Fox wouldn’t let him look at her like that again. Even if that meant killing the man himself.
A door banged open above, and Fox jumped up from the small desk where he was sitting, stumbling slightly in his exhaustion. He quickly shook off any fatigue as High Specialist Rogo came flying down the stairs, barely glancing at Fox where he stood.
He’d only gotten a glimpse of the man, but his face had been a blotted red and the flash of fury in his eyes was clear even in the dark. Fox followed at a clip, taking the last couple of stairs to the bottom ofthe pit. Eha was lying in the corner, her body relaxed, but Fox saw the way her eyes were alight with concern. Rogo had already disappeared, but a moment later, the sound of shuffling drew his eyes to the passage that led into the back cells tucked inside the stone wall.
Rogo was dragging one of the Dragonborn by her curls, her feet scraping along the ground as she struggled.
“What are you doing?”
The high specialist didn’t acknowledge him, throwing the girl down on the cold floor of the cavern and quickly snapping a set of chains into place on her ankles. The man sneered down at her as if she were a maggot that had just crawled across his shoe.
Fox had never liked the man. He’d seen him helping the chief commander a few times in their mission to get Eha to speak with them and give away her secrets. He seemed to revel in the pain he delivered, much like Fox’s father used to. It made his skin crawl.
“High Specialist Rogo,” Fox said, his voice going cold. “Show me your orders.”
“This bitch is going to tell me how to control the dragons, or I’m going to take her fingers one by one until she can’t scream anymore.”
He spoke the words directly to the girl, close enough that his breath moved her brown curls. To her credit, she didn’t tremble or even acknowledge him. Her eyes were fixed on the wall over Fox’s shoulder. He recognized her from the other times she’d been used in Chief Commander Harlow’s interrogations and experiments. He didn’t know how old she was, but she couldn’t be a day over eighteen. Her skin may have been bronze at one point, but now it was gray, her freckles stark against her face. Yet, she’d never bowed to even Chief Commander Harlow’s threats. She reminded him of Sofia in that way.
“Do you have orders, High Specialist Rogo?” Fox repeated, his words slow and firm.
“They found my little sister in the rubble, you know?” This time the high specialist’s eyes were on Fox, wild and burning. “It’s been a week, and they just found her body, buried by a building in one of the bombs. It was nearly impossible to identify her, the way her face was crushed.”
He looked down at the Dragonborn, running his thumb along her cheek.
“Maybe instead of your fingers, I should take your face.”
The girl turned, biting at his thumb, nearly catching the tip before he pulled it away with a snarl.
“Fucking animal,” he said through clenched teeth.
Fox’s stomach sank. He was more to blame for the death of Rogo’s sister than this girl.
“Stand down.”
“Do you feel sorry for the thing?” he asked, looking at Fox.
“You’re acting outside of the chief commander’s instructions.”
“And he’ll thank me when I find out how to control the dragons.”
“I don’t know how to do that,” the girl said, voice clear and loud. “But I doubt they’d bow to your kind, no matter what.”
The man whipped around, his fist crashing into the girl’s face. He sent his foot into the girl’s side.
Eha, who until then had been quietly watching the exchange with a simmering rage that sang in the back of Fox’s mind, snapped. He heard the scrape of metal on stone as she pulled at her chains, and a low growl echoed in the chamber. She was only a few yards away, yet too far to do anything.“Let me go, and I will show you if we can be controlled.”
The man didn’t react, and Fox knew Eha had only said the words to him, but he could feel the strain in Eha’s control. She was helpless though, the chains too difficult to break. She’d told Fox how many hours and days she’d tried to free herself when she was first captured, desperate to get to her son. Her anguish rippled through him, and he felt his knees going weak.
“Stand down, Soldier,” Fox yelled, any veneer of calm gone from his voice.
“Get the fuck out of here.”
Fox nearly stepped away. He nearly turned and ran. He could knock on the chief commander’s door and tell him what Rogo was doing. But then the man pulled the whip from the small weapons rack along the wall, and he watched in frozen horror as the lash came down onto the girl. The snap echoed in the pit and sank into Fox’s bones with a coldshudder. The softest of whimpers fell from the girl’s lips. And he acted without thought.
The man didn’t turn as Fox lunged forward, grabbing him by the collar of his shirt and throwing him off the girl. He hit the cold stone floor with a crack, and then Fox was on him. He was weaponless, but he’d learned how to fight with his fists. Red painted his vision even as blood splattered his face, his fists crashing down over and over again. He felt the soft give of tissue beneath his knuckles and then the crunching of gristle and bone. His broken finger throbbed with pain that he ignored. The rage that had been simmering beneath his skin for weeks was released as he let his fists rain down.
Pale One.