Page 102 of Outcast Fae
She held her head up high, keeping good posture as she stared at me. “I have an offer for you.”
“I don’t usually like your offers. Not from you or your brother,” I shot back.
She smiled without humor before continuing. “I think you’ll like this offer.”
I glowered but said nothing.
“We have a new group of campers,” she said, pointing toward her screen. It changed from the peaceful beach to the intake facility where I’d first been processed when coming to the island. At least five or six teens were being herded inside. They looked frightened and angry, just as we had been.
“You’re bringing more kids?” I asked, angry and incredulous at the same time.
“Yes.” She inclined her head. “As you know, our face to the public is one of rehabilitation. We have to keep enrolling campers if we are to maintain that image.”
“Must be nice to have such a flexible moral code.”
She raised one penciled-in eyebrow but ignored my jab. “These kids are new, raw. Like your group was. Without someone to guide them and show them the rules, someone might get hurt.”
Or killed,I thought.
“What do you want from me?” I asked.
“I want you to join their ranks, pretend to be a new camper just like them, but I also want you to help keep them in line. You see what a poor job Meadow Song and Silver Bear did. We think that if we had someone on the ground, someone they trusted, they would do better. We’d have fewer casualties.”
How about no casualties? And why hadn’t she worried about this before?I thought. “Why should I do this?”
“Well,” she intoned, “You would get out of your cell. And you could help these people.” She pointed to the wall screen at one of the new girls who was hunched over crying as she was being led inside.
But I was not some pawn to be manipulated. “You let Arryn go, and I’ll do it. Otherwise, no deal.”
“Sure, we don’t need her, necessarily,” she said. Pressing a button, she turned her wall screen back to the beach view. “But how about this, Tally? If you do a poor job, Arryn might not make it home. Instead, little Arryn might be our next test subject. Is that motivation enough for you?”
I winced. Who was I to think I could bargain with this woman? She had all the power. Still, she wanted something from me and, at least with that, I could make a difference. I could help someone.
“Fine.” I stood up. “Anything else?”
“Yes,” she said. “You’ll have a partner, someone to hold you accountable. He’ll be acting in more of a disciplinarian role, but you two can work together. Good cop, bad cop or whatever. And the good news is you already know each other. Here he is now.”
I turned around as someone walked into the door. When our eyes met, I suddenly found it hard to breathe.
Adaline greeted him with a nod. “Your new partner, Vaughn Collins.”
Sneak Peek of Rebel Fae
Supernatural Prison Camp Book 2
CHAPTER 1
This place had honed me like a knife.
I was sharp and tense as I moved down the food line, gripping my hard plastic tray in both hands, my eyes roving around, keeping track of every unsavory inmate. There were many of them, males and females with edges much rougher than mine. One look at them and you knew you’d best stay away from them.
Today, every type of Supernatural wore a different colored prison jumpsuit. This was new. Just two days ago, everyone had worn the same beige shirt and pants. Now, vampires wore red, shifters wore blue, witches and warlocks wore green, and fae wore orange.
I hated it. Puke color would have been better than this hideous shade.
The dining hall was an expansive area with a host of tables, accompanying benches, a low ceiling, and walls painted a drab gray. The food line was pushed to the back of the room and moved at a steady pace. This was the only place where males and females were allowed to co-mingle, though we still had to eat at separate tables.
We took another step forward. Arryn was in front of me, standing on her tiptoes, trying to see what was for lunch. Every day, she still hoped there might be something different to eat, but it was always the same: runny mashed potatoes, mystery meat in brown gravy, mushy peas from a can, a square of red gelatin, and a buttered bread roll—the only halfway decent item.
