Total pages in book: 222
Estimated words: 210715 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1054(@200wpm)___ 843(@250wpm)___ 702(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 210715 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1054(@200wpm)___ 843(@250wpm)___ 702(@300wpm)
“What the fuck are you doing?” Derog snarled. “What in the honest fuck do you think you’re doing?”
“She provoked me, terr.”
I sucked in air and coughed. I was still alive somehow.
“How?”
“She was looking at me.” As soon as the words came out, the weasel-face realized that he’d made a crucial mistake.
“So you hit her because she was looking at you?” Derog asked, suddenly calm.
“She called me a shit smear.”
“She has the mind of a child, you moron.” Derog grasped my chin. “She doesn’t know what the words mean. She probably heard them for the first time today. Smile, Maggie.”
I blinked away tears and gave him a smile.
“She said it like she knew what it meant. And then she screamed.”
Derog studied my mouth. “You scared her. Of course she screamed. Your face isn’t scratched. She made no effort to fight you.”
The weasel-face stared at me.
Derog put his finger in my mouth and tested my teeth. I almost threw up in his face.
“She has teeth like a noblewoman, and she’s worth more than I pay you in a year. And you hit her in the face. What would we do if you knocked any of her teeth out? Would I pull yours out and put them into her mouth?”
The bruiser next to Derog stirred. “Apologies, terr, but his teeth aren’t pretty enough.”
The slavemonger turned his head and looked at the big guy for a long moment.
“Close your mouth, Maggie.”
I did.
“You’re not wrong, Murt,” Derog said to the big man, “but you are missing the point. The point is, if one of you touches her again, I’ll hang you by your balls off the tree in the courtyard.”
The two guards held still.
“You,” Derog pointed at the weasel-face, “come with me. You!” He pointed at Murt. “Guard. I don’t want to come down here again tonight. No more trouble, no more screams.”
Murt nodded.
The weasel-face tossed a ring with two keys to the big guard and gave me a thisisn’t-fucking-over look. He was right. It wasn’t over until all of them were dead.
Derog headed toward the stairs, weasel-face in tow, stopped, and turned. “Where is Kaiden?”
Shit.
“He has the runs, terr,” Clover said from the latrine’s doorway. She was standing with her feet together, her head slightly bowed, still keeping Derog in her view but not looking straight at him. Her arms were bent slightly at the elbows and her hands were together, right over left.
It looked like a pose a maid from a noble household might assume. Her face was serene, her expression perfectly neutral. I got the feeling that if Derog threw a bucket of blood at her right now, she’d stay just like that.
Derog’s gaze sharpened. “Does he?”
He started toward the latrine.
We were busted. It was over. I could sprint to the upstairs door, but I wouldn’t, because the kids would be left behind. And weasel-face would catch me.
Kaiden stumbled out of the latrine.
Had he gone through the hole or not? I couldn’t tell. He didn’t look like a child who had crawled through dirt.
I had failed. The escape had failed.
But the kids were alive. It would be fine. I would think of something else.
“Come here,” Derog ordered.
The boy walked over, defiance all over his face. My heart was in my throat, and it had squeezed itself into a painful rock that kept me from breathing.
Derog frowned. “Have you been drinking from the faucet?”
Kaiden looked at him. If he’d had a weapon, any weapon, he would’ve tried to stab Derog.
“I asked you a question,” Derog said.
“No.”
Derog shook his head. “If he doesn’t improve by morning, tell the guard to get a healer.”
“Yes, terr,” Clover said.
Derog turned and he and the weasel-face went up the stairs. The door clanged shut.
Murt glared at all of us and put his meaty hand on the short club hanging from his belt. “Bed. Now.” He stabbed his finger in my direction and then pointed at the nearest cot. “Maggie, sleep here.”
I walked to the bed, took off my boots, and lay down.
At the other side of the room Kaiden crawled into his bunk. Clover settled to the left of him, by the little girls. Their faces told me absolutely nothing.
Murt walked over to the lantern in the wall by my bed, stuck the key into the lock of the cage, and opened it. “Everyone goes the fuck to sleep.”
He blew the flame out and moved on to the next lantern.
“Nobody cries.”
The door at the far end of the room swung open, and Reynald slipped in. I blinked to make sure I wasn’t hallucinating. He’d lost the cloak. He wore a dark gray shirt and dark pants, loose enough to move in but without much slack. His sword rested in his fingers, pointing down, almost an afterthought.
“Everyone sleeps,” Murt intoned.
Reynald moved across the room, silent as a ghost.
“And then everyone gets to keep their pretty teeth in their mou—”