"She's going to kill me anyway," I said.
"There are different ways to die, Anita. Don't let her kill you slowly."
"What's your name?" I asked.
"Barnabas," he said.
The dark-haired guard called, "Don't talk to them."
"If you don't want to watch her kill us slowly, Barnabas, help us get out of here."
He shook his head and started backing away. "I feel sorry for you, but not that sorry."
"Barnabas, get away from them!"
"I'm coming, Tommy." But to us, he said very low, "Don't look to me for help. If she tells me to kill you, I will. I'll make it quick, but I will kill you both if she orders me to."
"Good to know where we stand, Barnabas," I said.
"Stop talking to the prisoners!" Tommy yelled, and started walking toward us.
Barnabas just walked back toward the other man, who continued to berate him for talking too much to us. He made it sound like we were stray puppies that you couldn't get attached to because we were going to be put down anyway. I got the feeling that this wasn't Tommy's and Barnabas's first rodeo that had ended with prisoners dying--fast or slow. There was no help there. We couldn't offer Barnabas enough of anything to get him to betray the Wicked Bitch, and his friend Tommy was even less user friendly.
Nathaniel said, "It would be a shame if you never got to experience just how double-jointed I am again."
It seemed like a nonsensical thing to say, but I knew in a moment like this, it had to be important. I must have looked as confused as I felt, because he whispered, "More double-jointed than Houdini."
I finally realized what he meant: he was almost completely double-jointed. He could rotate his shoulders all the way around and pretty much everything else. It was interesting in the bedroom and when he danced onstage, but in this moment, it might be exactly what we needed. He could get out of the chains, and then he could let me go, if we could distract the guards.
I had to be the distraction, but how? I was wearing lingerie, so sex was an option. It certainly wasn't a fate worse than death or watching while the Wicked Bitch cut pieces off Nathaniel. If I got the guards close enough and raised the ardeur, it might work, but I didn't know if Moroven would sense it. The ardeur could be a flashy power, and we didn't need more attention.
I looked up at the chains on my own wrists. My one hand was almost small enough to pull through if I was willing to lose some skin and bleed myself. Wait. The guards would notice that.
I looked at Nathaniel. "I love you."
"I love you more."
"I love you most."
"I love you mostest," he said, smiling.
I smiled back, took a deep breath, and started pulling on my loosest wrist, hard.
Tommy of the black hair called out, "What are you doing?"
I ignored him, because what I needed was for both of them to come to me and turn their backs on Nathaniel. I put all my body weight onto my left wrist and pulled! My hand moved a fraction in the cuff. If the guards weren't here, I might actually be able to get one hand free, and that would be all I needed to get my other hand free. If the guards would stand there and let me pull on my wrist for about fifteen to thirty minutes while I scraped myself up, I could get away, but I was betting they wouldn't have the patience for it. I was counting on the fact that they wouldn't just stand by the door and watch me do it.
"What are you trying to do?" Tommy yelled.
"Get away," I finally said.
"You can't get away," he said.
I was going to need some lubrication to work my hand through. Lucky for me, my body made something that would work. If I wanted it badly enough. I stood up and started pulling, tugging, and rubbing my wrist against the manacle.
Barnabas called from the doorway, "You're just going to hurt your wrist."
"If I don't get away, she's going to hurt a lot more than my wrist."
The guards looked at each other and then started walking toward me. "Stop doing that," Tommy said.
"Or what?" I asked.
"Or we'll hurt you."
"Not half as much as the Wicked Bitch of Ireland will when she comes back in here," I said, continuing to tug on my wrist.
"Are you trying to bleed yourself?" Barnabas asked.
"Yes," I said.
"Why?" Tommy asked.
They were both in front of me, between Nathaniel and myself. Barnabas glanced behind at Nathaniel, so I leaned my body weight on the manacle and showed them why I was trying to get blood. "See, it moves a little. I think if I had some lubrication that I could get this hand out. Once I get this hand free, then I can just reach over and free my other hand."
"We're standing right here," Tommy said. "We won't let you do that."
"How are you going to stop me?" I asked, pulling harder on my wrist. I was going to have to be careful or I'd end up spraining my wrist before I got any blood to loosen things. I wanted so badly to look past them to Nathaniel and see if he was getting loose, but I didn't dare.
"Don't make us hurt you," Barnabas said, and he sounded like he didn't want to hurt me, but he would.
Tommy grabbed my arm just below the wrist. I think he thought that would keep me from pulling on it. I heard chains moving, and it wasn't me, so I started pulling wildly on the other wrist, which no one was holding. It made a lot of noise so that even I couldn't hear if Nathaniel was moving his chains.
"Stop it!" Tommy yelled, squeezing my left arm hard enough that it hurt a little, but not as much as the scrapes I'd already put on my wrist. I tucked my legs up and let all my body weight hang from my wrists, which surprised Tommy so that he let go, which let me rattle the chains like a fake ghost at a bogus seance.
Tommy hit me openhanded across the face. It was a good hit; it rocked me a little so that I just hung there in the chains for a second while my head and the rest of me caught up. He grabbed me by the front of the nightie and dragged me upright. The nightie wasn't a shirt; it wasn't even a dress, so he ended up flashing everything below my waist. Women can complain about men staring at their breasts, but trust me, there are worse things to have stared at.
There was that frozen moment when the men looked down and I could almost feel the click in Tommy's head, as he thought of something else he could do to me. I tasted blood when I swallowed. He'd busted my lip a little when he hit me, and the taste of my own blood made the beasts inside me rise like heat over my skin. They didn't like getting hit in the face either. I was alone in my head with all my beasts for the first time ever, with no more experienced lycanthrope inside me to help me. My body felt like it was starting to catch fire, so hot.
"What the hell are you?" Tommy whispered. He was still holding my arm.
I saw Nathaniel between their bodies. He was free and picking up the knife Rodina had dropped. Barnabas started to turn; if I hadn't seen Nathaniel, if there hadn't been two of them, if my beasts had had a few seconds more to rise, if I had had access to anyone's power besides my own, but I didn't. I called the only power I had that would kill and distract while it happened. I'd learned how to drain life energy through the touch of skin to skin from Obsidian Butterfly. She hadn't meant to teach me how to do one of her tricks, but one of my gifts was that if a vampire used a power on or around me often enough, I retained it either temporarily or forever. This one was forever.
It took Tommy a second to realize something was wrong, and then his hand where he touched me started to dry out, as if I'd put an invisible straw in his skin and he was a juice box. He tried to let go of me, but he couldn't. He yelled, "What are you doing?"
"Defending myself," I said, and my voice sounded distant, peaceful, because it felt good to drink him down, so much energy.
"Barnabas, help me!"
Barnabas started to reach out, but Nathaniel leapt onto his back and thrust the knife into his chest. The man made a sound and plunged his elbow back into Nathaniel, trying to get him off his back, which meant Nathaniel had missed the heart. He stabbed him aga
in and this time Barnabas fell to his knees with Nathaniel still riding him.
Tommy was screaming now, and his body was covered in deep lines, as if he was in a desert where the sun was draining him dry, but it wasn't the sun or the heat, it was just me. I had no idea if anyone was close enough to hear the screams, but I couldn't stop even if I wanted to, because the moment I stopped feeding on his energy, he'd be free to turn and help Barnabas fight Nathaniel. He was still stabbing, trying to get a killing blow as the other man struggled. I could not afford for another trained man to join the fight Nathaniel would lose. So I stared into Tommy's eyes and watched his skin run dry until it was like leather, and still he screamed, higher and more piteously but I couldn't afford pity. Pity would kill us.
Nathaniel staggered to his feet covered in blood and breathing hard, but the other man didn't get up. Nathaniel had won. We'd survived because he'd killed Barnabas. I stared at the dried husk that was the man I was slowly killing. The strong hand that had grabbed my arm was just bones covered in dry skin. It didn't even feel like a hand anymore, and still I fed on the very essence of his life. If I stopped now, I could give back the energy I'd stolen and he'd heal, but I didn't want him to heal. We were fighting for our lives. Tommy didn't get to live any longer than Barnabas had.
Nathaniel's voice was hoarse, almost as if he'd been the one screaming. "Can I undo your wrist? Is it safe to touch you?"
"No," I said, and I swallowed all the power I'd gained from the man in front of me. I pushed the urge to feed and feed and feed back in the dark box of my soul, and Tommy fell to the floor like a broken doll.