BANG.
The noise sounded again, snapping me out of the last dregs of my dream, my memory. I opened my eyes and sat up, putting my back against the bars and looking toward the cell door.
Dobson stood on the other side, a long, thick, black nightstick in his hands.
BANG.
He smacked the wood against the bars a third time, but I didn’t give him the satisfaction of flinching at the hard sound.
“Rise and shine, Blanco,” he crowed. “You’ve got visitors.”
11
Dobson stepped to one side so an officer could insert a key in the cell door and open it. Five people trooped inside the barred space, a mix of men and women, all wearing the charcoal-gray prison jumpsuits of the Ashland correctional system. The officer stepped inside as well, unlocking and removing the silverstone handcuffs that kept the prisoners’ strength and elemental magic in check before scurrying back out with the cuffs and locking the door behind him.
I looked over the prisoners for a few seconds before turning my attention to the other people streaming into the room—all the ones outside the cell.
Uniformed officers, suited detectives, even the janitors and administrative staff gathered around the three sides of the cell. They stared through the bars at me, sizing me up, just as I was them. Then fat wads of cash started going from hand to hand to hand, and the conversation started, the chorus of voices getting louder and more excited as the money moved from one person to the next.
“Give me a thousand on whoever’s fighting Blanco.”
“Make it two thousand for me.”
“Five thousand says that she doesn’t even last five minutes in there.”
So there was to be some serious gambling to go along with tonight’s blood sport.
I expected nothing less from the bull pen.
I’d heard whispers about this place for years, and Fletcher had a file on it in his office, although I’d only skimmed the information. Still, I knew the gist of it. About this single cell hidden deep in the police station where the cops corralled particularly strong, sadistic, and troublesome prisoners, sicced them on each other late at night, and watched the resulting carnage for their own twisted amusement. From what I’d heard, the fight didn’t end, and the cops didn’t open the cell door, until at least one prisoner was dead.
And tonight, they wanted that prisoner to be me.
According to the rumors, most fights in the bull pen featured only two prisoners, not the five-on-one grudge match I was facing. But Dobson had obviously made some special arrangements for me, no doubt on Madeline’s orders. Still, as the rolls of bills kept going from one person to another, I couldn’t help but wonder how many folks were betting on me. Finn certainly would have, if he’d been here. But given the knowing smirks aimed in my direction, it didn’t seem that many people were willing to take a chance on me, not when I’d been so clearly marked for death. Their loss.
Dobson moved through the crowd, shaking hands, slapping backs, and taking bets, just like the aw-shucks good ole boy that he portrayed himself to be. He was definitely the ringmaster of this little circus, and I wondered how long he’d been bringing prisoners back here just so he could watch them bleed out and pad his own pockets at the same time. Well, I hoped that he enjoyed the show because tonight was going to be the final performance, if I had my way.
A clock mounted on the wall across from the cell told me that it was a few minutes until midnight. No doubt that’s when the action would officially get under way. So I used the remaining time to look beyond the cell and the cops, and I realized that people had also gathered on the second-floor balcony that overlooked the bull pen.
Three people, to be exact—Madeline, Emery, and Jonah.
Madeline relaxed in a padded seat behind the balcony railing, in the exact center of the room, directly across from the cell door, so that she could have the best view possible of my impending demise. Emery was seated at her right elbow, just like always, with Jonah standing a few feet away. All three of them were smiling with cold satisfaction, and a bottle of liquor was perched on the railing in front of them, as though they were going to toast my death. I wondered if they were going to smoke some cigars too.
I stared up at Madeline, my gray eyes locking with her green ones. Her smile widened, and she gave me a cheery wave, as though I were a knight going into battle to earn the favor of some fair maiden, instead of a prisoner who was about to be beaten within an inch of her life before she was summarily executed. I wondered if Madeline would come down here and do the deed herself with her acid magic, or if she’d let Dobson open the cell door and put a couple of bullets through my skull.
It didn’t much matter what she had planned—it wasn’t happening either way.
So I dropped my gaze from Madeline and focused on the people who were the most important right now—the five prisoners locked in the cell with me.
Two giants, two dwarves, and an elemental with a ball of Fire flickering in her hand. The giants were tall and wide, the dwarves short and stocky, and all four of them had thick, barrel chests and rock-hard muscles that bulged against the sleeves and legs of their gray jumpsuits. No doubt they’d augmented their natural strength by obsessively lifting weights, the way that so many prisoners did. Any one of them could easily beat or strangle me to death with his or her bare hands.
I studied the elemental for several seconds, watching the ebb and flow of the orange-red flames coating her palm. She had a decent amount of juice, but she wasn’t in my league, and I could easily overcome her magic with my own Ice and Stone power. That’s probably what Dobson was counting on. Having the Fire elemental keep me busy blocking her scorching power, while the giants and dwarves surrounded me, hammering on me with their fists until they cracked through the protective shell of my Stone magic. Then nature would take its course, and my face, skull, and ribs would cave in from the heavy blows. Once I was down on the floor, it would all be over except for the screaming, and Dobson or even Madeline could enter the cell and kill me at leisure.
My hands clenched into fists, my fingers pressing into the spider rune scars embedded in my palms. Not going to happen. None of it. Not tonight.
Not to the Spider.
Finally, all the bets had been placed, and all the money had been collected. Dobson bang-bang-banged his nightstick on the cell bars and let out a couple of loud whistles to get everyone’s attention. The crowd quieted, and folks sat down in the chairs around all three sides of the cell. The five prisoners inside the bull pen spread out in a single line in front of the door. I finally got to my feet, moved over in front of the toilets so that I was directly across from the prisoners, and stared them down, my face even colder and harder than all of theirs were combined.