Page 17 of The Bonds of Indigo

Her shoulders jerk but if I had to guess it’s an involuntary reaction to her body’s natural response to needing air. She’s just as calm as she was giving me that smart mouth of hers.

I shift my thumb up to her jawline, releasing the pressure on her throat, and she sucks a long breath in. For some reason, I drag my nail across her skin. It’s strange, she feels fake. She’s smooth and cool to the touch, with a delicate, almost glass-like fragility. I could break her right here, and true justice would be served for those lives that she took.

But I sedate myself. That’s an impulse I can’t succumb to.

“Why are you looking for one of us?” she asks, her voice a bit more raw than it was before—oops.

I sigh. “I’m looking for someone, and I believe your kind can help. That’s all you’re getting.”

I’ve never noticed how much looking into someone’s eyes tells you so much about how they’re feeling. She just holds her head back, not jerking or shifting, like a statue. If it weren’t for her breathing, which is beginning to normalize, I’d think she was asleep.

Just as her mouth begins to open, the door swings wide.

“What the fuck?!” Sook shouts.

Jozier is on one side of us in a few seconds, and I release the Witch. I’m not sure what they think was happening, but I’m utterly taken aback when he backhands her. The hit had sent her nearly tumbling off the chair, but he catches her by the arm before she can completely fall.

“We told you to behave!”

I mean, technically I was the one that had her life in my grasp, but alright.

Sook moves to her other side and shifts her head up, then looks directly at me. “Are we done here?”

“No.” I tsk. “Unfortunately for us all. You interrupted.”

“What is it you want exactly?” I’ve weighed out his patience completely, it would seem.

No matter.

“Just give me her name and I’ll be on my way. Until then, I’m planted right…” I point down at the ground. “Here.”

“Write your name down for the man and let’s be done with this,” Jozier seethes

“I get nothing for helping,” she says through her teeth.

Sook narrows his eyes at me.

“I’ll just keep coming back, every day, multiple times. I’ve got plenty of time to spare.”

Not really. They’ll be lucky if I come and go quietly. At this rate, I might just tear this place down and drag her ass out with me.

No, I can’t do that. That is crazy.

He rolls his tongue across his slightly discolored upper set of teeth, before looking down at the girl. “Give him your name, and we will allow you to go outside.”

Chapter 5

My heart jumps, skittering hard against my ribs at the blissful thought of being outside. To feel a breeze. To smell clean air. To let the sun, or the moon, bathe my skin.

I’ve not felt that in what feels like forever.

But to get that, I’ll need to give him my name.

I lied when I said I didn’t know where any of my kind were. Technically, I know of one, but he can’t reach them and I don’t want him, or anyone to.

I’m sure there are some of my kind tucked away, hidden within the Mundane population. There aren’t many of us left, but I could try and point him in the right direction if I wanted to. The real question is—why would I?

We’ve suffered too much already, bled dry by hate and the lies they built around us.