by Robert McKay
With that said, Josh exited the kitchen from the other side of the room. He headed through the only door they hadn't explored. It had to lead to the west wing. "I never was very good at directions. I should be able to feign ignorance at least once."
It was a risky presumption, but as she'd heard once, fortune favors the bold. If the Colarians didn't want her there, then it stood to reason that it was where she could do the most damage. One would think that if Josh had children he wouldn't have given such a warning. It only served to give children ideas. Torch would be the first to tell her that she often acted just like a child.
For the time being, there were waffles to be made, books to be read, and plans to hatch, in exactly that order.
***
The waffles were exquisite, but she couldn't truly lose herself in the books she found in the library. There were plenty that were right up her alley, with lots of magic and adventure. The puzzle of Josh's behavior kept nagging at her, not allowing her any respite. She had hoped to take at least a couple of hours to recuperate her mind before driving herself insane with unanswerable questions. As usual, her brain wouldn't allow it.
A quick trip over to her hospital room to retrieve Pillow Dave and she was back to the library with paper and pen. Even if she couldn't read in the library, she felt much more at home surrounded by books, so it made it easier to think. While she would much rather puzzle things out with Torch than Pillow Dave, she couldn't do it in privacy, so she would have to make do.
It's fine, I'm used to being picked last, complained Dave.
"Oh, quit your whining, and listen," said Beatrix, setting her pen to the blank sheet of paper. "So, what do we know?"
Do you want me to listen, or answer your question? asked Dave, giving her a lopsided grin.
"Listen, wise-ass. We know that Josh gets grouchy and storms off when we ask about his past, except after he beat himself in the head where the symbiont was attached."
Which all could have been a carefully contrived performance, said Dave.
"True, but to what end?"
To keep you confused and asking questions instead of finding weapons and plotting our escape, obviously, and it's working.
Beatrix fixed Dave with a skeptical look and he stared resolutely back at her. "Fine, plausible. If they were so worried about my escape though, why not just put me back in a cell?"
Because you tried to off yourself the last time, or have you conveniently forgotten that? He looked directly at the bandages covering her almost healed wounds.
"I don't think that's all," said Beatrix, scribbling notes on the page. "He could have just given me some time out of my cell under constant guard. Why give me free run of the house and call me his guest?"
Because he's in looooove, Dave drawled, making googly eyes at her.
As much as she hated to admit it, that was a possibility. He'd shown very little interest in her friends, other than to make sure they were well for her sake. He'd given her a book to read on the interminable trip to his planet, and now there was this whole library that he'd given her to explore. He'd even seemed a bit disappointed when she didn't want to dive into it in favor of seeing her friends. The more she thought about it, the more likely it seemed. The beast who had killed her father and taken her prisoner, was infatuated with her.
Finally, we have something we can take advantage of! howled Dave.
"Yes, that does give us something to work with," said Beatrix as exuberantly as she could muster for Dave's benefit.
Dave hadn't seen the way Josh had talked about his wife. Or was it Arryn? In her head she kept replaying the conversation they'd had in her hospital room. Were the Colarians just manipulating her, or were they really being controlled by the symbionts? Nothing in any of the research she'd read indicated that could be a possibility, but her own observation of Hands implied it was true.
Pillow Dave tried to argue with her in favor of leaving by brute force and burning the place to the ground, but his words became muffled when Beatrix decided he would serve much better as a pillow than a conversation partner. Her head spun with all the possible ways she could proceed, but the comfortable leather chair worked its nefarious magic and she drifted off to sleep before deciding which plan to put into action.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Waking up in a strange bed was not a way that Beatrix liked to start her mornings. She bolted upright, scanned the room for threats, and then checked her wrists and ankles for restraints. Finding neither, her breathing slowed and her pulse receded from her ears. Slowly, a muzzy memory drifted through her head of floating without a care in the world, encircled in a warm fur wrap. There was a murmured encouragement to go back to sleep in a deep, soothing voice. Josh. He'd picked her up and carried her to this room when he found her sleeping in a chair in the library.
Revulsion warred in her body with some other feeling far on the other side of the emotion spectrum. Some of her fondest memories as a child were of being carried to bed by her father and now they were sullied by Josh. Some tiny nagging voice in the back of her mind asked her why she had to assign negative feelings to what was obviously a caring act. A much louder voice shouted that he had killed her father. Nothing could change the way that made her feel.
Shaking it all off, Beatrix climbed out of the soft, warm bed and dragged herself down the hall in the direction she remembered the bathroom to be in. When she arrived, she found another dress in the same shade of blue, this one of a slightly different cut; a variation on a theme. Beatrix showered and dressed in the new clothes after a small debate with herself about whether to accept further gifts. The smell of the previous day's dress made the decision for her.
By the time she was clean and dressed, Beatrix had formed her plan of attack for the day. Her curiosity had gotten the best of her. She had to know what was in the west wing that was so important. Guards didn't lurk in the halls throughout the house, but she had to assume they would be guarding the west wing given Josh's dire warning.
When she returned to her room, she found Pillow Dave staring at her expectantly. She filled him in on the plan and he practically whooped with glee at the mention of fire. It seemed strange to her that he would be such a firebug since he was made of cloth and feathers. She guessed he just liked to live dangerously. Some small part of her realized she still wasn't right in the head after her solitary confinement, and that her plan was bound to get her killed, and could burn her friends alive in their cells if it went wrong. She brushed those feelings aside with a platitude about desperate times and desperate measures.
While she indulged her disturbed side, and tried to find a way for everyone to live, she explored her new room. She didn't find anything useful for an escape attempt, but she did find her old Colarian clothes neatly tucked in a drawer. They had been cleaned, and Torch's ring was sitting on top of them. She'd all but forgotten about it with all the drama since she took it. Beatrix slid the ring into the pocket of her apron. She wanted to have it on her in case she found an opportunity to put her ridiculous plan into action. Her stomach rumbled.
The more reasonable side of her nature decided that she couldn't put her crazy plot into action on an empty stomach. Beatrix headed down to the kitchen for breakfast.
Hey, I could use some breakfast, whined Pillow Dave.
"You're already plenty lumpy enough," retorted Beatrix.
The smell of waffles filled the hallway outside the kitchen. Inside, Beatrix found Josh wearing a flowery apron, a chef's hat, and two totally unnecessary oven mitts, pouring waffle batter into the waffle iron. When he turned around and flipped a whole stack of waffles into the air and caught them with feline grace, Beatrix burst out laughing. Most of his black fur was dusted with white flour. That coupled with his ridiculous garb made for the most hilarious sight she'd ever seen.
"Nice apron," said Beatrix, taking a seat at the kitchen table. There were two place settings perfectly laid out, including tea, some sort of juice, and various syrups and jellies.
"This looks amazing," said Beatrix, skewering a waffle from the stack with her fork.
"I thought you could use some proper food to speed along your recovery," said Josh, taking three waffles for himself.
"Oh yes, because the doctors I know always prescribe sugary bread and syrup as a curative." She spread a liberal amount of butter on her waffle and then doused it with a syrup that smelled of berries.
"The medical community knows a lot of things; the healing properties of a well-crafted waffle breakfast continue to elude them. I don't hold it against them." He waited for her to laugh before smiling in return.
The rest of their breakfast was filled with idle banter. It was pleasant and Beatrix didn't even find herself thinking about how the beast cooking her breakfast had murdered her father. In fact, she almost felt guilty that the whole time they were eating, she was plotting how she could get into the west wing of the house without getting caught. As Josh cleared the dishes, he let slip just what she'd been hoping to hear.
"I won't be around to make you waffles tomorrow. I have to leave straight away on a trip that will take until at least tomorrow evening. Feel free to use anything in the kitchen as you see fit. I'll make sure it is kept well stocked now that someone will actually be using it."
Again there was that twinge of guilt. He really seemed to be genuinely trying to make her life decent, despite her circumstances. But no matter how he dressed up her cage, it was still a cage. She quashed her guilt with thoughts of her friends who didn't even get these simple comforts. They had friends and family that were missing them back on Nedra. "Thank you," she said, mostly in gratitude for the information about his absence.
"That one actually sounded genuine," said Josh, smiling warmly. "You're welcome, Beatrix."
Guilt. The more she learned about the beast, the more her plans felt like a betrayal. She had to find her answers and get out, quickly.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
Beatrix spent the evening reading in the library and stumbled off to bed after the third time she caught herself dozing in the chair. It had taken a long time to comb the shelves. Surprisingly, she found only fiction. She wanted to plan her trip into the west wing, but the book she found kept drawing her attention. It had been a surprise to find all the books were written in Nedran, or at least a dialect of it. Then she remembered her history lessons. Long ago, on Nedra, there had been many hundreds of languages. Eventually, they had all blended together into one common language. She'd even read a news article that said at least two of the planets they'd discovered since the Colarian War spoke a language that was almost identical to Nedran.
Regardless of how or why, the first book that drew her attention was a rollicking adventure that featured wizards and assassins. She kept taking longer and longer breaks from planning until she realized she had been reading for three hours straight and was nearly to the end of the book. The spine of the book was well worn, and it was on a shelf right next to the sitting area. She wondered idly how many times Josh had read it and if it was one of his favorites. That thought was almost enough to get her to put the book down. Almost. When she finally dragged herself off to bed, she was only ten pages away from the end. She promised herself that she would read it at breakfast, then plan her spy trip, and still be done long before Josh got back from his trip.
The next morning she rubbed the sleep out of her eyes, hurried down to the library, and grabbed the book. One of the pages were badly bent from where she'd been careless and nodded off in the chair last night. The urge to apologize was strong, but there was nobody to apologize to. That reminded her that she was supposed to eat breakfast and then get back to plotting her spy mission to the west wing. She marked her page and carried the book with her to the kitchen.
She made a stack of waffles and ate them while reading her book, taking extreme care not to damage it further with syrup. The book ended with the assassin finally killing the evil wizard, but she got together with the love interest that irritated the hell out of her.
Beatrix glanced at the empty chair across from her for what must have been the tenth time since she sat down. There was no way she was wishing that Josh was there to talk to. "You're just lonely," she told herself. "You should go visit your friends. If you're distracted, you'll never make a solid plan. You'll just get caught." That made sense, right? She knew it didn't, but somehow, it made her feel better about putting off her planning. Never underestimate the mental gymnastics a good procrastinator is capable of.
A distant part of her wondered why she wasn't desperate to get into the west wing any more. Her mind responded with a vivid image of her bullet-ridden body on the floor. Fear. That had never been a problem before. Almost dying had changed her in ways that she wasn't always happy about. At least her vow to enjoy life meant she could push down unpleasant feelings by diving into a fictional world.
Beatrix stopped in the library to return the book to its shelf. While she was there, another book found its way into her hand. Before she knew it, she was fifty pages in. Somehow time had passed and it was almost noon. She closed the book with a snap, walked out into the hall, and down to the wine cellar that held the entrance to the prison. The door opened before she could even knock. Woolly's light brown face looked down at her; his green eyes glowing with malice. He grunted and tipped his head back, indicating she could come in. She didn't relish being stuck in the tiny room with Woolly and another guard, but she stepped in anyway. While she was used to tight spaces, it was impossible for her to imagine how two hulks like them could sit in the little antechamber all day and not claw each other's faces off.
Woolly pulled out a key to the inner door and let her into the prison. He followed immediately on her heels. Apparently, he would be her chaperon on this visit. She was glad to see that her old cell was still empty. "Hello," she called. Four faces poked out of their cells almost immediately, followed by a chorus of "Sting". She walked down the line and touched each of their hands, giving greetings before turning back and stopping at Torch's cell. Woolly was content leaning against the wall near the door. Well, at least as content as he was capable of. His arms were crossed and he still scowled like he was ready to kill someone.
"Heya, Cap," said Beatrix, unsure what else to say. "How are you holding up?"
"Bored out of my skull, but at least now I have your wit to entertain me."
"It's a sad, sad day when you're depending on me to be witty. Sarcastic and bitchy I've got covered. I've never been too much with the wit."
He leaned forward and spoke just above a whisper. "Well, I guess I'll just have to rely on you for a sarcastic and bitchy escape plan."
Woolly took a step forward and snarled, showing one of his long, pointed fangs. Beatrix held up her hands in a submissive gesture and he slumped back against the wall. "What the hell is wrong with you?"
"Somebody had to test the limits. It might as well be me." He frowned and glared at the wall that was blocking his view of Woolly. "They have freakishly good hearing."
The rest of her visit was little more than idle chatter. They couldn't make any real plans without setting off the Woolly alarm. So, they told jokes and reminisced as best they could with bars and walls separating them. If Beatrix sat between two cells, they could have a three-sided conversation. She spread her time out evenly and actually started to enjoy herself once she could put the environment out of her mind. They closed her visit with requests. Mostly they just wanted something to entertain them. She promised to try and bring books on her next visit.
Woolly escorted her back to the outer door and gave her another of his signature grunts before pulling the door closed and leaving her alone in the wine cellar. By the time she hit the top of the stairs, her mind was already back on the book she'd left in the library. Unfortunately, her
stomach had other ideas. It let out a loud gurgle. She checked a clock in the kitchen and found that it was almost four in the afternoon.
"There's no telling when he'll come back. He said evening, so that could be any time now. Nice job, Sting. You didn't even manage to make a plan and now it's too late." A small niggling voice in the back of her mind told her she was still making excuses. She silenced it with a promise of food.
In the refrigerator she found an assortment of strange vegetables, sauces, and a tub containing something that looked like tofu. She tasted little bits of everything and finally chopped it up and threw it all in some oil and made a stir-fry. There were a couple of bits burned in the name of slipping down to the library to get her new book, but all in all it was delicious, even if she had to say so herself. When she was done eating, she realized there was more than enough for another person to eat. She promised herself she'd put it away as soon as she finished the page that she was on.
Josh walked into the kitchen fifty pages later and started heating up the leftovers. Beatrix glanced up at him and felt herself smile at the realization that he hadn't interrupted her reading. She forced her smile off her face with some effort. He probably just cared more about food than giving her a greeting. She read a few more pages while he heated up the food. He made wielding a frying pan look graceful, despite the oven mitts he still wore on both hands. The pan handle didn't even get hot, so they were totally unnecessary. She began to suspect he wore them just to amuse her.
He put his food on a plate and sat at the spot across from her. When she couldn't take it any more and looked up at him, he said, "Hello Beatrix. How was your day?"
Damn it. He really was just being respectful. Now what was she supposed to do? "Wonderful for a day of captivity in the house of the monster that murdered my father." The venom in her voice surprised her. She'd actually had a rather pleasant day and it was probably that very thing that pissed her off. She wasn't supposed to be having a good time. She was supposed to burn this place to the ground and laugh the whole flight home. "How was your day?" She leveled her best glare at him.
