Prisoner of Ice and Snow by Ruth Lauren

Author:Ruth Lauren
Language: eng
Format: epub, azw3
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
Published: 2017-06-21T16:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 12

I yank myself out from under the bed and scramble up to face Katia. “Where is it?”

Katia swings her legs over the edge of her bed and sits up. “The pick? The pick’s gone?” There’s panic in her voice.

“What else would I be talking about?” I push my hands through my hair, fingers catching on my braids.

“Well, why are you asking me?”

“Who else would I ask?” I hiss at her.

She pulls her knees up to her chest. “I don’t know where it is any more than you do. Someone’s been in here, Valor.” She looks around as if she expects them to still be here, or that there’ll be some big clue to who it was.

I don’t know what to think. I only know I should never have trusted anyone but me. “Why did you change your mind about helping me?” I start to pace the cell. Four steps by four, back and forth. “All you could talk about was how dangerous it was, how it couldn’t be done, and then suddenly you wanted to come with us. Why is that?”

She gets up off the bed, and I’m reminded that she’s taller than me. “It wasn’t me, Valor. If I wanted to stop you, I could have told Warden Kirov days ago.”

“Then why the change of heart?” I demand. We’re both keeping our voices down, but there’s so much fire in what I say. If she’s been working against me the whole time …

Katia takes a step forward. “You’re not thinking straight.” She brings up her hand in the time that I blink, then flicks me right on the forehead.

We both stand there for a second, shocked, and then I let out a brief laugh before stifling it with my hand. It’s just such a ridiculous thing for her to do. She smiles.

“I’m sorry,” I say. “You’re right. It makes no sense that you would have told Warden Kirov. We wouldn’t be in here unpunished if she knew, would we?”

Katia drops back onto her bunk.

I join her on the bed, and we both stare at the flickering shadows on the wall for a while. Does someone know about my plans? Are they toying with me?

“You asked me why I want to help you.” Katia’s voice wrenches me from the maze I’m tangled in. She keeps looking at the wall, and I can just make out the freckles across her cheek. “Do you remember what you were talking about the night I agreed to help?”

I think back. I’ve been here such a short amount of time, but so much has happened. “I told you the whole story,” I say. “Is that what changed your mind?”

She looks at her hands clasped in her lap. “It was the way you talked about Sasha. It was how much you needed to get her out of here. How much you’d given up to try something that is, frankly, impossible. I—” Her jaw tightens, and when she lifts her head, her eyes are shining. She swipes a hand over them.

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