Page 36 of Okay, I Regret a Little
Chapter 25
Rei
E
veryone was banged up but in an excellent mood considering Wren caused a prison riot with her spell. All the foxes were accounted for, so no one died in my cellblock. There were a lot of busted up faces and bleeding knuckles. They all lined up for count.
This was my first prison riot, and they didn’t exactly go over that in the tour I didn’t get. I stood at my cell door with my hands behind my back. I expected to see Faust back for count, but it was a different guard this time. This one was a vampire I wasn’t all that familiar with. I knew I couldn’t get away with shit with him like I did with Faust, so I was a total angel and didn’t say a single word.
Wren tugged me into our cell and shoved me onto my cot. She jumped in behind me and spooned my back. Okay, Wren clearly wasn’t scared of the big, bad wolf. This felt weird. I mean, the snuggling was nice, but I hadn’t cleared the air with Faust like I had with Dakarys and Rajack.
That conversation would not go anywhere near like the one I just had. I couldn’t clear things up with a kiss, even if I wanted to. What would his beard feel like on my chin if I kissed him? That couldn’t happen in this prison. Faust would get fired or, worse, arrested.
This was so fucked up. I wasn’t running this time, and there was more than one person involved this time. How curious.
“How fucking sweet. You and the witch. How was your first prison riot, perky tits?” Whisper asked.
“Before or after Brody tried to kill me?”
“None of us knew he had the safety off on his baton until it exploded on him, or we would have bum-rushed him. Since they keyed your handcuffs for a fox shifter, was that your handiwork?”
“Guilty.”
“That’s pretty badass, Rei. If it didn’t need to be this enormous secret, you’d get mad props in here for that,” Candra said.
“I snuck out of there to tend to some business. What happened after I left?” Wren asked.
“Good thing you did,” Whisper said. “Usually, it’s mass chaos, and everyone is just punching each other, even if you don’t have a problem with that person. It wasn’t like that this time. It was like every single gang in Silverhold was gunning for the witches. It was insane. The guards had to form this protective circle around them, and there was this massive standoff. The only reason it ended was that most people agreed to stand down and pick them off one by one. Some of them wanted to wait until Venus got out of medical. Most people have figured out this was her doing.”
“I’d watch your back, Wren,” Candra said. “You were sitting with them when they announced their misdeeds to the entire prison. Somehow, I get the feeling that was less about the witches growing brass balls and more your doing. I just can’t figure out how.”
“I think I do,” Whisper said. “Wren could exploit her new girlfriend’s handcuffs and do magic. It’s genius but super dangerous. The rest of the prison will lump you in with the rest of the witches. If you abandon them, they will suspect you and come for you.”
Wren just snorted and nuzzled my neck. I could appreciate the fact that literally nothing in this prison scared her. She hadn’t kept her distance, even though Faust nearly ate her after finding us in bed together. We were busting out of here as soon as we got our potion ingredients, but there were still several days where we’d be stuck here, and the witches or the rest of the prison could come at her.
“The witches won’t suspect a damned thing. If Venus knew the truth about Rei, she would have exploited it by now. She’s advertising to the witches she can find a way around the handcuffs. Everyone here knows it’s impossible. I wasn’t even sure if it would be possible when I channeled Rei.”
“You forget something, cupcake. The foxes aren’t the only shifters in Silverhold. Rei is here for seven years. Another shifter is going to get a whiff of her. We figured it out as soon as she stepped into her cell. I get not correcting things when the cuffs were keyed. If any of us could have gotten away with that so we could have our magic, we would have done it. Anyone here will cop to that. But I can’t tell what the fuck Rei is, and neither can anyone else. The fact that she’s loose with unknown powers would make every gang here view her as a threat. They’d either kill her or want to own her.”
I knew she was right. Maybe I was just as fucked up as Wren because that didn’t scare me. I had a nifty new tail that granted me power over electricity. I had this itchy feeling deep in my bones that another one might be coming. Who knew getting arrested meant more tails and more power? I just started laughing.
“Yeah, good luck with that.”
“Take this seriously, perky tits. Today, it’s the witches. Tomorrow, it could be you.”
Maybe. But right now, it was the witches. As long as the rest of the prison left Wren alone, they could keep their attention on the witches until I got out of here.
And I didn’t care if that made me a shitty person.
