Page 102 of The Initial Insult

Hugh is not here.

And I am not safe.

Chapter 11

Tress

“Hey,” I say when Felicity opens her eyes.

I’m glad she came around. Not because I was worried that I hit her too hard, or that there was more blood than I expected; I’ve seen plenty of blood in my life and know that head wounds always look worse than they actually are. The McCaffrey Ranch gives us any cows that die unexpectedly, with the caveat that they come to Amontillado Animal Attractions as they left there—in one piece. I’ve been cutting up dead cows with chain saws since I was thirteen, so, no, blood doesn’t bother me one bit. Especially not Felicity Turnado’s. But I’m glad to see her come around, anyway. I’m glad she’s conscious because I need her talking.

She shifts in her chains, her wrists already chafed as she comes to her feet, dazed and a little woozy. A ribbon of blood winds around her neck from where I hit her with the brick, bright red against the gray pallor of her skin. Felicity does not look good, even for a girl with a concussion who is chained to a wall.

“Tress?” she asks, but that note of trust is gone. Now she’s scared. As she should be.

Felicity rattles her chains again. Her first instinct is to tug at them, but I anchored the manacles into the stone foundation of the Allan house. She’s not getting out of those unless I let her out.

“What the fuck?” Fear turns into anger quickly, her eyes bright under her jester’s cap, which was knocked sideways when I wrestled her body into the badly lit corner. There’s a naked light bulb above me now. While she was out I ran a wire along the beams up the stairs, connecting to Ribbit’s electrical contribution to the party. A little illumination for our long night.

I haven’t answered her yet, and Felicity moves to the next logical emotion—panic. I planned on this, turning the volume up on the music in the kitchen before I followed Felicity down the stairs. She’ll scream herself hoarse long before the party winds down.

She yells for Hugh first, which I expected. Then Brynn and Gretchen and David. At least two of them are actively vomiting on themselves, and Felicity knows that. This is true panic; complete loss of logical function. She pulls on her chains, gouging her own wrists in the process, small drops of blood splattering onto the floor at her feet. She’s kicking, too, lunging at me as she screams. One of her jester slippers flies off and hits a ceiling beam, fluttering back down, light and useless as the bell chimes.

It takes a few minutes for her to burn down, but when she does Felicity Turnado is a goddamn mess. Tears have streaked her makeup and she’s worked herself into a sweat, her flimsy costume sticking to her skin and showing every goose bump that ripples to the surface once she’s done throwing her fit. She’s kicked up a fair amount of coal dust, too, blackening both of her legs up to the knee.

“Done?” I ask.

“Tress,” she rasps at me, cap now hanging down over one eye. “What the fuck are you doing?”

“Let me tell you,” I say, pulling my chair up. It’s an old one, something I salvaged from a third-floor bedroom. It’s decorative, small and spindly, a chair for a lady to sit on in front of her mirror while doing her makeup. That mirror was broken when I found it, the drawers of the vanity swollen with rot and sticking forever shut.

“I’m going to make you talk to me,” I say.

“You don’t have to chain me up to get me to talk to you,” Felicity shouts, voice breaking on talk.

“But I do if I want you to be honest.”

She settles in her chains, eyes bright and boring into mine. “What do you want?”

“I want to know what happened the night my parents disappeared.”

Chapter 12

Felicity

It’s the worst thing she could say to me.

If she wanted money, I could make sure she got it. Needed a car to drive out of her shitty life, I’d buy her one. But I can’t give her what I don’t have.

“I don’t—” She holds her hand up, and I obediently fall silent.

“Let me tell you what’s going on here before you finish that sentence.” She gets out of the chair and comes closer to me, hands on either side of the crevice I’m chained inside of.

“You’re in a coal chute. Those manacles are anchored into limestone with masonry screws. I’ve learned a lot about containment in my life, and trust me, you’re not getting out.”

“This is insane,” I spit at her, not sparing my words. “Hugh will be looking for me.”

“Hugh is currently distracted,” she says, and she sounds so confident that I feel a ripple of unease, something different from the panic that hit earlier. Before I was an animal, reacting with venom. Now I’m a human . . . a scared one who hears a voice inside her head say, This is really happening. Then, underneath that, the little voice that whispers in my ear at night . . . You deserve it.