“Then why make firecrackers to scare them away?”
“Because—because our ancestors did. Because lighting the fireworks helps us remember everyone who came before us.”
“If I was a ghost, firecrackers wouldn’t scare me.”
“Why were you playing with them in the first place? You could have been very badly hurt.”
“The boys were doing it. I’m braver than them.”
“Letting yourself get hurt isn’t brave, love. Brave is protecting others from hurt. I’m disappointed in you.”
THE CELL THEY’VE GOT ME in isn’t that big. Only about two meters by three, and most of the floor space is taken up with a saggy mattress that smells like mildew. The door is steel, no doubt salvaged from commandeered military equipment. When I can make it to my feet I try forcing it, hard enough to make me gasp from the pain in my ribs, but it doesn’t budge.
I spend a while stretching, testing out my muscles. I can’t do much about my abdominals, what with the broken ribs and the gunshot wound, but my arms and neck and legs all still work. Romeo might think I’ve given up, and that’s fine. When they come for me, I’ll be ready for them. Because the last thing people will say about Lee Chase after she’s gone is that she just rolled over and died without a fight.
The bioluminescence—the wispfire—washes the cave with an eerie, soft light. Unsettling, but beautiful too. When I tilt my head back, my vision is flooded with blue-green stars, filling me with a strange, sweeping vertigo. It’s been so long since I’ve seen the stars that these seem brighter, more real. But at least I remember stars. At least I’ve seen the sky.
I jerk my eyes away. I should be trying to find a weapon. The madman McBride was sporting a military-issue Gleidel, no doubt looted from a fallen soldier; if my hands had been free, maybe I could’ve gotten it from him. With one shot, I could’ve gotten justice for the murders he’s committed over the years since the last open rebellion. But since they haven’t fed me yet, I don’t have so much as a spoon to work with. I ease down onto the mattress, too exhausted to think. It’s only then that it occurs to me: mattresses have metal springs.
I let myself have a minute to sit there, unmoving, gathering my strength. Then, muffling the sound of tearing fabric with my body, I rip open the corner of the mattress farthest from the door. Before long my hands are aching, cramping, but the sharp spring I’m trying to work loose is moving more freely. If I bend it back and forth enough, the metal will fatigue to the point where it snaps.
I’m stretching my fingers when I hear footsteps. I slide onto the mattress and put my back to the wall, facing the door. I interlace my fingers behind my head, making my ribs burn in protest.
Nothing to see here, assholes.
“You’re not going to try and kill me through the grate, are you?” Romeo. How familiar that voice is becoming. I wonder if it’ll ever not make me long to punch him—though I have to admit it’s better than isolation.
“Can’t make any promises,” I call back. A lantern abruptly casts light into my cell from the grate, and then his face is there. His eyes look so familiar—even more so with the bottom half of his face concealed by the steel of the door. I’ve seen those eyes somewhere before.
“Still alive?”
“For the most part.” I lower my arms carefully. Hurts too much to keep them up. But I don’t really want to give away how badly I’m aching from McBride’s attack. “You can come in, you know.”
“Trying to lure me in so you can hit me over the head and steal the keys?”
I wonder if I’m as irritating to him as he is to me. Maybe it’s easier to feel charitable toward a dead girl walking. Abruptly I’m too tired to make another joke. “Maybe I don’t want my last words with another human being to be spoken through a prison grate.”
The amusement in his eyes dims. His humor is just like mine. A defense. I let mine down, he responds in kind. If only I’d learned it sooner, maybe I could’ve gotten more out of him, information I could use in the future back on base.
What future?
He continues to hesitate, though I hear him take a step closer to the door. “Fine. I brought you some soup anyway, hard to feed you through the grate. Stay back there, will you?”
Part of me finds it funny that he thinks I’m in any shape to do anything to him at all. “I’m not going anywhere.”
The lock slams back and the door screeches outward, awkwardly set on its hinges. Romeo hovers in the doorway, carrying a bowl in one hand and a lantern in the other.
Even knowing his name, I can’t think of him as Flynn. His first name feels too strange, too intimate. I’m not going to be one of those prisoners who starts thinking of her captors as anything other than enemies. This is the guy who’s killed me. Whether he delivers the final blow or not, he’s the one who dragged me here, made it impossible for there to be any other outcome. I have to keep telling myself that.
“So, Romeo.” I lean my head back, waiting for him to make some move farther into the cell. “Why do you keep coming back here to see me? Can’t get enough, huh?”
“Never,” he replies easily enough, stooping to set the bowl down on the floor inside the door. My heart sinks a little, ready to watch him retreat now that he’s delivered the soup. Instead, to my relief, he straightens and leans back against the wall. “I suppose I keep coming back because you’re my responsibility.”