"What are you doing here?" Marlow asks before she's even fully entered the room. "What's going on?"
I can imagine the way her face darkens. "I'm the one asking the questions here."
"Then it's not a question," he fires back without missing a beat. "Tell mewhy you're here."
She snarls at that."Demands are even worse."
Marlow looks so wrong like this. He was at home in the dungeon even though he was trapped. Comfortable in the cabin in the woods even though he was clueless. Now he looks lost. Chained up and defeated, nothing like the cunning, clever demon who makes my heart beat faster. Iggy’s capture must really be taking its toll.
Eventually, Marlow gets himself together enough to try reasoning with the wolf across from him. "Look, you may not believe this, but I'm innocent."
"Of course," she sneers. "Innocent people always flee justice. Twice."
"If they're desperate and have no other option? Yeah."
"You're right," she says coldly. "I don't believe you."
He leans forward in his chair, the chains binding him rattle as he moves. "Adelaide, please."
She stiffens at hearing her name on the demon’s lips. "Don't speak to me like we know each other. You tricking my cousin doesn't give us a relationship."
“Why are you here?”
Adelaide towers over him at the table, looming large as she plants her hands flat on the cold steel. "I have good news.”
He musters up a weary chuckle. "If you're going to claw me now and save me the trouble of a trial and incarceration, I'm not sure we have the same definition of good news."
"I have a deal for you," she says calmly.
Does Adelaide see the same thing I do? Can she tell how his eyes sharpen at her words? She got his attention.
"I don’t need a deal,” he says after a long moment. “I didn't do anything wrong."
"Oh, you'll like this deal. It means you go free."
Marlow calls her bluff immediately. "Bullshit."
"Oh good," she says sarcastically. "I'd hate if the man tricking my cousin were a moron. That'd make it more insulting. You're right to question me."
"No way you can let me go free. This is a trick."
"I've never been good at those," Adelaide admits. "Too direct. Too blunt."
Marlow inclines his head beyond her to the two-way glass. He's so close to looking at me but doesn't seem to know it. "Then all the people watching behind that glass told you what to say."
"There's no one there." Liar. "No one knows I'm here to offer you a better deal than you deserve.” The chair before her screeches in protest as she drags it across the floor and then drops down into it. “You turned into quite a headache for me. Everyone is scrutinizing me and my leadership. This is a nightmare."
"Yeah, you poor thing,” he deadpans. “I’m real sorry for you. You’ve been through so much."
"I want to be done with you,” she continues sharply. “For my sake, my pack’s, and my cousin’s. No one knows I'm in here. If I were to free you from those shackles, leave the door open, and you slipped off into the night... If this is the third cell you escape from, then the condition of the dungeons we held you in becomes even more irrelevant. How were we expected to hold you if two law enforcement factions couldn’t? If you run somewhere else, you become their problem."
That makes a sick kind of sense. Does he believe her? Marlow leans back in his chair, evaluating her. His face gives nothing away.
"There's a reason I ran here," he says eventually.
"Well, it doesn't matter right now. This is your chance to be free. Ihopeyou do go free."
"More bullshit," he calls out immediately. "About the only thing I've believed since you walked in here is that you absolutely loathe me."
