Page 87 of Break Out the Girl

Why is she just standing there?

I angle my head to one side. Yikes.

A pair of cuffs clamp her wrists tight behind the post. Not the police kind or the fluffy sex kind, but ones with a big, glowy digital LED display on the band.

The ferns split near the edge of the clearing and I’m not surprised to see Burt there, low on his belly. He looks from the girl, to me, then around the glade. Right, cameras.

There.

One is trained on the sad girl, so I immediately hop over to move it.

That done, I somersault down, landing in the mud next to her.

She lets out a shriek, knees giving out completely as she tries to shrink into the ground.

“Hush, now,” I whisper. She looks like a broken bird. I once found a pigeon with a mangled wing. He liked it best when I spoke low and slow, so I do the same now. “I’m not going to hurt you.”

“They’re coming,” she sobs, her teeth chattering so hard I can hear the ivories click. That’s when I notice the numbers changing on the electronic cuffs. I watch them go from 00:07:42.

00:07:41

00:07:40

A countdown.

“When the horn blows, the cuffs undo and I have to run,” she moans. “They’ll catch me.”

“Not on your nelly,” I tell her comfortingly. “Let old London think for a mo’.”

I could shatter the restraints with my mighty faun-hand, but I figure that might send an alert to someone nasty.

Oh, I’ve got it.

I grip the iron post and with a mighty heave, I rip the entire thing straight out of the earth with a wet, sucking pop. The girl, post and I topple over.

I flash her a reassuring grin, then wrap one arm around her waist, hauling her flush against my chest. Then I launch us straight back into the air.

We rocket up into the branches, the girl giving little peeps of excitement. Once we’re forty feet above the ground, I deposit her onto a wide junction of oak boughs. Her, and the iron post that is still cuffed to her wrists.

“Stay hidden up here in the leaves,” I tell her, wiping the rainwater from her forehead. “Nobody ever looks up. I’ll come back for you when the coast is clear. Cross my heart and hope to die.”

My pigeon-friend nods frantically, her tear-streaked face pale. “Thank you… oh gods, thank you.” Pigeons are super at directions, and that gives me an idea.

“Do you know where a girl called Sky is?” I ask, leaning close because the howling rain and wind keeps trying to butt in. “Is she out here too?”

Pigeon’s eyes widen in what looks more like horror than surprise. She points a shaky finger toward the heart of the deep forest.

“She got picked as the special prize,” the girl gasps. “Took her out hours ago then came back laughing. We heard what they said. They…they…”

“They what?” I try a couple of gentle coos to see if that puts her at ease.

“They buried her. She’s in a box, under the mud.”

My heart stops dead in my chest. That is not OK. Not OK at all.

Boxes under the mud are coffins. Kitten’s friend is in a coffin?

“Is she dead?” I ask, feeling sick about what I know the answer is going to be.