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I grab her elbow impatiently, shaking her for a quick translation.
“He says, I’ll take my meal now.”
We gawk back at the kitchen staff, jaws dropping, eyes tracing over his large, muscular stance. A silent question if he could really have pulled this off. A prisoner can’t escape their cage. A prisoner couldn’t have possibly been able to overcome the special, fucked-up magnets in our ears. Right?
Dessin smirks, like he knows the doubt that they might have. And with a quick kick of the feast table, the head cook’s naked body rolls to the side, revealing a bloody carving on her belly that says:
Patient Thirteen’s Puppet
A tremor of déjà vu invades my thoughts. Albatross. Dessin’s temper.
“He’s back,” I say, shaking my head. Am I surprised? No. Am I perplexed as to how the hell he pulled this off? Absolutely, yes.
The kitchen staff race back to their places behind the assembly counter. Rushing in the endeavor to curate a tray. Dessin nods to us, walking to the front of the line.
After receiving our shitty trays with their disgusting excuse for food, we walk back to our table, ignoring the gaping eyes and blur of whispers.
“You’re a son of a bitch,” Warrose says as he spoons in a mouthful of whatever stew concoction they served us.
Dessin watches Marilynn hum in delight, shoveling the goopy brown substance into her mouth. She peeks up from her hunched position over her food, feeling the dominating weight of Dessin’s eyes on her. The corner of her mouth moves up a millimeter. It’s not even enough to be deciphered as a smile. But I’m going to count it as one.
“I haven’t seen a Dessin magic trick in a while,” I remark, peeling off a piece of bread. “I do hate that they forced his hand. Made him resort to doing something this…disturbing.”
“A Dessin magic trick?” he repeats.
“Yeah, a magic trick from hell,” Ruth adds theatrically. “Remember Meridei’s dining party? Oh my god, you guys should have been there!”
“What’d he do?” Niles’s voice echoes from inside his metal bowl.
“He blackmailed every conformist and orderly with private photographs of their family. Then poisoned them with the champagne. It was a fireworks show of puke,” I explain.
“Why?” Warrose asks, even though he’s grinning like he doesn’t need a good reason.
“Because they were harassing Skylenna,” Dessin says flatly.
“Did it work?” Warrose bites off a chunk of his stale bread.
“Obviously.”
Niles laughs from inside his bowl. He’s slurping that stew up like a dog.
My spoon bobs on the edge of my index finger, probing the air in restless circles as my impatience pulsates between Dessin and me. And he, being the man who can usually sense my impending questions, tilts his face an inch in my direction, though he doesn’t meet my eyes yet. Waiting for him to look at me is as thrilling as seeing the sun on a moonless night.
“Are you going to tell us how you pulled this off?”
The table’s chatter tapers off into a fuzzy quiet as they turn to Dessin in anticipation. The question is the only one that matters right now. We have no way of getting out of these cages. He was secure in his confinement when I woke up this morning.
“What do you think I’ve been doing for the last two weeks?” Dessin takes a sip of his water, pointing at his seat that’s facing the kitchen staff. “Every time we’ve sat in this commissary, I sit here. Why? Because I get to watch how they work. I figured out who the head cook was, saw that she was the one calling the shots. Learned she gets here before the rest of the staff at dawn to prep the food.”
We stare at him like children listening to a fascinating bedtime story.
Dessin glances around at our faces and shrugs like that should be enough explanation to piece together.
“But how did you get out of your cage?” Niles demands with childlike wonder.
Dessin signals with his chin to his shoulder. I gasp as I lean closer, seeing now that it’s swollen and out of place. He signals to Warrose, nodding for him to come over.
Warrose rises from his seat, blowing out a breath as he examines Dessin’s arm on the way over. “Shit, I can’t believe I didn’t notice it was dislocated.”
