Cheyenne cocked her head. “I’m guessing it worked.”
“Do you know who we are, Blakely? That team of my men whose operation you crashed like a Manson family bar mitzvah? Where you are right now?”
“I tried asking the friendly doctor, but she thought I was joking.”
Sir walked around the side of the bed and pushed the cart away. He stepped to Cheyenne until he was close enough for her to swing a fist into his gut. She didn’t. She didn’t glance up at him as he loomed over her, either. She studied the end of the bed and the thin, wrinkled sheet tent draping her feet.
“This organization is young by our standards. Seeing as you’re a halfling, it’s a safe bet you look a lot closer to your age than a full-blooded drow. And I’m not a betting man.” Sir didn’t move as he leaned over her, speaking in the same bored tone. “We’ve been around a pinch over two decades, and what started as a Washington-sanctioned Special Operations unit has grown into what certain circles call the FRoE. Anyone who doesn’t call us that has no idea we exist.”
Cheyenne blinked at her feet and tried not to give anything away. I heard someone say that when they first brought me in. Way to jog my memory, Sir.
She turned her head and offered him the deadpan expression she’d spent twenty-one years mastering. “Does that stand for something, or were Throw and Flow already taken?”
The man’s small, tight smile was more sinister than a frown. “There’s plenty of time for you to scratch out acronym options. I think we’ve got some scrap paper around here somewhere.”
“I’ll work on it when I get home.” Cheyenne stared at him until Sir took two long steps back and nodded at her.
“I’m sure you will. Wherever home happens to be for the drow halfling Blakely With-a-Last-Name. But you’re not ready to go home yet.”
He raised an eyebrow, then turned away from the bed and headed across the room toward the exit.
He can’t leave the conversation that way. Not without telling me what I’m doing here.
“Sir?”
The man paused in his straight line and looked at her over his shoulder.
“This hole in my side is already healed up after…what? Twenty-four hours? Thanks for that, by the way. The healing part. Not the chaining-me-up-to-the-bed part.”
Sir’s eyebrows rose, wrinkling his already-lined forehead. “It’s protocol.”
“Right. But I don’t need to be in here longer than a day. I’m fine. Trust me, as soon as those cuffs pop off my ankles, I’ll be walking around, good as new.”
The man snorted and shook his head, a tiny smile lifting the corners of his mouth. “If you can heal yourself from a bullet hole like that in twenty-four hours with an extra boost of healing from us, I’d like to see it. So far, your record is a hundred and fourteen hours. Keep trying, though.”
Sir continued walking toward the door.
“What?” Cheyenne almost choked. “A hundred and fourteen hours? That’s…five days.”
“It’s Tuesday. About…” Sir lifted his forearm to study his tactical watch. “Almost ten-hundred hours. Some of our guys had bets you wouldn’t wake up until seventeen hundred. You’re making friends without trying.”
“Wait, you can’t keep me here any longer.” Cheyenne jerked the thin sheet off her legs and pushed toward the edge of the bed. Her ankle chains clinked against the metal rail, and she hissed in annoyance. “I have a life and things to do. If you’re not arresting me or charging me with anything, you can’t detain me longer than twenty-four hours.”
Sir grabbed the vertical bar serving as the door handle and pulled the door open. “You know your stuff, kid. At least when it comes to detainment. Have a lot of experience with that?”
Cheyenne clamped her mouth shut and clenched her jaw.
“Well, we don’t give two shits about any of that. This isn’t a federal detention center or a state facility, halfling. This is the FRoE. You’ll be cleared to get back to whatever it is you’re doing with your life as soon as we run some more tests and get a better view of the big picture. That might be helpful for you too.” With a final nod, Sir stepped through the door and let it swing silently shut behind him.
Cheyenne slammed the side of her fist on the rail next to her. The chains and empty manacles jingled, but without the freedom of her feet, she couldn’t do anything but smooth her hair away from her forehead with both hands and glare at the door.
This is the FRoE. And Mattie said they don’t give a damn about what happens to halflings on or off their watch. So why do they want me?
She jerked her legs against the cuffs and rocked the hospital bed forward on its wheels with a warning squeak. Her hands were free, and the restraints Sir had called dampening cuffs were gone. Maybe those were only on my wrists.
Cheyenne tossed the rest of the sheets off her legs and focused on the much thinner, flimsier-looking cuffs. Two options for drawing out my magic: uncontrolled rage and thinking about guns. Such as the one that put a bullet in my hip.
The heat of her drow blood flared at the base of her spine. The halfling slipped into the dark skin and white hair of her dark-elf form, then opened her hand and produced the purple sparks she’d been trying to conjure.
There we go.
With a deep breath, she focused on the cuffs around her ankles and pointed at the one on the right. Her magic burst across the room, missing the manacle, and struck the opposite wall with a sputtering hiss. It left a small dent and charred the drywall, some of which crumbled to the linoleum floor.
Cheyenne sighed and gritted her teeth. Try it again. With feeling, this time.
She
