My blood.
It was still there, brown and dry, staining his varnished desk. The chair, at least, was exactly where it should’ve been, so I sat down and waited. The Horseman came around the desk calmly, like an interviewer about to sit across from a potential employee. When he took his seat, he clasped his hands, rested them on the table, and looked at me.
“Why were you in the hole and not in your cell?” he asked.
“You don’t already know?”
“I know the Officer I had charged with moving you did not follow my orders. He has been sufficiently reprimanded.”
“By sufficiently, do you mean you strung him up by his testicles and let all the women in the prison point at him and laugh?”
“No.”
“Shame. It’s what he deserves.”
The Horseman paused, as if examining me. I wanted to get a look at myself in the black mirror behind him, but his substantial body was in the way. “Why did he take you to the hole?” he asked.
“You mean Brickmore didn’t give you a good enough reason?”
“He told me you had been insubordinate.”
I shrugged. “That’s what happened.”
He cocked an eyebrow. “Is it?”
“That’s how he says it happened, so that’s the truth. I offended his insecurities, and he tossed me into the hole.”
“What about the blood on your suit?”
“What about it?”
“There is more of it than when you were here.”
“Is there?” I checked myself out, unzipping it slightly and staring down my chest. “No, it looks about the same to me. Pity I didn’t get my clean clothes or my shower.”
He wasn’t buying it. I could tell by the way he was glaring at me. He wanted me to unload on him, to tell him that Brickmore had sent me to a room to get pummeled to death by a bunch of angry bitches. But I had already made up my mind. I wasn’t going to give him that version of events because I wasn’t a rat.
I narrowed my eyes. “How did you find out I was in the hole so quick?” I asked. “I couldn’t have been in there for more than an hour. Maybe even less.”
“I know everything there is to know about this prison.”
“But you’re asking me to tell you what happened when I left this room. So, either you don’t know everything, or you’re pretending to be ignorant.”
He turned his nose up slightly. “I don’t expect you to understand what is happening here.”
I wanted to punch him. I knew exactly what he wanted. He wanted a confession. He wanted me to sing, to tell him what he already knew, or at the very least suspected, so he could ride out of this room and take out some of his frustrations on a bunch of inmates and possibly even a guard.
As much as I would’ve loved to watch Brickmore get what was coming to him, I wasn’t about to deny myself the satisfaction of revenge by sending the Horseman out to fight my enemies. Knives, her entourage, Brickmore, and even Odessa… they were mine. Not his.
“Maybe I don’t,” I said, “So, we’ll leave it at that. But I do have something I want from you.”
The Horseman frowned. “You do not get to make requests.”
“It’s not a request. It’s a demand. You asked your man to escort me out of your room and see to it that I found my way to a set of clean clothes and a hot shower. He disobeyed your order, and you’ve reprimanded him.”
“And?”
“From what I’ve seen, you’ve cultivated an aura of fear in this place. You want the inmates and the guards to know, the Horseman isn’t one to be crossed. Do what the Horseman says, or else.”
“Get to the point.”
I stared at him, meeting his gold-flecked gaze. “There are only three people in this entire prison who know, for a fact, that the great Horseman’s word isn’t final around here. Brickmore was able to disobey you, but that knowledge won’t reach the other inmates. At least, it shouldn’t, as long as I keep my mouth shut.”
His expression darkened, his muscles flexed, and the veins on his neck pulsed. “Blackmail?”
“No, nothing so drastic. But you need to trust that I won’t tell anyone they can cross you and you won’t immediately kill them. The best way to guarantee that, is to answer my demand.”
“I can also do that with fear.”
I shook my head. “You can’t, because I’m probably one of the only people around here who isn’t afraid of you.”
“You should be,” he growled.
“Maybe, but I’m not, and here we are. So, what are you going to do, Horseman?”
He squared his shoulders, my heart started hammering, and for a panic-filled moment, I thought he was going to rip the table in half and bum-rush me into the wall on the other side of the room. But he didn’t. Instead, he took a deep breath and exhaled.
“What is your demand,” he said.
“I want to be moved to a new cell,” I said, “I won’t go back to my old one.”
“Why not?”
“I can’t tell you.”
He leaned closer. “Tell me.”
“That’s not going to work. Give move me to a new cell, and I give you my word, I won’t speak of what happened tonight to anyone else.”
“What good is your word?”
“Better than most.” I extended my hand. “Do we have a deal?”
The Horseman’s eyes flicked left, then back to me. I thought I saw his lips pull into something of a sly grin, but it was gone in an instant, like a ghost. “I have a condition,” he said, running his thumb along his lower lip.
I frowned. “What’s that?”
The Horseman flicked his wrist off to the left, and the door to his bathroom opened. “You shower here.”
I looked over at the open door to his black, shiny bathroom, then I turned my eyes back at him. “You want me to what?”
“Shower here. I will have clothes and food brought up for you. You can bathe, change, and eat while your new cell is prepared, and when you are finished, you will be taken directly to it by one of my more loyal people.”
More loyal.
That led to an interesting thought. What if all the guards at Harrowgate weren’t as blindly loyal to the Horseman as we had thought? Was it possible some of them were less willing to do directly as he asked and go off on their own? I’d witnessed it tonight when Brickmore decided to take me on a little pit stop, but I had no reason to believe that had been any more than a glitch.
Until now.
“Just so we’re clear,” I said, “You’re not jumping into the shower with me.”
The Horseman didn’t immediately answer, sending a trickle of heat pulsing through my chest and neck, and into my cheeks. They reddened, rosy and warm, and getting warmer as the seconds passed. I could only imagine what was going through his mind right now.
Probably the same thing going through mine.
“No,” he said. “I will not be joining you.”
“You say that like I just made a request. I didn’t. I was drawing a line.”
“Very well. Consider the line firmly drawn.” He stood and gestured toward the bathroom door. “Go. Bathe. I will make the rest of the preparations.”
I got up from my seat and approached the bathroom door. I stopped when I reached it, draped one hand along the frame, and glanced at him from across my shoulder. “Make it a pizza,” I said, “And throw in something sweet to go with it. Like cheesecake.”
“Be careful,” he said, “You are stretching the limits of my hospitality.”
“Hospitality?” I grinned. "I thought this was blackmail.”
He didn’t answer, only glowered at me with eyes that said I’m going to rip you to pieces. Good. That was a sentiment I could get behind. Something that felt normal. Of course, even the Horseman shouldn’t make promises he couldn’t keep.
I stepped into the bathroom and shut the door behind me. It was glorious. Black, spacious, and shiny, the floors and fixtures made of what looked like pristine obsidian. Ir
onic. I wasn’t sure what I had expected to find in here—probably a lot of his items, like razor blades, shaving cream, anti-dandruff shampoo.
Instead I found a whole host of what looked like scented bath bombs of all shapes, colors, and sizes. In little mason jars there were gels, and creams, and lathers for all purposes and occasions—each properly labelled as something to use on your hair or your body. I picked a deep purple bath bomb from the shelf, filled the tub, and slipped out of my blood-caked jumpsuit.
A floor to ceiling mirror stood on the other side of the expansive tub, and as I let the jumpsuit fall, I saw myself for the first time since I had gotten to the prison. I still looked like me, sure enough, but my body was covered in dark bruises. They were on my arms, my ribs, my back, and thighs.
Despite the amount of healing magic I had received, this place was still taking a toll on me whether I felt it or not. I stared at myself the entire time it took for the bath to fill, carefully studying the constellation of purple and yellow bruises all over my body.
You need to take it easy, Six, I thought. This place will grind your soul to dust… your body too, it looks like.
I took a deep breath, shook my head, and once I was fully naked, I dropped the bath bomb into the tub and slowly lowered myself into it.
The warm water stung at first, but after a short while, being submerged was the most blessed experience I had gone through at Harrowgate. The bath bomb fizzed and bobbed, releasing a soothing lavender scent into the air, and painting the water in the purple as it disintegrated.
I let my head relax against the edge of the tub and, in that moment, got just a little glimpse of what it was like to be the Horseman. What it was like to have luxuries. Not just commodities, but luxuries. I wasn’t used to this.
In my life there was no room for pampering. My meals were large, but that was only because I trained twelve hours a day, and I needed to keep my strength up. When I wasn’t training, or eating, I was showering, meditating, or sleeping. Always moving from one activity to the next. I guessed that was easy to do when you didn’t keep many friends and didn’t care for hobbies or pampering.
This? This was dangerous. It felt too good.
There was a knock at the bathroom door. I sat upright, just enough that the waterline covered my chest. “Yes?” I called out.
“May I open the door?” the Horseman asked.
He has manners. I have to give him that. “Sure.”
The Horseman opened the door, and I couldn’t explain why, but my heart started to pound so hard I could see the water trembling with each beat. In his hands he held a bunch of clothes—another prison jumpsuit, socks, underwear, and shoes. He set them down on the edge of the sink, stopped, and turned to look at me.
My hair was wet, my skin glistening, lazy fingers of steam rising from the waterline that I was completely naked beneath. “Something else?” I asked, maintaining eye contact.
The Horseman swallowed. I could see his Adam’s Apple work, I could hear the rapid thumping of his heart, even from this distance. Maybe he could hear mine, too. “Dinner will be up in ten minutes. You will be in your new cell in thirty-five.”
“I do like a strict schedule.”
“Good. See to it that it is followed.”
“You mean you won’t be joining me?”
“I have matters to attend.” He went to leave the room, paused, and looked at me. “Don’t break anything… and don’t steal any more weapons.”
My heart leapt into my throat. I swallowed this time. “That sounds fair.”
The Horseman gave me a curt nod, then left the room. I took a deep breath, held it in my lungs, and sank into the tub.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
The Horseman
The thought I had left a woman of that caliber alone in my room tore through me like a spinning saw-blade. She had looked resplendent in the water with her hair wet and loose around her shoulders, her skin glistening. It had taken every ounce of willpower I possessed to resist the urge to disrobe and claim her once more.
Only this time, I would mark her as mine, and mine alone.
Our last, first, interlude had been quick and passionate. It had been an explosion of feeling, of rage, of hate—emotions that often danced with desire and with lust as if they too were bedfellows. This time, however, it would’ve been different.
I would have walked into that tub, submerged my head beneath the waterline, and worshipped at her altar until her body collapsed in my arms. And then she would mount me, our eyes locked, our bodies moving as one, and we would ride until sunrise where in the sobering light we would see each other for what we were.
Enemies, yes, but also something more.
But I had resisted… and now it was time. I could already feel the pressure building under my skin, the pull of my accursed soul as it bucked and thrashed against its restraints. I had precious few minutes to make it underground.
If I failed, if I had overestimated the strength of my own resolve, the consequences could be disastrous. It would not be the Crimson Hunters who tore Harrowgate down brick by brick and murdered everyone inside… but something else.
At the end of an unmarked corridor that didn’t appear on any of the prison’s maps was a door to an elevator. Crossing the boundary triggered a warding spell of my own design, erecting a wall of near impenetrable energy at the entry to the elevator and sending a message directly to the Warden’s mind, alerting him to what I was about to do.
He was the only one who needed to know what was about to happen. Nobody else did. Not the guards, and certainly not the inmates. This secret was ours, and ours alone. A covenant signed in blood.
I waited, my heart beginning to hammer inside of my chest. When the elevator door finally opened again, I dashed toward the heavy, vault door across from me and opened it, revealed another such door, and another, and another.
There were four in total, each a failsafe for the last, each heavier than the last. Upon reaching the last door, however, I faltered. I had wrapped my hands around the turning wheel and pulled, but it proved almost too much for me to open. My muscles strained, beads of sweat popping across my brow.
Bit by bit, my strength was fading, falling away from me as I diverted every ounce of my energy to retain control just a little while longer. Opening the final door would have proved impossible for a lesser man, but I was not less. I was not weak. I was the Horseman.
The door to the cell unlocked and I rushed inside, shutting it and locking it with a wave of my hand. Then I turned to face the furthest, darkest wall. There, pinned to hooks embedded in solid rock, were a series of heavy chains and shackles. I picked one of them up, hauled it around my foot, and locked it into place, following the process for each of my other limbs.
Finally, I breathed a sigh of relief, lowering my head.
I had reached the safety of the cell.
Now, the beast could come. And when it was done, clarity would return to my mind.
Perhaps then I would be hollow inside again. Pure, and clear of mind; the darkness inside of me total once more, and untouched by the light of those fiery, amber eyes.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
It was Sanchez who came to pick me up from the Horseman’s quarters. Seeing her at the door had given me a reason for pause, as if I’d just been caught doing something I wasn’t supposed to have been doing. She could tell the Horseman’s quarters were empty, she could see that I was freshly bathed and smelling sweet, and she had pointed out the little dab of tomato sauce on my lips.
I brushed it away with my thumb, my cheeks reddening, but I didn’t say anything. To her credit, neither did she. Officer Sanchez was, if nothing else, a consummate professional. Dignified. Just. A little biased toward her kind, but that was understandable. Now, add to that list, loyal to the Horseman.
She escorted me quietly back to D-block, which was rowdy with life by the time I arrived. Dinner had come and gone, and the inmates were being allowed to socialize outside of their cel
ls before lights out. For some, socializing meant sitting around a table playing cards. For others, it meant quietly preparing the schemes they were going to run the following day.
I spotted Knives and Odessa talking smugly on the upper level. Knives must have said something funny, because Odessa threw her head back and laughed so hard, she snorted and had to throw her hand over her mouth to cover the sound.
Then she saw me, and all the blood drained from her face.
Her hand dropped from her mouth to reveal a slowly slackening jaw. Knives, who quickly noticed, turned her head and glanced over in my direction. Her reaction wasn’t as visceral as Odessa’s had been, but she did frown. She must’ve thought she was done with me, had seen the last of me. The fact that I was here, still standing and looking healthy, was more of an annoyance to her than a reason to be afraid.
Odessa probably thought we were still cellmates, but Sanchez didn’t take me up to their level. My new cell was on the ground. The door, one of the only closed doors in all of D-block, buzzed open as we arrived. It was just as plain and boring as my old one, but both of the bunks in the room were empty.
“Home sweet home,” Sanchez said.
“Thanks for the escort,” I said, heading inside.
She took hold of my shoulder and moved close to my ear, as if to whisper. “Be careful,” she said.
I gave her a sidelong glance, my eyes narrowed. “Don’t worry, I intend to be.”
“No. I mean with him.”
“What?”
Sanchez didn’t say anything else. She released my hand and moved away, leaving me with that cryptic warning. I had no doubt in my mind she was talking about the Horseman, but she hadn’t clarified what she had meant, or what it was I needed to be careful of. The Horseman had more sharp edges on him than a chainsaw, I knew that—everybody knew that—so, why add an extra warning?
Night Hunter (The Devil of Harrowgate Book 1) Page 15
