Page 66 of Thrall
“Well, sorry! I’m clearly not familiar with handcuff etiquette!” Mila looked as if she wanted to melt into the bathroom tile. “And if you’re going to beat the sunset, you’re going to need to hurry.”
Lucy groaned. “Okay, yes,” she said. “Give them to me.”
Mila hesitated in the midst of passing them to her. “Do you want help putting them on? You’ll probably have to get undressed first, though.”
Lucy wasn’t usually one to kick someone when they were down. But in this scenario, she didn’t think a light prod would go amiss. “I’ve just told you that I think you’re beautiful,” she said, “and now you’d like me to strip naked so you can handcuff me?”
The handcuffs were deposited in Lucy’s hands faster than she could blink. “I’ll leave so you can put them on.”
“That’s probably wise,” Lucy said, not unkindly. “We’ll figure out the most dignified way for you to let me out once I’m done. Now—if you wouldn’t mind leaving, that would be great.”
“Right. Yes. I’m gone.” Mila made for the door like the hounds of hell were after her.
Though, halfway out the door, she paused.
“You—don’t have to worry about looking good, by the way,” she said stiffly. “You always look good.”
And then she shut the door behind her, long before Lucy could decide how to react.
“Well,” Lucy said, to no one at all. Maybe an argument with Mila wasn’t so clarifying after all. She’d already guessed that Mila had never dated anyone besides Jon, but she had no idea the situation was this dire. Her poor head had progressed from full to bursting. As much as she wanted to analyze Mila’s parting words within an inch of their life, it was, unfortunately, the least urgent thing she needed to think through.
She turned on the shower—the pipes in Quincey always took their sweet time to warm up—and allowed herself a minute to splash some water on her face. A brief glimpse in the mirror showed absolutely nothing that “looked good.”
She straightened. Before she found a place to cuff herself, she should probably close the blinds. Didn’t need anyone asking about that.
She looked up, her hand already halfway to the window. And through the glass, she met a pair of eyes, half hidden by a dark hood.
Lucy may have been exhausted, but days of hypervigilance had quickened her reflexes. She seized the cuffs from the bathroom counter and locked one around her wrist, then turned sharply to find someplace to anchor them. The shower rod was too high, the towel rack was too fragile. But the radiator was sturdy, and the right height. She clicked the other cuff into place around one of its accordion-shaped pipes, and when she tugged, it held.
“Are youhandcuffingyourself?” said the voice at the window.
Lucy froze, her heart hammering. It was not a voice that could have belonged to Vanya. It was crisp, judgmental—and entirely familiar.
Slowly, she looked up. And this time, she got a good look at the face on the other side of the glass, nearly concealed by the raincoat draped over her head.
“Please don’t scream for your bodyguard, either.” Whitney’s voice sounded strained. And Lucy could guess why. The light of the sunset was barely low enough to skim the trees. “I’m here to talk.”
Lucy faltered. Yelling for Mila would have been the smart thing to do. But like Athena with Dr. Horne, Lucy recognized an opportunity to gather information when she saw it. She reached over to the shower and gave the dial another nudge, turning up the water pressure. Hopefully it would be enough to drown their voices out.
“Okay,” she said. “But the handcuffs stay on. I don’t want your sire commanding me outside. Unless whatever’s left of Sadie Grainger is taking point on that these days?”
Whitney’s eyes had a yellow sheen to them, like a nocturnal animal. Lucy supposed that was what she was now. “It wasn’t my idea to attack your friend.”
“I didn’t think it was,” Lucy said. Whatever else was true, none of this was Whitney’s fault. “But I assume that’s not what you’re here to talk about. How are you here, anyway? It’s not dark yet.”
“Oh, I’ve noticed,” Whitney bit out. “You can’t imagine how much it hurts just to be standing here. It feels like the worst flu of my life. But the only time he’s not watching is when he’s sleeping.”
Completely unwillingly, Lucy wavered. This was not the time for softness. But there was a desperation in Whitney’s eyes that stuck in her heart.
The night of Natalie’s party, Whitney had told her not to get lost in the dark. She hadn’t exactly been a pleasant person when she was alive. She was rude. Judgmental. Possibly a little classist. Even still, she cared whether or not Lucy made it home safe.
Maybe Athena was right. Maybe it changed a person irrevocably when every living thing around them became their natural prey. Maybe all Whitney could see, looking through this window, was something to eat or not eat. Maybe the Whitney Fielding who had been her roommate no longer existed.
All those things could easily be true.But please, Lucy thought.Just this once, let Athena be wrong.
“Whitney,” Lucy said. “You could run right now, if you wanted. He’s probably still sleeping, right?”
“I’d never get off the mountain before he found me,” Whitney said. “He told me that if I brought him that radio girl, we could go wherever I wanted. He said he’d fly me to the Sorbonne, or the Bodleian. But all we do all day is sit in those tunnels and eat rats. He says we eat together or not at all, but I know he’s feeding when we’re not there. And the worst part is, he lied to me. He never expected that I’d be able to bring him that girl. He only wanted me to scare her. He’s not even allowed to kill her until she graduates.”
