“Not much,” I said, holding up my unbandaged arm. “Why? Do you care?”
“Not really,” he said with a little shrug. “I need you to come with me, back to headquarters.”
“We’re in the middle of this right now,” Zollers said, pointing to my still-bloody right arm. “Can it wait just a few minutes?”
“Hardly.” He nodded at Eve, who looked at me in her usual inscrutable solemnity and walked behind the bed I was sitting on. I turned to track her, but Mormont spoke and drew my attention back to him. “Ariadne wants you at HQ.”
I exchanged a look with Zollers, whose eyes held something I couldn’t understand. “Fine,” I said, and stood up, letting my feet fall the half foot to the floor from the bed. “But I—” I stopped as I felt hands behind mine, and felt something hard and metal close onto my wrist, like when Clary had clamped his hands down on them. The pain seared on my open cuts and I swore. “What the f—”
“Handcuffs,” Mormont said with a smile. “They’re something new, designed to hold even a top-of-the-scale meta like you.”
“Is this really necessary?” Zollers asked with a tired look, as though he already knew the answer.
“Yeah, it’s necessary,” Mormont said, and his hand went into his pocket. “You know what this is?” His hand came out with something small between his thumb and forefinger, something small enough I couldn’t really see it from a few feet away.
“Yeah,” I said snottily, “it’s your d—” A hard blow to the back of the head dropped me to the ground as Eve drove an elbow into me that caused a flash in front of my eyes.
“I shouldn’t be surprised you’d go to the lowest common denominator when it comes to defiant answers,” Mormont said as I stared at his shoe, my cheek on the floor, blood in my mouth. I felt Eve’s hands seize me around my sleeve as she dragged me back to my feet.
“Manners,” Eve said in that stiff German accent of hers. I restrained myself from spitting blood in her face in response, instead let it drip, felt it go down my chin.
“This is ridiculous,” Zollers said, anger rising. “I’ll be reporting your conduct – both of you – to the Director.”
“He won’t do anything,” Mormont said, and his hand came up again. “As I was saying – this is a listening device. Found it in Ariadne’s office. Small scale, short range, so whoever was listening to it was right here on campus.”
“Congratulations,” Zollers said dryly. “There are hundreds of people on campus. Why are you harassing this one?”
“Very simple, Doc,” Mormont said with a smirk. “Because when I searched her room a few minutes ago – and yes, she was the first person I suspected, but for other reasons – what do you think I found?” The smirk grew wider but Zollers failed to react. “If you guessed the matching set for listening into this, you’d be right. Just turned it on—” he pulled a little black box from his suit’s other pocket, something that looked a little bigger than an MP3 player, complete with a headset – “and suddenly I hear the world’s worst case of screeching feedback.” He held them both up in front of him, the microphone and the bug. “Still want to defend her?”
“Absolutely,” Zollers said, clenching his teeth. “You’ve got not one speck of evidence that these belong to her.”
Mormont shrugged. “I found ‘em in her room, Doc.”
“I really oughta start locking my door,” I said through a rapidly swelling lip.
“I wouldn’t worry about that,” Mormont said, grinning at me. “You’re coming back to headquarters to answer some questions. And regardless of how that goes, Ariadne has declared you a person of suspicion.” He took a breath through his nose as though he were savoring the moment. “Couldn’t have said it better myself, because I’ve got some suspicions about you.” His smile broadened. “So you don’t have to worry about locking your door for a while, because where you’re going, it’ll be locked…pretty much all the time.”
Chapter 15
One Year Earlier
The air was thick in the box. The cool damp of the basement faded as the air had become warm and stuffy inside. I could see the light coming in from the seam around the door of the box, streaming in from outside the basement’s painted windows. Of course, I couldn’t see them, but since Mom had turned off the basement light, I knew it was daytime now. I had been in the box for over eighteen hours by my reckoning.
My back and legs were stiff. I was sitting, my knees bent in front of me, crammed sideways into the box and taking up every inch of space. The pressure of the metal against my back and my legs was tight because of how little room I had. I felt numb. I was sitting in my own filth and had been since yesterday. The smell would have been unbearable but I had been exposed to it for so long that now it was just another constant, like the tapping of the pipes overhead in the basement as water ran through them, or the thrumming of the air conditioner unit outside as it started to run every hour or so.
I leaned my head against the metal side, and smacked my lips together. I hadn’t had a drink of water since I was locked in, which meant I was due to get out soon, I hoped. Mom never left me without water for more than a day. I felt weak and my stomach roared with desire for food. I didn’t even care if I showered, I was so hungry and thirsty. I had sobbed myself to sleep in the darkness and I woke up frequently throughout the night, the discomfort to my neck and back causing me to awaken at unusual times. Once, I had a fit, the claustrophobia pressing in on me when it was totally dark, and I slammed my hand against the metal until it bled, but afterward I had broken down and started crying, and fell back asleep for a little while. When I woke up, I was calm again.
I heard something outside, faint tapping. I listened and realized it was footsteps on the stairs. I heard them leave the wood steps and pad onto the foam mats that covered the basement floor where we practiced martial arts. They halted outside the box and I held my breath, daring to hope it was over. I heard a screech of metal as the little slot above me opened, and I struggled to my feet, willing my legs to work after being crammed in a desperately uncomfortable position overnight.
The light streamed in from the aperture. I looked out and squinted my eyes shut. The light was so bright, it hurt my eyes like someone was sticking their fingers into them. I opened them slowly, little by little, over ten seconds and looked out. A shadowed face stood a few feet away, and I could see the disappointment even through my squint. I smacked my dry lips together, hoping for some moisture. “Hi, Mom,” I said.
She didn’t answer me at first, and I saw her hand reach toward me, the light catching something she was holding, glinting and shining through it. She brought it up to the window – a water bottle, filled. I reached up, desperate, banged my elbow on the side of the box, sending a shock of pain to my fingers, but I didn’t care. I grasped at it, pulled it from her and heard the satisfying crack as I broke the seal and twisted, my hands shaking as I did so. I brought it up to my lips and felt the cool water pour over them, cracked, and felt it caress my tongue, coating my mouth. It reminded me of a plant we’d had in the kitchen years ago, in a red clay pot – the dirt had dried out after a few days and when I poured water into it after remembering that I had to water it, it stayed on top of the dry soil for a few minutes before soaking in. My mouth felt that way, like the water was sitting in it, waiting to absorb through the tissue and re-hydrate everything, like that dry soil.
I swallowed and felt the cool water running down my throat, and chugged it, drinking hungrily. My stomach roared as the liquid fell into it, a pitiful sacrifice and not at all what the rulers of my belly wanted, but it would have to do for now. My skin was sticky everywhere, and my clothes clung to me. As the water cleansed that awful taste of bitterness off my tongue, it was replaced by the seeping smell of the box, of me.