“I’m fine. I just need a little—” Cheyenne took two more steps. Push through it.
“Watch it.”
Her hand clamped down on Yurik’s arm and slipped off again as she watched the ground rise to meet her face. I can’t feel anything…
“Aw, shit.” The goblin knelt beside her to help her back to her feet, but her eyes fluttered closed, and even her drow hearing didn’t catch the guy telling her to hang in there.
Chapter Twenty
When she woke up, the first thing she saw were bright white lights shining right into her face. Not again.
She lurched up, her magic flaring from the base of her spine and purple sparks erupting from the fingertips of both hands.
Blinking heavily, she shut down the spells and raised a hand to her throbbing head. Did I hit this somewhere?
Then she realized her wrists weren’t chained to the bed this time. Cheyenne jerked her foot across the hospital bed, and it moved freely too. A glance at her shirt showed nothing but her regular black-on-black clothes, coated in sawdust and brown dirt. How considerate.
She looked around the room. The only difference between the first time and now was the lack of dampening cuffs and monitors beside the bed. Groaning, the halfling swung her legs onto the floor and pushed herself slowly to her feet. Her arms shot out to her sides when she wobbled. “Woah. Pull it together.”
Her head settled down a little more with every step toward the door on the other side of the room. The only thing on the low stainless-steel table against the wall was another one of those energy bars for magicals in the silver cellophane wrapper. Cheyenne snatched it off the table, then jerked open the door and stepped out into the hall.
The wrapper split apart between her teeth, then she bit off a huge chunk and grimaced.
A short, squat goblin woman with thick yellow hair spilling out from beneath a black baseball hat pushed a silver cart down the hall toward her. “Tastes like shit, huh?”
“Yeah.” Cheyenne kept chewing.
“End of the medical wing’s back that way.”
“Thanks.”
The cart’s wheels squeaked as the goblin kept pushing it down the hall. The halfling turned left and made her way past a bunch of rooms identical to hers. Her black Vans moved quickly and quietly across the linoleum floors, and she looked both ways at the next corner before turning left again. Yeah, now it’s coming back to me.
It was hard enough to swallow the gross, overly chewy energy bar that made her jaw ache. She rolled her shoulders back and walked a little steadier, picking up the pace and biting off another chunk. The more she ate, the faster she walked.
She finally reached the short hallway that opened into the common room and paused. Two of the round tables had been pushed together, and at least a dozen FRoE operatives sat around them, speaking in low tones. Except for Sir.
“I don’t give a flying rat’s ass what they’re saying. The intel went bad before I took my morning shit, and I wanna know why.”
Cheyenne stepped slowly into the common room, which was empty except for the meeting taking place right out in the open. The wrapper crunched in her hand as she popped the last bite of energy bar into her mouth. The conversation stopped, and everyone at the tables looked up or turned to see the drow halfling munching away with a grimace of disgust.
“Sorry.” She swallowed and stuffed the wrapper into her front pocket. “Someone really needs to fix the flavor of these things. It’s almost bad enough not to want one.”
“There she is.” Sir slapped the table and pushed himself out of his chair. “Back on her feet in no time.”
The other operatives around the table broke out into applause. Someone whistled. A few stood, nodding and clapping and shooting her small, approving smiles.
Cheyenne slowly looked back over her shoulder. Nope. That’s for me.
“Get your ass over here, halfling.” Sir waved her forward, and an orc she hadn’t met got out of his chair and gestured toward it before leaning against the back of the couch and folding his arms.
Frowning, Cheyenne headed slowly toward the table. The applause died down, but Bhandi nodded at her with a tiny smile. “Good work.”
“Uh, thanks.”
“That’s how we look after our own.” A man sitting beside the open chair with hair so blond it was almost white shook a fist at her.
Across the double table, Yurik crossed his arms and leaned back in his chair. “I knew I should’ve started a betting pool before we shipped out. Would’ve split it fifty-fifty with you, too.”
“For real?” Cheyenne lowered herself into the chair and scooted toward the table. “You think starting a betting pool and me saving your ass are on the same level?”
Surprised laughs rose around the tables, and Yurik just smirked.
“All right, people.” Sir sat back down and scooted toward the table. “We all agree, if we even gave out goddamn medals for this kinda crap, the halfling would get a whole damn box of them.”
“Medals?” Beside Sir, an orc with a crack running the length of one tusk leaned away from his superior and snorted. “We don’t need no stinkin’ medals.”
Someone else thumped the table.
The corner of Sir’s mouth twitched, and he glanced around the table while waving his hand in front of his face. “Jesus, Bozni. Anyone got a breath mint? No? Then the party’s over.”
On the other side of him, Rhynehart caught Cheyenne’s gaze and gave her a short nod. She just raised her eyebrows at him and sat back in the chair. Someone better tell me what’s going on.
Sir thumped his elbow down on the table and pointed at her. “The halfling did us all a goddamn service this morning. All of you jerkoffs on the op know what I’m talking about. And thanks to this one, Jamal, Payton, and Zynd’r are all gonna say the same thing when they wake up.”
Cheyenne leaned forward. “Where are
