Page 1 of Bought for Blood

Chapter 1

Serenity

My feet find the concrete before my eyes open. Cold climbs up through the soles first, same as always. I fold the blanket—corners squared, the way the morning guard likes it—my fingers stiff at the knuckle, slow to close. They used to shake after the blood draws. Now they don’t. I don’t know if that means I’m stronger, or if my body’s just decided to stop fighting it.

The lights buzz on at six, and everyone starts moving—bare feet on concrete, blankets rustling, the shuffle toward the yellow line down the center aisle. I stand too fast. The room tips left, holds, then levels. I ride it out with my hand on the cell frame, the warded metal warming under my palm, then quiet again. Three breaths and my eyes clear. Four and I can walk.

I’m in the middle of the line this morning. Cell six is empty, blanket folded on the cot as if nobody slept in it last night. Nobody did. And I’ve learned not to ask what happened to the one who was in there.

I find my place and count rivets on the beam overhead to keep from thinking about anything else.

Forty-one to the weld.

The line inches toward the steel table at the front. The Monday nurse is already there, snapping her gloves. Small, quick, hair scraped back so tight it must pull. I call her Monday because I’ve never learned her real name; they rarely wear tags around here. I guess I wouldn’t want to be identified either if I worked in this place.

The boy ahead of me arrived two weeks ago. “Please don’t use the right arm,” he says. Seventeen, maybe less, some kind of hedge-witch blood in him; I can smell it through the bleach if I try, faint and green. My nose used to be better than this. A lot of things used to be better than this.

“Not the right,” he repeats. “Please.”

I can see the infection from where I’m standing, the red running up his arm in threads. Monday finds his vein through it, slides the needle in, tapes it down. The tube fills. His wrist looks too thin for the tubing.

Someone should be treating that arm, not drawing off it.

His shoulders are heaving. He can’t get it to stop. I look at the rivets instead of at him.

My wolf shifts at the sound he makes, a flicker of attention, gone before it settles into anything. She’s silent again quickly. She conserves now. Has for months. The runes on my cuffs burn low and constant against both wrists, just enough to keep the shift locked down. The wards in the cell walls do the rest. Between the cuffs and the wards, she can’t fight back. The draws weaken what’s left after that. She’s quiet inside me, breathing slow. Waiting for something worth the cost.

“Does it hurt?” A voice close behind me, quiet. The new girl. Arrived yesterday, still wearing her own shoes, skin holding the smell of outside. Rain. Soap. Something warmer underneath.

“Only if you let them see it does.”

She looks at the inside of my elbow. I know what she’s seeing: scars stacked on scars, the crook so overworked that the newest puncture barely stands out from the rest. My elbow doesn’t straighten all the way anymore. Hasn’t for months.

“How long have you—?”

“Long enough,” I murmur. “Don’t count the days. Doesn’t help.”

She’s not going to last a month like this.

“Okay,” she says. She’s fidgeting behind me, shoes scuffing on the concrete. I know that fidget. I did it too, in the first weeks, before I learned to keep still. Anything that moves draws eyes. Eyes bring attention. Attention here just makes things worse.

I reach around and tug her sleeve down past the crook of her arm, covering the vein, before Monday’s gaze gets that far down the line.

She flinches. “What are you—?”

“Left arm’s harder to hit. She’ll go right instead. Hurts the same. Bruises less.”

“How do you know all this?”

“I pay attention.” I face forward again. “Eat something if they gave you anything. Before the draw, not after. Doesn’t help much. Helps some.”

She’s quiet. Then: “What’s your name?”

“Nineteen.”

“That’s not a name.”

“It is in here.”