pain. Tory can’tsee, this time, and it’s so much worse.
“I was the one who said that shit!” Tory yells, but there’s terrible pressure against his back. A thud, the crinkle of leaves like Sena is trying to scramble away and can’t.
“Don’t think I didn’t hear them talking. Don’t think I don’t know what you did to her, to my—”
Tory can’t see a thing, can’t tell if the man stabbed Sena already or is just getting started, and this is all wrong. It was supposed to be Tory. This isn’t what he planned for. He hates it, hates this, hatesfeelinglike this—
