Thus came two days of solitude. Two days of sleeping hunched with my back against the wall, or alternatively on my side, only to wake up in the morning and find my ribs bruised, my hip aching.
Maybe if I hadn't deliberately fanned the flames of his anger in our last conversation then Ezra would have appealed on my behalf. I was owed food twice a day, but no comforts, not even a bed, let alone a blanket.
In my pessimism-addled brain, I worried over the neglectful treatment, aware they could only treat me so immorally - illegally, even - in good conscience if they saw no future in which I walked free and spread word of their misdeeds to litigation-happy lawyers and lawmakers. Even if I could, part of me believed the Guild and the Supers therein were above the law. Who would really challenge the most physically powerful - and dangerous - organization in the country over one girl's mistreatment?
That benefited no one.
On the third day, my jailers seemed to understand how very serious I was about not cooperating, and a pair of Supers moved me to a more long term holding cell. To my mixed disappointment and relief, Tempest was not among them. Flicker, however, was, ensuring I stood no chance of escape, and the other was the perpetually covered man, Fate, who showed little skin even by Super standards. He never glanced my way, as though I was that far beneath him that it pained him to do so. He merely shut me in my new prison under Flicker's watchful eye and then they were gone. Vanished.
In what I presumed to be the morning of each successive day, someone stopped by to inquire as to how unhelpful I was feeling, and every time they asked I showed them exactly how antagonistic I could be. So, imagine my shock when, on my ninth day of captivity, I finally put my weight into forcing the door open and the door swung wide without resistance. In fact, I fell flat on my back with a great, pained, "oomph," from the force of my own unchecked strength.
In retrospect, I ought to have tried the knob normally before resorting to brute force, not that I ever thought I stood a remote chance of breaking the door down.
Warily, I poked my head into the corridor, refusing to believe they'd go through all this effort to keep me around, and yet leave the door unlocked, the corridor largely unguarded. I, admittedly, was not much of a threat, but the lack of security felt like a personal affront. It didn't make much sense, until further examination of the latch revealed a broken lever within the locking mechanism, rusted entirely into obsolescence.
Genuinely, I couldn't remember having a greater stroke of luck in my life, and the sudden change in my fortune proved suspicious enough that I paused, debating whether this was a trap of some kind. "Convenience" was not a concept I was familiar with. Good things didn't happen to me for no reason, and I didn't see why that would change now.
But I couldn't let my apprehension lead to inaction. Not when Atticus needed me.
At the sound of voices coming from one end of the long hallway, I took towards the other end at a atrophied sprint, rounding a corner and then down a set of stairs, where my path diverged into three. The presence of downward leading stairs told me I was heading in the right direction. I hadn't connected the dots at first. Only many full days and nights of near isolation, only my own wandering thoughts as company allowed me to realize the obvious: What could possibly be below the lowest floors of the Guildhall? Made of mostly Thaumaturge-proof stone, an underground prison I'd only ever heard of, designed especially to hold my kind. Atticus had to be down there with me somewhere. I needed only to find him without getting caught.
At the sight of a male guard patrolling one of my potential routes, I hurtled down one of the remaining paths at random. Windowless doors with strange sliding handles flew past on both sides at evenly spaced intervals. I would have liked to stop and peer into each of those rooms in turn, were it not for the voices following after me, unhurried, but undeniably there.
YOU ARE READING
Super•Villainous
Fantasy"I've been looking for you." There was an unexpected rasp to his voice, a hint of desperation. He stretched out one hand, as if to brush it across my cheek, or perhaps wrap it around my throat. Oddly enough, I didn't know which option frightened me...
