Page 105 of Magic Claimed
So now it was up to me to throw a monkey wrench in Blake’s master plan, help save the kids, and get back to Oklahoma City before it went up in flames. Before Callum succumbed to the poison. Before everyone and everything I loved was destroyed by Blake’s quest for power.
And I had to believe that all of those things were possible. I had to believe it with every fiber of my being, because the doubts were already strong enough to choke me. Strong enough to make my eyes sting and my nose burn with the threat of angry tears. Strong enough to bring a sick ache to my stomach and make it difficult to draw in a breath as I was dragged further and further into whatever facility currently housed Blake and his delusions of world domination.
Or maybe he wasn’t so delusional, given what he’d managed to accomplish so far, the unexpected places he had contacts in, and the number of voices I heard around me. He’d clearly established a sizable infrastructure in a relatively short amount of time—all with promises of power that wasn’t his to give.
We went down a set of stairs, and the air seemed to grow colder, and a bit stale. The sound of our footsteps echoed off bare walls and floors, making me wonder whether we were in some kind of industrial complex.
Eventually, I heard a door open, and I was lowered onto an unforgiving surface. Someone lifted off the hood,then before I could even get a good look around, my eyes slammed shut with a wince as they ripped the tape from my mouth.
“We’ll put it back if you don’t cooperate.” The man crouched in front of me looked more like a nineties frat boy than anything—with spiky, bleached blond hair, a fake tan, and a gold chain that disappeared beneath his oversized black shirt. “Now, feel free to take a good look around. This place is old, but we’ve made some updates, so it’s not as fragile as it looks. And we know you fancy yourself handy with the lock picks, so you’ll notice all the locks are electronic, and all the doors are fully alarmed.” He grinned at me. “So you can try breaking out, but it’ll just be a waste of energy. Might as well get comfortable.”
“Doesn’t it bother you,” I asked curiously, “that your boss broke every promise he made to me? Don’t you ever wonder when he’s going to break his promises toyou?”
The man shook his head and pulled the gold chain out where I could see the medallion dangling at the end. “Nope. He’s already given meexactlywhat he promised. And once this is over? Every one of us will have our choice of magic. As much as we want, for as long as we want. We’re loyal to him because he’s proven himself—proven that he can take what he wants and no one can stop him. What else do I need to know?”
“What about the people being stolen from?” I pressed. “What about the people he plans to kill in order to get what he wants?”
“Enemies,” the man in front of me replied with a shrug. “Either they’re one of the Idrians trying to steal our world from us, or they’re humans in the wrong place at the wrong time.Either way, they’re just a roadblock, hindering our pursuit of true freedom. Gotta break a few eggs sometimes, you know?”
The casual inhumanity of his convictions almost took my breath away.
“Now you try to settle in and wait for a while. You’re just here to ensure your friends’ cooperation, so nobody’s going to hurt you as long as you stay put.”
“They aren’t just my friends,” I said quietly. “They’re my family. And they won’t stop until Blake and his plans are set on fire and buried in a grave a thousand feet deep. If you think I’m exaggerating, that just means you’ve never met Faris Lansgrave.”
The man laughed as if he found me adorably delusional. “He’ll have to find us first, and we already scanned both of you for tracking signals. Your phone has been destroyed, and there’s no way for them to know where that gateway led. They could spend months trying to find out where we’ve gone. Months they don’t have. By that time, the war will be over and your friends will be dead or relocated.” He stood up and walked to the door. “Stop dreaming, sweetheart. It’s over. You’ve lost.”
He walked out, and the door closed behind him with a beep and a click as the electric lock engaged.
Leaving me alone. In a small room with whitewashed walls, sitting on a metal platform cushioned only by a thin, hard mattress. There was a counter—covered in cracked porcelain tile—and cupboards that had probably been installed in the sixties. Only the door appeared new—likely of reinforced steel, with an electronic lock and no handle on the inside.
A part of me wanted to sob in terror, overwhelmedby flashbacks of my time in Elayara’s prison. A part of me could see the room I’d lived in for so many years overlaid on this one. Could smell the air, taste the chalky protein bars we’d eaten every day, and hear the unmistakable metallic clang of doors closing, the thud of boots on the cold hard floor, and the sobs. Someone was always crying.
But I wasn’t there anymore. That girl was free. I would probably always have these memories, always struggle to separate myself from the trauma that had shaped me. But I was more than the trauma. More than the scars. And right now, I was exactly where I needed to be.
I was inside Blake’s hidden facility. Somewhere very close to the kids he’d stolen from their homes, with a very real chance to save them—a chance we never would have had unless Blake had brought us here himself.
“Phase one is complete,” I murmured softly to myself. “Phase two of the plan can now begin.”
Unfortunately for me,the start of phase two looked a lot like waiting. Waiting and waiting and trying not to notice how thirsty and sleep deprived I was. Trying even harder not to imagine what might be happening back at home, however many miles away that was.
Trying not to think about Callum or our determinedly stoic goodbye. Trying not to ask myself what would happen to my mate if our bond was no longer enough to keep him from succumbing to the poison. Trying not to envision the rest of myfamily as they prepared to protect our city from whatever chaos Blake intended to unleash.
Somewhere in those next few hours, my imagination got the better of me, and all I could do was huddle there on that cold, uncomfortable bed, fight the fear-induced nausea, and hold back tears.
Finally… after what seemed like years, the lock beeped, clicked, and the door opened to reveal two more of Blake’s people—a man and a woman, both wearing generic dark sweats. Probably meant they wielded shifter magic and needed clothing that was either easy to get out of or easy to replace.
“Come with us,” the woman said. “You can choose to walk, or we’ll be happy to drag you.”
“Where are we going?”
This was the part of the plan I was a little less sure of. I knew Blake intended to use me to force Kes’s cooperation, and I suspected he might try to use me as a hostage against everyone still in the city. Either they sat back and watched the destruction, or Blake would threaten to hurt me.
I’d been hoping our phase two would be well underway before it came to that, but I needed to be prepared to improvise in case it wasn’t.
“Control room,” the man said briefly.
Well, that sounded rather ominous. But as long as it kept Blake’s eyes on me and not on his other prisoner, I would play along.
