Break the Chains

Chapter Thirty-Four

Though she had known it was likely that the warden would already be drunk, Ripka found the reality disappointing. His face was flush from the warmth of the rum he’d no doubt paid a premium to smuggle in from Petrastad. A premium covered by funds meant to keep the prison in working order. He leaned forward across his desk, arms spread wide and palms face down as if he were trying to keep it from spinning away. As Ripka and Enard were ushered through the door, he squinted, trying to place them. She stood at ease, hoping whatever state the bastard’s mind was in was one she could work with.

“What’s the meaning of this?” he slurred, cleared his throat and straightened his shoulders. “I did not ask to see these two.”

Captain Lankal stepped forward. Ripka was pleased to see his disgust was no less facing down his drunken boss than it had been in discovering their stash of strange bark peelings. “Warden, sir, we are not certain of the specifics, but we believe we have interrupted an escape attempt. We discovered these two on the beach with Guard Hessan. They had been in a fight, as you can see, and Hessan was severely injured by a concussion. Luckily he managed to get to his whistle before these two could wrest it away from him and finish what they’d begun. And there was this with them.”

He slung the oilcloth pack onto Radu’s desk and pulled the top flap open. Radu leaned forward, half standing, to peer into the silvery collection of bark. He sniffed the air above it, and a dark scowl overtook his features.

“I see.” He ran a hand through his hair and his dark locks stayed put, grease sealing every strand into place. “Leave me with them. Do not go far.”

“Yes, warden.”

Captain Lankal and the other guard left, leaving Ripka and Enard in chains before the warden. Tense, she waited, wondering what truth the muddled man’s mind would decide upon – and if she would be given a chance to defend herself. He squinted at them once more, then nodded as if having reassured himself of whom he was speaking with.

“This is how you repay me, captain?” He waved a hand over the open mouth of the sack. “With treachery? With turning the very information I gave you against me?”

“I was in the process of investigating the clearsky chain of ownership when–”

“Enough!” He slapped an open palm upon his desk. “You think you’re clever, eh? Think you’re smarter than me?”

“I didn’t–”

“Did I tell you to speak?”

Spittle flew from Radu’s lips, tangling in his moustache. Ripka clenched her jaw to keep from speaking. This was not a rational man she was dealing with. She couldn’t expect him to listen to what she had to say, and her attempts to persuade him seemed only to insult him – to make him angrier.

“I know your game,” he said, and she felt a tingle of fear in her heart. Did he truly? Would Kisser have turned their secrets over to him? She could think of nothing that woman would have to gain from such an act. She could also not imagine Radu sussing out any truths under the roof of the prison he’d been given to manage, let alone her secreted agenda.

“Sir,” Enard spoke in his smooth, placating voice. The picture of respect, the same tone she imagined he’d used with his Glasseater bosses. “I assure you that our intentions were for your benefit. To discover the smugglers to whom you set us to uncover, we–”

Radu’s expression changed in a flash. His lip curled into a canid snarl as he grabbed a trinket holding down a stack of papers and threw it at Enard. Ripka winced as the weighted brass struck him with a heavy thump. Enard took the blow as if it were little more than water rolling down his back. With her own collection of bruises and aches from their previous scuffles, she suspected she wouldn’t have been so stoic in the face of such an affront.

“Think you can talk your way out of this, do you?” Radu snapped.

“Warden,” Ripka spoke to distract the man from his new quarry, “if you would tell us what it is you think us guilty of, then perhaps we could come to an understanding.”

“An understanding? Are you so fool headed you think yourself in any position to negotiate?” He snort-laughed and slapped the bag of bark shavings, tumbling a few of the silvery curls to the top of his desk. “I know what this is, captain,” he laid all the sarcasm his drunken mind could muster onto the word. “And now I know the shape of the viper secreted in my nest.”

“You think me behind the new drug?” She cursed herself for not managing to keep the affront from her voice. Damn watcher pride.

“Think? Think? Do not pretend the matter is in question! My guards caught you with your arms full of the raw material. This, this sack of shit.” He growled and shoved the bag away from him, spilling a few more curls, as if the very sight and scent of the resinous wood disgusted him. “I don’t know what made you think you could get away with this. Greed, more than likely. But playing both sides? I will not be deceived!”

“Warden.” She struggled to keep her voice as calm as Enard’s had been, struggled to push aside her desire to roll her eyes at this overwrought man and his paranoia. “The drug was in circulation within your prison long before I arrived here. How could I possibly be the source?”

“Source? Pah, I don’t think so highly of you, girl. You are but a pawn. A poor one, at that. Who are you working for?” He grabbed the sack in one hand and shook it at her. “Where were you taking this, hmm? Who is your master?”

“I hadn’t yet discovered who the parcel was to be brought to when your guards–”

“Lies!” He threw the satchel at them and it slapped against Ripka’s chest. Plumes of silvery bark shavings arced into the air. She coughed as the bitter scent clouded around her, the slight musk of the bag clogging her breath. She swayed, already weak from the fight on the beach. Enard grabbed her arm to steady her.

“Sir?” Captain Lankal cracked the door, his brows raised in question. “Is everything all right?”

“These two serpents won’t talk.” Radu paced around his desk and kicked the fallen sack. “So we’ll have to see just how precious that information is to them, won’t we?”

“Sir?” Lankal asked, his expression drawn tight.

Ripka stared at the enraged warden, at his flush-red face and his clenched fists. His twisted shirt, and the crimson stains that had nothing at all to do with blood dotting his collar. How this man had lucked into his position here, minding the most valued prison in all of the Scorched, she could not say, but in that moment, watching the man’s veins bulge and his lips crack as he drew them into a sneer, she resolved to see him removed from his position.

One way or another, she would see Radu Baset fallen from his post. By the distaste in Captain Lankal’s eyes, she was certain the change would be a welcome one.

“You would be party to torture?” she asked Radu, her voice soft, made quiet by her attempt to sift the rage from her tone. He turned his wild gaze on her and hissed.

“Think you’re precious, don’t you, watch-captain?”

Lankal’s head jerked back.

“I’m not that,” she said. “Not anymore.”

“No…” He cocked his head to one side, thinking. “But that doesn’t much matter, does it?”

He grabbed the shoulder of her jumpsuit and stomped off, steering her back toward general population. Her heart hammered as he forced her along, the soft rustle of Enard’s chains as he followed only a small comfort. Her time in the watch had given her some training to resist pain, but she knew well enough that even the sternest of souls would eventually crack under a well-applied knife.

Echoes of Detan crying out in the night, his dreams beset by memories of the torture he’d suffered in the name of experimentation at the hands of the whitecoats, came back to her all in a rush. He’d told her one night, when they’d drunk a bottle dry and sat staring at the stars as the sky he’d set alight burned around them, that he’d told the whitecoats everything. Anything. That he’d begun making up ridiculous stories about where his ability had come from to make them stop. Anything to make them stop.

Fear prickled her skin as Radu shoved her along the narrow hallways, expecting a door to open to strange instruments at any moment. Radu was addled by drink and lack of activity. She could overtake him, subconsciously had already predicted where best to strike to deal him the most pain. His kidney if she could reach it, an elbow to his alcohol-sore throat if she couldn’t. The halls were narrow, and she was fleet of foot. If Enard could keep up, then… Then what?

Radu yanked a door open and fear overrode sense. She twisted away from his grip. Hands closed on her from behind and shoved, making her ankles tangle mid-twist. Staggering, she stumbled through the door, righted herself just before she would have fallen face-first onto hard stones.

Increased brightness stung her eyes and she closed off her stance. A cool breeze ruffled her hair, chilled the sweat at the nape of her neck.

A breeze. She forced herself to open her eyes fully. He’d thrown her through a side door into the rec yard. A dozen or so prisoners nearby watched her, all conversation cut short at the sign of this new entertainment. Radu smirked, propping his fists on his hips in an attempt to cut a commanding figure. He swayed slightly.

Captain Lankal herded Enard out after her and, his face a tightly reined mask, removed both of their shackles. Ripka rubbed her wrists, eyeing Radu warily.

“Lankal, see that these two are fed. I wouldn’t want the watch-captain to miss her dinner due to our little chat.” He waved at her. “Come and see me again when you have more to say.”

He turned, and slammed the door shut behind him. It echoed in the growing silence.

Watch-captain. Little chat. Her stomach turned to ice as realization set in. Once the rumor spread… She was a dead woman.

“Captain Lankal?” He put a hand on her back and steered her toward the food line. He shook his head, lips pressed tight.

“Unless you’re ready to give up your sources, there’s nothing I can do.”

“But I don’t…” She clenched her jaw. She did, of course. She could give up Nouli and Kisser and… then what? Radu would find a way to kill her regardless, she was sure of that much.

“I know,” Lankal said, placing her at the end of the food line. “I’m sorry.”

He left them there, waiting for their meals. Unnatural silence spread out around her as if she were a stone dropped in calm water.

“Enard…” she whispered.

“I know,” he said, and squeezed her shoulder. “I know.”

The first rock thrown missed her. The second did not.