The sparks arced from her finger and hit the broad side of the manacle. It crackled with purple energy, emitted sparks, and burst open. She’d been aiming for the lock.
“That’ll do.”
The other manacle broke apart the same way and dropped beneath her left ankle, then Cheyenne spun toward the side of the bed and dangled her feet over the floor. She felt ready to go until her full weight left the bed. Her legs buckled, and she dropped with a thump and a sharp squeak of skin onto the linoleum.
“This is new.” With a grunt, Cheyenne brought her wobbly legs beneath her and tried pushing to her feet. She noticed the bottom shelf of the stainless-steel cart in front of her. Beside the upside-down steam pan, was a pile of black fabric and glistening links of silver chains that looked familiar. “Of course, they wouldn’t tell me where my clothes are.”
The halfling scooted toward the cart, grimacing at the sharp pain in her hip, and whipped her arms out of the stupid hospital-gown sleeves before pulling first her black tank top and then the fishnet shirt over her head. Man, that feels so much better.
Without anything causing her rage or excitement, neither of which existed at the moment, Cheyenne’s drow-dark skin shifted, so she clothed her pale-skinned, vampiric-looking human self.
The dangling loops of chains that clinked around her wrists day and night—the kind not attached to dampening cuffs—felt like she’d slipped back into an old piece of fitted armor. The hospital gown pooled around her as she struggled to her feet and stepped out of it. She hobbled toward the bed and used it to support herself while she got her legs into her baggy black pants. Fortunately, her car keys were still at the bottom of one of those deep pockets. As soon as she had the top button done and the zipper up, the door to her room opened.
Cheyenne froze, half-leaning against the bed as she clutched the waistband of her pants. The man stared at her with a mix of surprise and amusement.
I remember him. Rhino something.
They stared at each other so long, the drow halfling had to say something to keep from feeling like an exotic animal in a cage. “Seen my shoes?”
The man smirked and nodded behind her.
Cheyenne whirled and had to catch herself on the bed. There were her Vans, sitting neatly between the wheels under the head of the bed and the stand of the closest monitor. “Helpful. Thanks.”
She shoved her feet into her black Vans and hiked her baggy pants up. When she turned around, Rhino slipped a set of keys into a side pocket of his fatigues and folded his arms, letting the door shut behind him.
“Oh.” The drow halfling glanced at the busted manacles at the foot of the bed and couldn’t hide her smile. “Were you coming to take those things off me? Sorry. Didn’t mean to take your job out from under you.”
“Saves me from having to wait for you to get dressed. Let’s go.”
On shaky legs, although she was finding her groove with the whole walking thing, Cheyenne crossed the room and paused for Rhino to open the door. He gestured into the hall beyond, and the half-drow gave him a brief nod before stepping out of her prison and into whatever the FRoE had in store.
Chapter Thirty-Seven
“Nope. This way.” The man, decked out in military fatigues from the waist down and a black t-shirt, waved Cheyenne after him as he turned in the opposite direction.
“Oh, right.” She felt grateful he didn’t seem to be in a rush to take her anywhere. “Sorry. I forgot the part where anyone bothered to show me around.”
“Well, welcome to the tour, then.” The man strolled with loose ease down the narrow white-walled hallway, arms swinging by his sides. They passed doors resembling the one to her recovery room. “I’ve been told to call you ‘Blakely.’”
Cheyenne glanced at his tight black t-shirt. If he was wearing the whole uniform, I’d know his name by now. She stuck her hands into the deep pockets of her baggy pants and tried to turn her wobble into a casual stroll. “That works. Nobody told me what to call you.”
“Rhynehart.”
Rhino. Rhynehart. Close enough.
They reached the T-shaped end of the corridor, and Rhynehart gestured right. They continued down the next hallway, this one much shorter, and it opened into a massive common room. Cheyenne blinked and forgot where she was—or where she might have been, with all the information she didn’t have—as she stared at all the other people.
Round tables with six chairs each were situated in two neat rows across the center of the room. Nearby couches and armchairs arranged in a semi-circle around two coffee tables faced a sixty-inch TV mounted on the narrow wall rising from an empty fireplace. A guy at a vending machine made his selection at the other end of the room, where she also noticed a ping-pong table, although it was missing its net, paddles, and balls. Some seats here and there were taken by groups of two or three, while others milled around, talking in low voices.
They were all magicals—humans, orcs, trolls, and goblins. She spied a woman with purple hair, purple eyes, and skin with a tinge of yellow that would have been categorized as advanced jaundice in a human. Some of them wore full fatigues in dull colors like Sir’s, and some had taken off their BDU shirts. Others wore loose-fitting black sparring uniforms. All of them, though, looked like they belonged here.
The guy at the vending machine gave the thing a rough thump with his fist,
“Keep up, halfling,” Rhynehart called. “Holding hands through the hallway isn’t in my job description.”
Cheyenne turned away from the surprising scene and hurried after the man as fast as she could without stumbling. I thought the FRoE
