Chapter 290: Sprout Picked a Hell of a Time to Be Helpful

Dove held up the paper towels. "Trying not to dry my hair with something that smells like an oil change."

Lyle looked at the roll, then over her shoulder. The radio sat in its charger. The screen showed the same channel it had shown when she entered.

"I told you to stay there."

"And I told you the towel was filthy. We both had a disappointing afternoon."

He took a step into the office. Dove moved toward him before he could come close enough to inspect the desk, holding the roll between them. Her legs wanted to run. She made them walk.

"Is this okay, or do I need to fill out a form?"

He glanced toward Alden’s voice in the breakroom and lowered his own. "Don’t make trouble."

"I’m trying to wash."

Her sweet face helped him choose the explanation he preferred. It didn’t make him stupid. He escorted her all the way back to the shed, checked the washroom, then waited while she returned to the little room behind it.

Dove sat on the cot and tore a paper towel into strips until her hands stopped shaking. She had sent something. Not enough. Maybe enough to start.

Did anybody hear me?

I can’t tell.

Could you lie a little?

You told me not to.

She pressed the paper against her eyes. Yeah. Keep doing that.

She used the scraps of paper towel to wipe the cot frame and inspect the window more closely. The bars were fixed into the brick, beyond anything her chair wire would change. She stopped wasting effort there. A door people used every day offered more chances than a window nobody opened wide enough to climb through. She put the wire back in her pocket and watched which footsteps came with keys.

By the time the light faded, she knew Lyle checked the room before meals, the card players changed places near the shed entrance, and Alden liked people to hear him being generous. None of that was an escape yet. It was more than she had known on the board.

Alden brought dinner after sunset. Canned chicken, rice, and carrots filled a chipped plate. The food smelled good. She hated him for holding it as though he had invented feeding people.

"Eat well, sleep well, and tomorrow you’ll feel swell," he said, placing it on the desk.

Dove looked at the plate rather than the cigar he had tucked above his ear. She was hungry enough to eat his rice. She was not hungry enough to encourage him.

"Where am I sleeping?"

"Here, tonight. You’re too upset for company."

Dove kept her relief off her face. "I would like to be alone."

"I’ll give you that. Tomorrow, we can talk properly."

He thought privacy was something he could lend and reclaim. She agreed to nothing. She ate after he left, checked both doors, and pulled the cot away from the damp patch beneath the window. Through the towel’s gap she watched the yard lights go out one at a time.

Nobody came for her that night.

She slept in scraps, one boot braced against the door so the slightest movement would wake her. In the dark she touched the bond and whispered both husbands’ names without expecting an answer. She wanted Edrik to hear her telling him she hadn’t given up. Wanting didn’t make it happen.

By morning, the room smelled of warm dust and her own fear. She refused to spend another day adding to either.

Shield? she asked while washing with a small amount of retrieved pool water.

Available. Thirty seconds, once today. Your body only.

Not a whole escape. A little less getting shot while I do the escape.

That is correct.

See? We can have a normal conversation.

Sprout waited until she had changed into clean socks before speaking again. You still have an endurance task available. Reach a safe place you chose, with help or without it. The merchant remains paused.

My choices are currently behind a door somebody else controls.

You haven’t agreed to stay.

That made her stop. She had spent the night feeling trapped enough that the distinction seemed stupid, but she needed it. She could act polite. She could accept food. Neither meant she belonged here.

What do I actually get?

The task details remain available when you can look safely. Right now, someone is coming.

She heard the steps herself a moment later. Dove stored the small container, kept the chair wire in her pocket, and picked up the plate.

Lyle opened the door. "Breakfast. Front room."

Alden was waiting at the breakroom table with oatmeal, coffee, and the radio beside his elbow. He had brought it with him. Dove noticed that before she noticed anything else.

"You look better," he said.

"Coffee helps with that."

"Haven’t had any yet."

"I was trying to be encouraging."

He laughed, pleased she had apparently improved overnight. Dove sat where she could see the hall. Lyle returned to the yard, keys at his hip again. Daytime keys. Alden had kept his word about that, at least.

She drank coffee that tasted burned and wonderful. Her throat tightened around the first swallow. Thorne would have remembered how she liked it. She reached for the little sugar jar herself and took what she wanted.

The radio hissed.

"County yard caller. Message passed north. Repeat location when safe."

Alden’s hand stopped above his bowl.

Dove set her mug down before it could shake. Somebody had heard. Somebody had passed it on. The relief was so fierce it nearly wrecked her face.

"Roads sound bad," she said.

Alden looked at the radio, then at her. "Did you touch this yesterday?"

Sprout, something helpful would be lovely right about now.

He asked whether you touched it. He doesn’t know what you said.

Dove met Alden’s eyes. "I asked if my beast husband was alive. You wouldn’t tell me."

His chair scraped backward.

She wanted to take it back. She wanted to make herself smaller before he stood. Instead, she kept her hands on the table and let him see exactly what he had denied her.

She could hear a driver speaking outside the window. Good. Let him hear this part too. She was tired of being told to be quiet about things men were doing openly.

"If you’re helping me," she said, "why would that make you angry?"