CAGED (#3, of Crows and Thorns)

Chapter 10

It was hard to push out the words or even care to. "Where is Graysen?" To my own ears, my voice sounded flat, dull, and lifeless. A heavy feeling pressed down on me, lethargy perhaps, but it felt more than that. I also realized I was starving...and my bladder was nearly bursting.

I swung my legs over the side of the mattress and half-fell from the bed. My legs wobbled beneath me like a newborn foal as I stumbled through the bathroom, rushing to the toilet. After I'd relieved myself I washed my hands with hot water and liquid soap. I turned the water off and twisted the cold water tap on instead. Cupping my hands together beneath the flowing water, I drank in mouthfuls of cool refreshing liquid, soothing my parched mouth and dry throat.

Turning the tap off, I wiped my hands dry on the towel wrapped around my body, tightening and re-tucking the edge. I had no clothes. I had nothing that belonged to me.

I exhaled a long breath as fear began to slink back in, and took in my appearance in the mirror. Clean from soot, my hair was matted and frizzy from how I'd slept, knotted from the use of only shampoo and not combing and untangling the snarls. My eyes were tired and still a little bloodshot. My gaze trailed over my honeyed skin, which seemed duller and still ached and stung from the bruises and scrapes all over my arms and legs.

And that rope.

That godsdamned piece of rope.

It was a parasite, a blocker—the thing between me and my wyrm. I had to get it off and yet I didn't know how. I fumbled at the knot at the nape of my neck, and trying to untie it proved impossible.

Besides all that, it fucking itched. My fingers went for the coil around my throat, weaseling past the barest gap, trying to soothe the irritated skin. My nostrils flared and my eyes slit as rage heated my blood like a billow pumping air on embers. The rope collaring my neck like a hangman's noose was the choice Graysen had made. His own. A message to my father that he held my family's safety, their very lives in his palm—and it was the last act that cleaved Graysen and I apart.

I had to find a way to free myself from the Crowthers, and right now the only person I could threaten was outside that door.

Quietly I pulled out the drawers in the vanity, shooting quick, furtive glances at the door, and listening for a warning of Penn's approach. I carefully rifled through products, looking for anything I could use like a weapon. Nothing. No razor blades for shavers, or scissors, not even a godsdamned nail file.

Curse him to Nine Hells!

Frustration had me rapping my fingertips against the vanity counter. Resolve had my gaze snapping to the bathroom door—surely there'd be something out in his bedroom, maybe even a knife brought in with my breakfast.

I stepped out of the bathroom and found Penn had risen and was standing beside the square dining table where a silver tray sat, the silver cloche catching the soft light from the reading lamp. I was right, she had to be only five-foot-four, with a dainty-looking frame and doll-like features.