And from beneath her curled fingers, she felt the small, cold jangle of stolen keys.
Her left hand moved, almost on instinct.
Fingers brushed over the back of it, slowly tracing the raised scar that ran like a thread of memory across her skin. A thin line, white against the grime.
It wasn’t new.
It hadn’t come from this place.
It was her mother who had given it to her.
A broken bottle. Screaming that had ended in her mother snoring on the sofa.
She’d been seven.
Her brothers had found her behind the bin shed, blood dripping down her sleeve.
Cormac had wrapped her in his coat. Callum had torn up an old shirt and bandaged the wound with trembling fingers. They just held her hand until it stopped bleeding. It had been the fuse that lit the train wreck that was foster care.
Faolan pressed her thumb into the scar.
It stung, but not from pain.
The pain was from remembering what it felt like to be worth saving.
Thane
The air was thick in the windowless room.
Zel sat closest to the door, knees up, eyes sharp. Maro crouched beside him, slowly grinding the stolen spoon shiv across the wall. Lirian leaned in the corner, silent and unmoving. His eyes were closed, but he was listening.
They didn’t speak again until the lights clicked off for the night.
Then Thane whispered, “Tomorrow?”
Zel nodded once. “Rubin’s on the rota. We need him inside the room.”
“Big bastard,” Maro muttered. “He likes the belt and taser. Likes to hear you scream.”
Thane swallowed. “What if he uses the gun? You sure he’ll be alone?”
“Always is on Wednesdays,” Zel said. “Comes in drunk. He thinks we’re too broken to fight back.”
“He’s not stupid, though,” Maro added. “If he gets one of us down…if he tases someone…”
“The rest will have to give in,” Lirian finished quietly.
The words sat like a shroud between them. Everyone knew it was true.
“We can’t let him get a shot off,” Thane said, his voice coiled tighter than a spring.
Zel tapped the tip of the shiv against his palm. “Maro and I will jump him together. You go for the arm, shoulder. I’ll go for the chest like this… Fast. Fast, before we lose the element of surprise.”
Thane nodded. “I’ll go for the taser. I’ve seen him use it; I know how to pop the safety off. Once he is down, key to the door. Then we have to worry about the front door key. The front doors have bars and locks.” Thane looked at each of them. “So, the front door key?”
Zel grunted, “Right belt loop. Black ring. He keeps it clipped. The windows have bars. We need that key.”
“It’s going to be tight,” Maro added. “Let’s go over it again.”
