Oh,nowTaliesin is concerned. Maybe he should have felt like thatbeforeI fought thatel guerrero.
“Well?” he snarls.
Candy flinches like she’s going to be beaten, then scuttles into the corner of the cell, crouching down.
“I’m fine,” I snap. Fucking growly asshole. “Keep it down. My head feels like it’s going to crack open.”
I must have drifted, because the next time the world comes into focus, the cell is crowded. The amber corridor light is dimmer now.
“The warden would probably let her go to the infirmary, considering her name,” Taliesin’s voice is low. “But you know what the guards are like in there.”
“Sure fucking do,” another voice says. I recognize the dry, snarky tone. It’s Layla. “But don’t fret over Barbie. Doesn’t look like internal bleeding. She’s not coughing up blood, and the abdomen isn’t rigid. Just a hell of a lot of bruising.”
My vision swims in and out, but I finally focus on Layla.
She looks down at me and shakes her head. “Double vision?”
“Are you a doctor all of a sudden?” I reply, aiming for sarcastic but it just comes out weak and pathetic.
She shrugs. “Mama works at the clinic with Tally’s mom. I picked shit up.” She glances toward the cell door, where Clay is standing with Imran. The boy is leaning heavily against the bars, and he’s holding a rag up against a nostril. A nose bleed?
Layla’s expression shifts into something hauntingly sad. “But I didn’t learn enough though.”
I close my eyes again, feeling like absolute garbage. “Think I’m going to sleep some more.”
And that’s what I do.
11. TALIESIN
The morning starts off with the princess groaning and moaning as she wakes up and understands what it’s like to get the shit kicked out of you.
Stupid idiot.
I’d already told Hector to throw the fight, and I’d let him into the Diggers.
But, oh no. Aurora Drakeward thought she could go it alone and see where it got her.
I look at her, lying on the cot, still caked in dirt and dried blood, wincing as the little mouse she rescued mops her forehead.
The irritation that’s been simmering in my gut for weeks finally boils over into something else. She just took a punch from a man who shifts into a crocodile. A crocodile. And she did it to save a girl she doesn’t even know, a girl who has nothing to offer us but more trouble?
Why? Because she’s got a soft heart under that superior exterior. It would be easier if she were just an arrogant, vapid Elite girl I could despise.
Desiring her is stupid; liking her is even more dangerous.
“I’ll get you both some breakfast,” I announce. The waif-kid squeaks and hides behind the privacy sheet.
Gods, give me strength.
Once I’ve organized Clay to deliver the girls some food, I un-fucking-fortunately don’t make it to chow myself. A kid comes running to tell me one of the laundry crew has stabbed another—over a packet of ramen.
At first I’m confused, this kind of behavior is rare in the Diggers, especially under Dot’s watch, but then I remember what day it is.
Fucking Christmas.
Peace on earth, unless someone touches your noodles.
Everyone gets out of sorts around the holidays. Fucking idiots, what does it matter? Trying to celebrate anything here is pointless.
