Cloak of Deceit

Chapter Sixteen

My throat felt like I'd swallowed a gallon of pine needles. Or maybe it was just that the cold, polished floor underneath me smelled like industrial pine cleaner. My face stuck to it as I got my hands underneath me. My palms pressed flat, I tried to push myself up, but I couldn't. My muscles were more than strong enough to lift me, but my shoulders and head knocked into something hard and solid.

My vision was saturated with pitch dark, even with my better than human sight, which I had a feeling would be blurry anyway. Was I under a table? I tried again, bumped it with a curse and then tried to push it up off of me. I collapsed back to the floor a few seconds later, my muscles burning, my stomach knotted up. I kicked up my feet.

Thump. Thump.

With a panicked whimper, splayed on my chest, I reached out to both sides with my arms and felt up above me — smooth, flat, solid. I didn't need air, but my chest inflated and deflated at a breakneck pace, pressing me into the — wall? — above me with each breath. I tried to twist my body, to turn over on my back, but my hips were too wide. I had just enough room to turn my head from side to side, and stare into the darkness in either direction. Tears built in my eyes, but I held my breath and started to shimmy-slide sideways. One arm's length away, I hit a wall. I scooted down to the corner, towards my feet until I felt another edge, then to the other side. I found the top, and cursed again.

I was trapped in a room with no doors and no light, about six-feet square, and eight inches high.

"Help!" I screamed.

Knock. Knock. Thump. Thump.

"Let me out of here!" Hot tears streamed down my face and gurgled in my throat.

And then I threw a total fit.

"Get me the hell out of here now!" I screeched, again and again. "Somebody!"

I kicked and screamed and clawed until my fists and heels and elbows were raw.

I did the circuit of my cage again and again, trying to find something different. I felt along the edge of the ceiling for a crack, a gap, anything. I tried imagining the ceiling lifting away from me, visualized it, tried to focus all my psychic powers on it, but they were such a wild card. Sometimes they worked on their own. I didn't have to think, just react. But otherwise, I needed to focus, and stuck in such a claustrophobic space, I just...couldn't.

The slab on top of me was too large. I was too weak. Too afraid. Totally screwed.

Derek put me here to die.

How long had it been already? My stomach burned like I had swallowed battery acid, and my head ached. I had never been starved of blood before. How long would it take?

As the first wave of panic receded, I lay there crying, and at long last, thinking. Mostly I thought about how stupid I was. Julian might have traded me into slavery to get Andreas out of prison, he might have let me fall for him in order to earn my trust, but he never would have left me like this. He never would have killed me. He certainly wouldn't have been so cruel. Whoever my enemies were, Julian wasn't one of them. He had wanted to keep me safe, had risked a lot to do so.

But I had been in a real hurry to get away from him, reacting to my stung feelings with raw energy, not thinking things through. "You're so stupid, Alex."

No, not stupid...

She's just a little mixed up, my mother's voice echoed in my head.

It's funny how, when facing death, even for the umpteenth time, life is suddenly reflected with such clarity. The edges of your memories glow with an otherworldly light, the bigger picture illuminated. I could see my mother's face, perfectly etched in time as she said, "She's just a little mixed up."