They brought us dinner.
It was a weak soup, but at least it was something. I hadn't been expecting to get anything, so knowing that we might still get meals gave me a little hope that our time in captivity would be at least manageable.
Night came and Jord curled up in a ball in his corner and fell asleep. Oz got Justia and Ren down in the other corner away from the door, then sat down in between myself and Rix so that we formed a triangle in front of the door.
I leaned against the cage and ran my hand up the bar. "How long do you think they’ve been doing this?”
“Less than fifteen years." Oz looked at me. "This has only been a desolation for fourteen years.”
I looked over at Justia, who was at least pretending to sleep. "How is she doing?”
“Why do you care?” The raven-haired woman scowled at me.
I looked at Rix who shrugged, then turned back to the other woman. "Because she’s on my team.”
Oz shook her head. "I don’t buy it.” She pointed at Rix. "Her, I could believe, you tried to trade yourself for her.” Oz glanced at her cousin. "But you didn’t even try to barter for her freedom.”
I swallowed. She wasn’t wrong. My mind had been trying to find a way out of it, but I hadn’t started improvising until it became clear that they were taking Rix.
“I’m sorry." I tried to look into her green eyes, but her stare was so intense that I had to look away. "I knew that Trent might go after her, but…” I looked over at Rix. "I knew he’d never be allowed to track you down.”
“You’re content to let Justia be taken because you knew she’d be rescued?” Oz scoffed. "And you wonder why I don’t like you.”
“I didn’t like it…” I silently pleaded with Rix for help.
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The redhead turned away and looked at the warehouse door. I knew she didn’t agree with the way I put myself in danger. It seemed that she was content to allow someone else to berate me for it.
I knew that the cage had to be monitored, which meant I couldn’t feed her the lie about who I truly was, so I was going to have to lean into the other one. Except I didn’t see how that was going to lessen her anger towards me. Instead, I just hung my head.
“I’m sorry, I was trying to think of a way to get everyone out, but all I could think of was stalling for time. I thought that just maybe, if I could keep them talking long enough, Trent would show up and save us.” I held up my hand. "Not an excuse for not trying to get you out of there, I’m sorry. It’s not like I’ve been kidnapped a lot. I’m not sure what to do, but I promise that if it happens again, I’ll try to negotiate for her release.”
Oz looked over at Rix, but the redhead was pretending to ignore us. She glared at me. "That doesn’t mean I’m not still upset with you.”
“That’s fine, but can we at least work together right now?” I motioned at the warehouse door. "There are a lot of them out there, and only a few of us in here.”
Oz faked a laugh. "You talk like you’re going to take on the entire bunker!” She wiped her eyes. "You’re level three and I doubt any of them out there are below ten.”
“Easy experience." Rix mumbled under her breath.
The raven-haired woman looked shocked. "Seriously?”
“Honestly, if we do try a breakout, I’m fairly certain we’ll have to PK some people on our way out.” I drew her gaze to the other two sleeping first-year women. “Can you do that?”
Oz clenched her fists. For a moment I thought she was going to tell me that she couldn’t. "I can do it.”
“Hang on to that.” Rix looked at us. "Because you can’t hesitate. If they give you a chance, if you don’t take it, they will.” She looked between us. "Every one of them has killed someone. Adding another one to their total is something that a lot of them will jump at the chance to do.”
I saw how shaken that realization made her. “Do you still think we should leave Gesai to heal on her own?”
Oz thought for a moment. "You never know when we might need a healing potion.” She tapped on the cuff hiding her crystal band. "And until we can find a way to get these off, this is all we have.”
I thought about pointing out that if the potion was going to work on Gesai, then it was probably a Tier Two potion, which meant that if one of us tried to take it, we’d wind up hurting ourselves if we took too much at once. But it didn’t seem like pointing out how things were harder was very productive at the moment.
I looked at Rix. "Do you have any ideas?”
The redhead shrugged. "Be ready when we get a chance.”