Who is Magpie?

“Why did you do it?” Jessamine begged, the two strung up side by side and beaten black and blue and red. “You had no chance alone, and with all the plants… you’re lucky you didn’t go into respiratory arrest and them just leave you outside to die.”

“I didn’t want you to be alone Luna,” he rasped, looking at her through his one good eye and brushing the tip of his smallest finger against hers. “Even with all of your happiness in our pack you, were willing to kill yourself before coming back here. You ask so much less of us than you would ask of yourself for others… You will make it through this, no matter what, because you are strong, but you didn’t need to do it alone.”

She was openly weeping, something she never thought she would let Kai see, but she didn’t have the hands to wipe it away. “They will use hurting you to get to me,” she whispered.

“I have pledge my life to you, even if I can only take a little of your pain, I would do it again,” Kai assured. “Seeing you in that body bag is an experience I never want again.”

“You both are clearly adorable,” Kay muttered, chained to the opposite wall with no greater damage than what occurred when they were caught, “but Jessamine, you know this is a death sentence. They will keep him long enough to encourage your compliance, and keep you long enough to find their ‘cure’ for wolven.”

“And what about you?” Kai smirked, though his lips were swollen and there was blood in his teeth.

She shrugged. “You can be a piss poor Fae and still not be as bad as a wolven. We don’t keep prisoners, but there are some distant settlements where the worst of the Fae are sent to be slavers.”

“No prisoners, but you have slaves?” Kai gawked, and both girls shrugged.

“Would you expect something more from people who want to eradicate an entire type of people?” Jessamine muttered. “If they took over, the human’s may not be, strictly speaking, slaves, but they would be heavily controlled through substance and experience addictions.”

The door opened and Bluejay walked in. He regarded them both on the wall, looking over their injuries, and then shook his head in disappointment at Kookaburra on the floor. He held a growler and when he popped the top Jessamine could smell the tea from across the room.

She stiffened against the wall, throat already clenching inside her as her stomach turned. Kai who had never smelt the tea looked curiously at it until glancing at Jessamine and seeing her reaction.

“What is that?” He demanded, trying to draw the other man’s attention to him.

Bluejay chuckled. “She knows what it is, why don’t you tell him.”

Jessamine swallowed hard. “It’s a tea. A tea they used to make me heal slower, not feel pain, suppress my wolf, and make me compliant. It won’t work now, I have my wolf, and I am stronger than before.”

“Then why do you look so nervous?” Bluejay approached her. “You don’t have to drink it right now, but it will only cool while we beat him until you do. I bet if I offered it to him he would drink it in a heartbeat to keep you from pain…”

A growl sounded from Kai. He knew it was true, but he also knew that Jessamine would rather take it then let either happen to him. She jut her chin out. They had beat them both for half an hour when they arrived without saying anything, not even giving an ultimatum or offering a deal to make it stop.

Knowing what she would do, he approached her and pressed the spout to her lips.

“Jessamine don’t. Let me take it!” Kai demanded.

However the rim was still pressed to her lips, and an amber liquid fell from it faster than she could swallow. It ran down over her chin and neck, soaking into the same shirt she had worn the night before. Bluejay chuckled in watching how fast her throat constricted around each swallow and every time she started to choke because he poured it up her face over her nose.

“It’s enough Bluejay!” Kay yelled, heart clenching as he looked crudely at her after pouring the warm tea into her eyes. “I used to think you cared. You were the one who led me on to everything that was happening to her.”

“It was a test. Your grandfather wanted me to start telling you things to see how you would react, if you would trust his reasoning and decisions. Couldn’t have disappointed him more to learn you were sympathetic even after learning she was a wolf.” Bluejay scoffed, “she was always a tool. I cared for her no more than any gun that requires upkeep and maintenance.”

Kai’s face crooked up. “You are disgusting, she is still a person…

“She’s a wolven.” Bluejay interrupted. “You people are no more than pets that didn’t learn their place. We let you get to much power in these parts, and now we will return this territory to the Fae.” He turned and punched Kai in the stomach. “Maybe if you’re a good boy I’ll keep you as my own pet when we take care of the rest.”

Bluejay took Kai’s chin in his hand, checking him out like he was a horse at the auction. Jessamine spat on the floor and glare at him as he turned toward her. He took the few steps to stand in front of her again and looked her up and down, this time blatantly in front of her eyes.

She cackled slightly, looking down at his crotch. “Hard for me Bluejay? Sounds like beastiality to me.”

He stormed out of the room and only then did Jessamine start coughing. She tried to move the wet hair off her face but it was near impossible with how she was tied up. After huffing for a minute she sighed and moved to stand straighter and take weight off her wrists, Kai’s finger again brushing her as the only comfort he could give.

“Don’t worry, I won’t tell them about that as long as you don’t tell them about what happens here.” Jessamine said calmly, looking over to his face through eyes red and irritated from the tea. “I can’t see you, so you’ll have to tell me if you’re agreeing.”

“Yes Jessamine, I agree,” he said sadly, “I won’t tell them under anything less than a command.”

Kay bit the inside of her cheek as hard as she could. She needed to hold back the laugh that pushed against her lips and counted the seconds for Kai to speak again.

“Wait if you can’t see, how did you know?” Kai still looked at her, seeing her eyes struggle to focus and the lids twitch with irritation.

An exhausted, mischievous laugh tumbled from Jessamine and she smirked, “I know what I must look like right now, and I know what Bluejay was trying to do to you. I was bluffing.” She chuckled again and the second time it sounded even more tired.

Kai was glad she was laughing, but worry still hung over him. “Next time Jessamine, let me take it. I’m offering, no I’m begging. Luna, let me take it.”

“They won’t spare her,” Kay interrupted, “and the more she gets the less she’ll resist. Right now the silver cuffs and chains prevent you from shifting, along with the room size, but a few more of those and she couldn’t if she tried.”

“There never used to be so much,” Jessamine whispered, teeth starting to chatter in the wet clothes.

Kay nodded. “They must be trying to speed up results, which means they’re on a time crunch.. Jessamine you’ll likely never leave this room.”

“I know,” she tried to keep herself from crying, exhaustion building and Leti trying to fight passed the wolvesbane to stay with her. “I figured as much when they brought me to my old room.”

Kay went almost white, being told and let on to a lot of new things after she left did not include her being in the kennels. Jessamine gestured with her nose toward the corner behind Kay, and Kai strained his one good eye to see it. Written in old faded blood was ‘Magpie is here’. Near that were tiny lines carved into the wall with a rock or piece of the chain.

“Is this how many days you were in here!?” Kay demanded.

Jessamine looked away from her. “No.”

The door opened again and Gull walked in with a boy named Finch. They startled at the sight of her, looking and focusing far too long on her chest, before the door closed behind them. Jessamine’s eyes drifted closed, her inability to see clearly giving her a headache to match the pain everywhere else.

“We’ve been instructed to clean you up for dinner,” Gull replied, opening the door again to grab the dealing end of a hose.

Finch, a boy who closer resembled a weasel than his namesake, had wandered closer to Jessamine and started to touch her chest and hips.

“Back off her!” Kai burst out, inviting Gull to turn the hose on him first.

He could do nothing but bask in the cold sting of the water while Finch did as he wanted.

“First time feeling breasts huh?” Jessamine asked, his touch revolting her, as he started to knead those cells of fat tissue, then one of his hands pressed up over her throat and she rasped, “that’s not safe foreplay,” with a hard line to her brows.

He stared at her red eyes as his other hand returned to what he was doing before wandering toward her belly. She memorize every gaunt to his face, shuffling him up in her list of people the world would be better without.

“Enough Finch, we’re not here to satisfy your deprived appetite. Move aside or I’ll hose you down to,” Gull barked.

Finch backed up, and the harsh sting of the water was just what Jessamine needed to burn away the feeling of his hands on her. Her teeth chattered worse then before but she no longer smelt like the tea that had soaked into her clothes and hair.

When Gull was through the hose left the room and a pile of battered towels with two plates of food were brought in. Both things were set in front of Kookaburra and a lock that had been put through the beginning and end of her chain to make it shorter was removed.

“Since you care so much for the wolven, you can be their caretaker while they’re here. We only planned on having one here so they will have to share each meal,” Gull spat on the floor, probably thinking about how he could eat three plates to himself. “Maybe if you all behave I’ll bring the key for your short chains so you can sleep on the floor.”

Kai looked over his and Jessamine’s bonds, not realizing before that they both had one ankle shackle with slightly more chain then the rest. It wouldn’t give enough room to hurt someone, or get anywhere near the door, but if the other bonds were undone he could check Jessamine’s injuries; do more than touch her pinky like pathetic promise. .

Their jailers left and Kookaburra stood up with the towels and a plate of food. She draped a towel over Kai short hair and over his shoulders before moving back to Jessamine and stuffing a big bite of bland chicken into her mouth.

“I’ll help you in a minute…..” she began but Kai interrupted.

“No it’s how it should be. Make sure she is dry and eats first, the Luna needs to be cared for.” He smiled, ever so slightly, and relaxed a little to see her eating.

“Enough out of you,” Jessamine mumbled around food. “If you don’t keep up your strength you won’t survive the next beating, and Chey will kill you.”

He thought sadly of her, alone at home, when Delano returned with the news of what he’d done. But he’d do it again. Ezekiel and Bronx were among his best friends growing up and Jessamine had already been through a lot. To be able to do something, anything, for them by being here was all he hoped for.

“Enough Mag.. Jessamine. Eat.” Kookaburra encouraged, trying to wring her clothes out as much as possible so she could warm her up. “The tea must be soaking in if you’re this cold.” She reached over and touched Kai’s skin for comparison. “Yeah, way too cold.”

“I want to throw up,” Jessamine whined. “My head feels like a drum line.”

“Bluejay is a prick. Doing what they’ve done to you at all is terrible but that must have been at least 4 litres.” Kay muttered, sliding the towel under her shirt and wrapping it around her middle to create a barrier between her and the thin wet shirt and conceal her chest. “Jeans are so stupid, I can’t get any of the water out.”

“Yea but it hurts less,” she whispered before Kay stuck a bland vegetable in her mouth.

“Shush you, just eat.” Kay was tussling her hair now, and the light rubbing with fingers and towel felt like a massage over her head that felt like it was swelling. “Ok, now you.”

“I’m fine,” Kai muttered.

“He’s probably warm enough but he needs to eat,” Jessamine said over his protests and Kay stuffed a piece of chicken in his mouth.

“She’s right,” Kay told him as she added a vegetable to the bite. “Take the food while it’s given. You don’t know how long you’ll be here.”