The City on the Edge

I have to get out of here. We have to get out of here.

Ronnie rubbed her wrists together, clinking the metal noisily, though Sloan paid her no mind. She bit her lip and pulled at the shackles, twisting her hands from side to side, trying to wiggle them through the binding metal. It scraped painfully against her skin and she resigned herself to the fact that she was going to lose some skin before she freed herself.

“I am curious as to what will happen when I place you in the vat.” Sloan said. If he knew that she was trying to get out of the cuffs, he remained unbothered by it. “I’ve never had someone like you in my hands before. Not like this, at least.”

“You said that stuff doesn’t work on shifters.”

Sloan raised a brow at her before a sly smile split his lips apart. “You think you’re just a shifter?”

He called the ghouls over and observed them as they removed Anya from the chains, her limbs limp while her head lolled around on her shoulders, weak and useless.

Ronnie tugged furiously at the shackles, feeling one of her hands finally start to give. The hard metal edge opened the old cuts and it stung like salt in an open wound every time the metal passed over them. Moving her hand back and forth, Ronnie used her blood like a lubricant, easing the way for her to pull her hand free. She tucked her thumb into her palm and closed her fingers, giving a last, strong tug. The cuff caught a fold of skin and peeled it back the rind of a fruit. Ronnie gasped and clenched her jaw, gritting her teeth together. With a final jerk that brought tears to eyes, her hand came free with a slick pop.

She lifted it to her mouth and clamped her teeth around the flap of skin that had been scraped up back. She bit into it and finished peeling it off her hand. Her hand throbbed as she spat the bloody skin to the floor. It hurt, but it didn’t matter. One hand was free and that was all she needed. The one shackle still hanging from her other wrist was enough to keep her strength pushed down, the engraved spell glittering on the gold, but she still had her fists and they would have to be enough.

Ronnie stood slowly, but Sloan didn’t notice, too focused on arranging Anya on one of the metal beds. Ronnie reached back and picked up the chair she’d been sitting in. Thankfully, it wasn’t heavy. The ancient thing had seen better days and she prepared to give it a final hurrah as she crept up behind Sloan, raising the chair up in the air.

The ghouls shifted in place and Ronnie froze in place when they looked up at her. She held her breath and waited, expecting them to charge at her, to protect their master, but they didn’t move. They didn’t even speak. They simply watched her with their permanent wide eyed stare. Ronnie didn’t waste any time waiting to see if they would act.

With a furious yell, she brought the chair down over Sloan’s back, catching him in the back of the head as the chair shattered, flecking him with little brown splinters. He grunted from the force and fell forward, landing on Anya and sliding to the floor. Ronnie gave him a swift kick in the side for good measure before she grabbed one of Anya’s arms, blanching at the slimy coolness of her skin.

What had Sloan done to her?

Ronnie wrapped Anya’s arm around her shoulders and hauled her up off the bed. She kept her other hand tight against Anya’s waist, supporting her dead weight as best she could. Ronnie’s already weak body protested the added baggage, but she gritted her teeth and forced her muscles to move. Dwarven shackles be damned- she was getting Anya out of here.

Ronnie dragged Anya across the room to the opening of the narrow tunnel they’d come through. She already anticipated the difficulty of navigating in the dark, remembering the loose stones and sharp bones that littered the floor. She dropped her eyes to Anya’s bare feet. This was going to hurt her, no question. There was no way she’d be able to avoid the dangerous debris.

Mumbling an apology in Anya’s ear, Ronnie pushed through the darkness with haste. They couldn’t linger for long. Her muscles strained but she managed to keep a diligent pace through the tunnel.

Smack!

Ronnie hit a dark wall, banging her forehead against the rough stone. Anya whimpered as Ronnie jostled her around, apologizing for the treatment. Thanks to shackles, Ronnie’s sharp eyes, that would normally penetrate through the darkness, simply couldn’t distinguish between the shadows and the walls. Anya moaned helplessly when Ronnie backed up and ran into another wall.

“Sorry,” Ronnie apologized hurriedly. “I’m moving as fast as I-” she hissed suddenly as something cut against her ankle.

Ronnie looked down at the dark floor, expecting the broken bones she’d seen before. Instead, she saw only a swirling blackness, save for what looked like a pair of eyes looking up at her. The glowing orbs blinked and Ronnie gasped. She clutched Anya tight and took off down the hall as quickly as she could manage. The shadows that had crept along the walls beside Sloan as he took her back to his laboratory, they weren’t shadows at all, she realized. They were reapers.

After turning another hidden corner, Ronnie nearly sobbed in relief when she saw the end of the tunnel looming ahead like a beacon of light. Just beyond it, she could make out the barred cells and the twisting vines of the vita flower hanging from the ceiling. A rough stone scraped Ronnie’s bare arm as she hit another wall, Anya’s weight making it nearly impossible for her to balance on her weak legs.

“Hurry,” a voice yelled from the dungeon. Cecily. Ronnie could barely make out her dirt-smeared face pressed against the bars of her cell.

A low moan rumbled down the hall behind them, echoing like thunder in the small space. Ronnie didn’t need to look over her shoulder to picture Sloan’s ghouls lumbering after her and Anya. There was no doubt in her mind that Sloan would kill her now without hesitation, or subject her to a different horror all together if he managed to capture her. He wasn’t going to let her attack on him go without some sort of consequence.

Light spilled into the hall, made brighter by the yellow pollen that polluted it. A sigh of relief slipped through Ronnie’s lips. They were going to make it.

Just as she crossed into the dungeon, her boot caught the lip of threshold and it sent her sprawling to the floor. With Anya at her side she couldn’t brace herself and she hit the stone face first. Pain bloomed behind her eyes and her bottom lip stung as it burst open, cut by a fang and covering her tongue and teeth in a fine red film of copper blood.

Beside her, Anya hissed and rolled weakly onto her back. Ronnie reached out to grab her, to make sure she wasn’t injured, when she suddenly slid out view, pulled back toward the tunnel.

“Grab her!” Cecily screamed from her cell.

Ronnie floundered, scrambling madly to her knees and grabbing Anya under her arms before she disappeared back into the dark tunnel behind them. Low sounds poured from Anya’s throat and for a terrifying second, Ronnie feared the Reapers were tearing into her until she recognized that Anya was trying to scream. Furious red grey orbs, nearly hidden in the darkness blinked at Ronnie as she braced both feet on the opening and heaved.

“Don’t let them take her!” Cecily was banging on the bars.

Ronnie growled. Over her dead body they were taking Anya again.

A loyalty to her pack that even the cuffs couldn’t diminish flared to life deep in Ronnie’s core. A voice in her head chanted, demanding she be strong. Protect her family. Protect her bond sister. Protect her life.

Ronnie’s shoulders ached and with each pull, her spine cracked against the unforgiving stone floor until, finally, something began to give. She slowly pulled Anya back into the dungeon, inch by inch, and into the safety of the dim light that it offered. Small cuts ripped through her clothes and dug in her exposed skin. Black talons had dug into Anya’s soft flesh in an effort to hold on, but thankfully, Reapers were only as strong as their witch masters and it seemed that the ghouls were lacking in that quality. Terrifying as they were, they weren’t without fault. They weren’t witches anymore.

As each long talon entered the light, it smoked and hissed like a vampire under the sun. The reapers released Anya and Ronnie fell back against the floor, pulling Anya with her. She laid there for a moment, panting and exhausted. There was no time to rest but her body didn’t want to move.

“Get up! They’re coming!” Cecily shouted at her. “Hurry! Move!”

Ronnie pushed Anya off and climbed unsteadily to her feet, bracing a hand against the wall. Knowing she would regret it, she chanced a glance down the hall. The glowing eyes were retreating down the passage, returning to their masters who ambled like giants toward the dungeon. Their bright green eyes, too bright and too toxic, were unwavering as they stared at Ronnie.

“We need to go,” she said to Anya. She dipped down and scooped Anya up, wrapping an arm around her shoulders and pulling her to her feet. The two of them shuffled to the dungeon door at a pace far too slow for Ronnie. The fall to the floor and the attack from the reapers had taken its toll on Anya.

“Wait,” Cecily reached through the bars, catching the hem of Ronnie’s shirt in her slim fingers. “Take this. Please.”

Ronnie looked down at her hand. She held a filthy red ribbon, braided with white beads set into the intricate weave.

“Please,” Cecily thrust her hand toward Ronnie. “I know I’m not leaving this dungeon. Please find my mother and give this back to her. Cora. She’s has a shop in the market, across from the butcher shop. She needs to know what happened to me, that I died here.” Desperation marred her face, but Ronnie also recognized the resignation that came with the realization that death was imminent. Cecily didn’t deserve this fate, but they both knew Ronnie couldn’t save her too.

“She’s been looking for you,” Ronnie told her softly. “I saw your face on a poster. She has them up everywhere.”

Cecily sniffed and wiped at her eyes. “You’ll know her when you see her. She has a scar over her left eye, all the way down to her chin.”

A loud moan left the tunnel like a howling wind. Ronnie took the ribbon from Cecily and stuffed it into her pocket.

“I’ll give it to her.” Ronnie pulled Anya close and hurried to the dungeon door. She maneuvered it open with a deft hand and a hard kick.

“Tell her I love her,” Cecily called after her as she trudged up the stairs.

I will. I promise.