When Gretta awoke, she had a terrible realization: she needed to pee.

She’d been in the cell since yesterday, and the bottle of water from Mackinaw might have been necessary for survival, but now she regretted it. It might have been some comfort that the room was dark, but she was confident that the camera in the corner had infrared vision. There was no dignified way to pee in a bucket, and the flashing red light on the camera only made the experience more mortifying. For this, more than any other indignity, she would find the one responsible and show him his entrails.

A beep gave her a moment’s warning before the door opened. She finished zipping her pants as Agent Delmark walked in. Standing outside the containment room was Victor, the green-eyed man. He was wearing a blue shirt and purple tie today. She noticed the runes around her flared to life.

“Hey, Vic,” she said. “Afraid to come in here? Worried that Maybe Delmark will gut you if you don’t have your magic?”

Victor’s eyes narrowed.

“Face the back of the cage. Hands behind your head. Fingers interlaced,” Delmark said.

Gretta placed her hands on her hips and glared at him.

Delmark pulled out a bulky, odd-looking gun. “I’m happy to zap you into submission, but as I understand it, the jolt kills humans as often as not.” He shrugged. “You aren’t human, so we don’t know how you’ll react. I’m willing to experiment if you are.”

Gretta sighed. She wanted to fight, but she didn’t need to give Delmark a reason to hurt her while she was defenseless. There would be a time to fight, just not yet. Gretta clenched her teeth, then faced the back of the cell and laced her fingers behind her head.

“Good girl,” he said.

She heard the cell door open and tried to turn to see what was happening when he punched her in the kidney. There was a short scuffle as he wrestled her to the ground and, in a few moments, had her in handcuffs. She knew multiple martial arts styles, but between the sucker punch and the man’s extra 50 pounds of muscle, Gretta’s ability to fight had been meaningless.

“I didn’t say you could turn around,” Delmark said. “Attacking me like that was very daring, and there will be consequences.”

Both Delmark and Gretta were panting despite the relatively short exchange.

“I didn’t attack you,” Gretta said between breaths. “It was all on camera.”

“What camera?” Delmark mocked.

“That’s enough,” Victor said. He sounded bored. “Your job is to bring her to the interrogation room, not act out a rom-com.”

Delmark’s eyes went hard. “The only difference between you and her is that you work for the Bureau.”

Victor smiled. “The only difference between you and me is that I would survive her if she weren’t in that room, but you would not.”

Delmark smirked. “We’ll see who survives.” He shoved Gretta forward, and she stumbled out of the room.

The moment she passed the room’s threshold, she felt magic surge back into her. She began to pull on the energy needed to shift into a tiger when a mental force slammed into her.

Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.

“Kneel,” Victor said. His will was backed by magic.

The energy she had been pulling slipped from her grasp, and she fell to her knees.

Victor stepped closer and glared down at her. “Do not sully the natural order again.”

His words pressed down on her, and it felt like a thin film had coated her mind, making it impossible to grasp magic. She could still feel it, but it slipped away when she tried to touch it.

In a smooth movement, Victor pulled his gun and shot.

Gretta looked down, blinking in shock, but saw no injuries. She heard the collapse of a body behind her. She looked back and saw Delmark lying bonelessly on the ground. His face had a look of surprise. A pool of blood was spreading on the ground around his head.

“Justice served,” Victor said.

“You killed him,” Gretta stammered. Her eyes were fixed on Delmark’s face and the small bullet wound in his forehead.

She hated Delmark, but Victor had murdered him. It wasn’t a fight. He had simply picked a moment when Delmark was distracted and killed him.

Victor shrugged. “He intended to interfere with the pursuit of justice, and moreover, he tried to kill me.”

Gretta gave Victor a confused look. “Tried to kill you?”

“On your feet,” Victor said. “Let’s find a comfortable place to… talk.”

Gretta considered her options. She was handcuffed, and Victor was trigger-happy. She couldn’t do magic, and he could. He was multiple inches taller than her and quite a few more pounds. She had martial arts training, but he likely did as well. She was poorly rested after spending the night in a cage, and he looked fresh like he slept on a memory foam mattress. Asshole. She stood.

Victor smiled. “I’m glad we can be civil. First door on the left, have a seat.” He gestured to a room on the left.

Gretta walked ahead of Victor and went into the small interrogation room. She assumed it was an interrogation room. The table and chairs were bolted to the ground, and one hole wall was a giant mirror. Nobody chose the hard steel and mirror aesthetic for a relaxing time.

She hesitated for a moment and then decided to sit. While there would come a time to resist, this wasn’t that time. She’d get worn down and beat up over nothing.

“I’ll be in shortly. Make yourself comfortable,” Victor said as he closed the door and left her alone.

She could hear Victor’s muffled voice. Though she couldn’t make out the words, the indignant edge in his tone was unmistakable. A few moments later, Victor walked in and adjusted his tie.

“I have a busy afternoon, so I’d appreciate you saving me the trouble of making you tell me the truth,” Victor said.

Gretta kept her eyes on Victor’s purple tie. The way he had made her kneel and cut off her access to magic was like nothing she had ever experienced. He seemed to have the ability to somehow influence her will. She wasn’t sure how far he could take that or how much that cost him, but forcing an opponent to kneel at an inopportune time could be deadly. She had met very few other disciples—Gabriela, Rowan, and Miguel were the most recent, and none of them unsettled her the way Victor had. He had taken away her free will with a word.

Victor seemed to nod to himself. “Tell me what you know about Lucia Vega-Martinez.”

Gretta shrugged. “When I was looking for Sofia, I found that she had a sister named Maria Martinez, who owned the cabin where I found Miguel. Other than that, I don’t know much. For some reason, you guys think Lucia hired me, but she did not. And that’s all I got for you.”

“Interesting,” Victor said. “You don’t think you are lying. I wonder what that means.”

She looked up and accidentally looked into his green eyes. “You’re a human lie detector?”

He shrugged. “I believe it's well established that no one thinks we are human.”

“I’ve answered your question,” Gretta said. “I’ve done nothing wrong. All I’ve done is try to save a little girl from a mad woman. That’s not a crime.”

Victor smiled. “That’s not the only thing you’ve done. You have broken the laws of nature.”

She smirked. “And the FBI has jurisdiction over the laws of nature?”

“Only my lady, the goddess of order, has that jurisdiction, but I am her tool here. I will have to pray, and she will decide your fate.”

Defiance welled up in Gretta. He was a tool. A dangerous tool, but she wasn’t going to die in this basement without a fight.