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“It was an extremely shocking situation for me as well,” I responded.
“Hmph.” The leader chuckled. “You’re not as good as you think you are.”
When I didn’t utter a word he turned, slamming his fist on the table and leaning down into my face. “You’re a Seelie spy, Coraline Fray. And the evidence I’ll have will be more than enough to destroy you.”
He circled once more in silence and then returned back to his seat.
My heart was pounding, but I didn’t dare let it show on the outside. They may even be able to hear it, but I’d be dammed if my face showed that this idiot had scared me.
“Unless…” His words drew out like a hiss in the damp air of the room. “You’d like to cooperate. Then I’d have no reason to move forward with you being named the Seelie spy.”
“Blackmail won’t work on me, sir,” I hissed right back at him and leaned forward myself. “You know, you’ve made the staff uneasy. I daresay that the royal guard interrogating and threatening the staff won’t look very good. Especially since people are going missing.”
“Watch your tone,” the guard warned.
But I refused to back down. I couldn’t. Something much bigger than a rumored spy was at play here. Something darker.
“Or what? You’ll lock me up so that I don’t reveal it’s the guard that is corrupt and the true spies?”
A loud slap echoed in the room as my face vibrated in a sharp pain. I opened my mouth to try to stop the ringing in my ears and closed my eyes.
I lifted my head, seething as I spit at the guards, “Looks like I hit a little too close to home there, huh?”
The chair I was sitting in flipped backward, and the only guard who hadn’t grabbed a hold of his weapon now held me pinned to the ground by my throat.
I opened my mouth to scream, but he brought his other hand over my lips and squeezed enough on my throat that no sound could rasp out.
Kicking my feet around, I prayed I’d hit something that could give me any sort of leverage to get away from the guard on top of me. But then what? There were three others.
“Enough,” the lead guard shouted to the others. “Put her in a cell. No one will hear her there anyway.”
I flailed my feet more fiercely, now desperate for some sort of break, but none came. Instead a boot kicked me hard in my gut and I spit up enough that the guard barked out a disgusted yelp and let go of my mouth.
But his grip on my throat tightened and I gagged.
He brought his hand back and punched my face, not nearly as hard as he could have I was sure, but hard enough to have the room go white for a minute. My eye throbbed where he’d connected and I gasped for air that wouldn’t come.
Finally, as I was jerked to my feet and elbowed in ribs once, the guard's hand left my throat.
“Help!” I screamed as one of them grabbed me around the waist.
I let all my weight hang and tried to go limp in the arms of the guard, but another moved to his side, grabbing my thighs in a tight hold so that I couldn’t even kick or flail anymore.
The hand came back over my mouth and I shook my head hard, but it wasn’t enough to keep the giant palm from covering my attempts at screaming. I couldn’t even open my mouth to bite him.
The third guard came up, smiling, and I gritted my teeth and tried screaming again.
“Scream all you want, feeder. You’re as good as dead when this is over.”
Another smack across my face came just as I felt the hand let go of my mouth, only to replace it again as they laughed.
This was a lot worse than I had anticipated. I was weaker now, dizzy, and my vision was fading in and out. They moved me down another hallway to cell doors. Old and rusted. It was colder here than it had been even in the drafty interrogation room.
Suddenly, the arms propelled me forward, and my body flew through the air. I fell hard on the stone ground, rolling and bumping against the side of the cell I’d been thrown in.
I tried to get up, but my body ached. Instead, I crawled forward as the guards’ laughter faded down the hallway we’d just come from.
I grasped the bars, trembling and shaking. Delayed shock maybe, or perhaps I was just too damn cold now.
Regardless, I was alone in a cell somewhere in the castle. I’d be girl number three to disappear after her interrogation.
No one knew where the other girls had gone, at least that’s what I assumed since no one mentioned word of looking for them. Ms. Trapsbury had said they were being taken care of. Her fear was evident back then. Imagine if she knew what really was happening here.
I shivered in the dark cell and attempted to pull my knees to my chest as best I could. My stomach ached, and the right side of my body where I’d been struck in the rib cage was so sore, even breathing hurt. I could barely curl up for warmth.
Now what? No one would know I was here, and if they did, the chances that the royal guard would let anyone near someone who’d figured out their plan was zero.
And it didn’t matter whose feeder I was.
