Page 24 of I Regret Nothing
I slammed my shot glass down. Fuck my days off. I couldn’t kill her. No one could.
I would find out what she was, claim her, and kill every last witch that tried to hurt her.
Chapter 24
Rei
I
fully intended to keep my head down and serve my time. I had all these grand ideas of how to do that in solitary because there wasn’t much else to do. If I had to rot in solitary that long because they didn’t want Venus and I in the same prison, then who’s grand idea was it to stick us together now? I knew Silverhold was supposed to be the strongest magical prison in our area, and I was sure other countries didn’t want to deal with Venus either, but what the fuck?
And then there was fucking Faust. I had no doubt he would kill me when he was done with his stupid hunt. The only reason he was up Venus’s ass and keeping me in his office was that he didn’t want her to get there first.
Yeah, I definitely needed to get out of here.
And honestly? I’d never broken out of prison before. It sounded like massive amounts of fun, and no one hadeverbroken out of Silverhold before. The bell rang for count before I heard the big plan or precisely what I was stealing, but if they managed to get contraband into the prison having just learned about computers, I had no doubts they could do this. I hadn’t even figured out how to check my damned email on the prison computer.
We needed to have a meeting about this, but the only place we could safely talk with so many people who would either rat us out or demand to come with us was the mailroom. And Faust grunted at me he would be off for the next few days, so he was sticking me there because I couldn’t be in his office unsupervised. Score. I wasn’t just finding out how we were getting out of here. I’d have four days away from him.
So, who the fuck was shaking me and growling at me when I was trying to ignore that blaring bell? I rolled over and looked at two amber eyes that weren’t supposed to be here today.
“On your feet and out for count, inmate. I don’t want to have to do this every morning. No one gives a shit about your beauty sleep. Solitary is a shitty place. Don’t end up there because you missed count. I’m actually trying to help you. If another guard were doing count, they wouldn’t have woken you. They wouldn’t have even come in your cell. Their clicker would have come up short, they’d sound any alarm you’d probably ignore too, and you’d be dragged straight to solitary. Get up and stand at the front of your cell.”
Well, shit. That was the most Faust had ever said to me, and he had this unfamiliar look in his eyes.
“Why are you here?” I demanded, throwing my itchy gray blanket off. “I thought you were off the next few days.”
“I picked up some extra shifts. Don’t make me repeat myself.”
I did what he said because I didn’t want a repeat of solitary. I already knew he didn’t want me in there because he didn’t work in solitary, and it would fuck up his hunt. He wasn’t doing this to be nice to me, keeping me out of there.
We couldn’t have any secret mail room visits now. After breakfast, we had to report straight to work, which meant more time with Faust. He took his usual position in the mess hall to glare at Venus. I grabbed my breakfast with Dakarys and Rajack. They noticed Faust as soon as they sat down.
“What the fuck is he doing here? It’s his day off, and heneverpicks up extra shifts,” Dakarys said.
Thiscould notbe about me. He couldn’t want to find out what I was that bad that he took on extra work when he never did before. He wasn’t even playing fifty questions with me in his office like he wanted to know that badly. Was this part of his fucked up game?
“He’s too interested in Rei for me,” Rajack said. “This is more than what she is. That fascinates me too. Faust doesn’t strike me as being super deep. He’s fucking crazy. If he wanted to know that badly, why doesn’t he bring her back to medical for a blood test?”
“It’s some fucked up game for him, but I haven’t figured out how it’s played yet. He maneuvered things, so I’m in his office, but he’s not interrogating me. I was supposed to be in the mailroom until he got back. He’s not onto this little plan of yours, is he?”
Dakarys shook his head.
“He can’t be. We’ve told no one, and if he suspected, he would have tried to kill us. He doesn’t even know about our little business, or he would have tried. We bring good shit in. Everyone knows better than to rat on that pipeline and keep the goods hidden.”
Faust was at my table as soon as the bell rang for people to report to work. I could feel his eyes boring holes in my back as we traveled down the yellowed halls and floors to his office. He unlocked the door and ushered me through.
I couldn’t find any rhyme or reason to the stacks of files, and he hadn’t chosen to enlighten me or help me. He walked over to a pile and pulled a folder out to hand it to me.
“This is your commissary file. Everything used to be done by paper check, but we have it by direct deposit now. Go through that and read me the routing and account number. I’ll get it set up. The commissary here has decent things, but they don’t have everything.”
Was Faust being…nice to me? He hadn’t seemed to give a shit about setting that up before. He’d been totally willing to let me go through every single file in here until I found it.
“I didn’t think you gave a shit.”
Faust winked at me. What the fuck?
“You’ve earned it. I hope whoever is funding it is generous.”
