Total pages in book: 45
Estimated words: 40901 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 205(@200wpm)___ 164(@250wpm)___ 136(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 40901 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 205(@200wpm)___ 164(@250wpm)___ 136(@300wpm)
“What kind of favors did Starlight do for you?”
Their lips close. They look away from me and away from each other. Something shameful, then. I can imagine him being the predatory type, finding people in desperate circumstances and taking advantage of them for his own ends. It would be very true to the MO of his benefactor, the one he calls the man in black.
There’s a little clink outside. We all freeze, like mice caught in the remnants of a midnight feast.
“Katie,” Sheriff Starlight drawls from the doorway. “You’re a curious little thing, aren’t you. And so much more coherent than before. Almost like you’ve nearly fully recovered.”
“She metabolizes medication quickly,” Doctor Champion cuts in, eager to change the subject. The nurses scuttle for cover. They fear Starlight. I cannot imagine what hold he has over what appear to be ordinary civilians.
“So good to hear,” Starlight says. He clinks as he takes a step into the room. I’m surprised I didn’t hear him coming, the way those spurs make him jingle like a cat with a bell. He must be like those cats that have worked out how to mute themselves when they need to sneak up on something.
“You’re such a fucking asshole,” I exclaim, apropos of very little. Just looking into his handsome, symmetrical, devilish face is enough to make me wish I could break his nose all over again. The tape and the splint over the bridge give me some limited satisfaction.
He just laughs.
“You know that in an hour or two, you will be fair game again, Katie. And you have punishment in store.”
“Because being shot out of the sky isn’t punishment enough.”
“Hardly.”
“Asshole,” I repeat.
His eyes gleam with dark intentions. “And that, Katie, is why it’s not the end. It’s not even the beginning. I’ve only just got you. Now is when you start to learn your place.”
“My place!” I laugh. “I come from on high. My place is above you, always, in all things. You’re a delusional little man with a gimmick and far too much money. I hope you know I have no intention of showing you mercy when I inevitably destroy you.”
I am feeling better. Stronger. The healing has indeed been swift. They have no real idea how quickly I am able to regain strength. Although I must admit, their sutures certainly aided my body’s own regenerative efforts.
I could lie here, lull them all into a false sense of security, and then strike when the time is right. That’s what I would do if I was sensible. But Starlight’s nonsense about me knowing my place, and the slight haze I still feel from some very strong dissociative substances and painkillers makes me throw caution to the wind. I decide to make a break for it.
I burst up from the bed, my wings expanding, my…. leg hitting the end of the ankle chain I didn’t notice was there. I flap helplessly against the ceiling for a second or two before collapsing onto the bed with a furious pout, my wings fizzling away to leave me human, and silly, in appearance.
“Impressive,” Doctor Champion says. “Truly impressive.”
Starlight merely smirks at me. “I guess you’re ready for your punishment now.”
He was prepared for this. Maybe he even anticipated me doing it. It would certainly seem so, judging by the way he slips a collar around my neck, and I feel myself go dull. It is made of sapping stone, a kind of rock reportedly only found in the very depths of Hell. I’d wonder how he got it, but it seems to me that Starlight may as well be the very devil himself.
“That will fix you,” he says, fixing it in place with a circular lock much like a padlock. “No more angelic tricks, no more angelic powers. I’m using your own technology on you. Remember how you weakened your angelic subjects in your laboratory?”
“That was for scientific control,” I try to explain. We couldn’t run our experiments with loose angelic powers. We had to contain our subjects and allow them access when it was appropriate for the study.
“That was for control,” he says simply. “You and I are not that different, Katie. I am just better at this than you are.”
“Really,” I drawl as he looks at me with a glittering, triumphant gaze. “Because none of my subjects ever ended up riddled with arrows.”
I’ve got him there, and just as he was so smug.
He turns the tables by flipping me over face down on the hospital bed. My ethereal wings have gone, leaving me as human in appearance as any other of these lumpen creatures. The hospital gown is designed to provide less than no protection.
“You wouldn’t beat a woman fresh out of surgery!”
He draws his belt from his waist, proving me wrong. Yes, technically, I am healed. But the optics of this thrashing are terrible. I can see the horror on the faces of the nurses, and absolute disapproval written on the doctor’s visage. Starlight is going to whip me, but he is going to make enemies as he does. He has underestimated me in every possible way. He does not understand that I am perfectly willing to sacrifice myself in the short term in order to have dominion over him in the long term.