CHAPTER 55: CHAPTER 55; BUYING FREEDOM 2

He returned to the couch, settling in to wait.

— — — — —

No sooner had they settled in than they suddenly heard the sound of heavy boots echoing down the corridor, and they stopped just outside their cell with a finality that cut through the drowsy peace they’d achieved.

Keys immediately rattled and the lock clicked.

The door swung open and there they could see each other.

Guard Wu stood in the doorway, his flashlight cutting through the darkness. "Lin Shuyin. You’re coming with us."

At that sudden command, Tank was off her bunk instantly, massive frame coiled and ready. "Where are you taking her?"

"That’s none of your concern," Guard Wu responded, but there was something different in his tone. Not the usual cruelty, but something closer to wariness. "Move. Now."

Blade had opened her eyes, her entire body tense. "It’s past midnight. Where could you possibly need to take her at this hour?"

"I said move!" Guard Wu’s voice rose, but it carried an edge of nervousness rather than authority.

Razor scrambled off her bunk, placing herself between the door and Shuyin’s upper bunk. "She’s not going anywhere without an explanation. You want her, you go through us."

The tension in the cell ratcheted up instantly. Three women, still riding the adrenaline high from their impossible victory, are ready to fight again despite the consequences. Guard Wu’s hand moved toward his baton, but another guard appeared behind him, equally armed.

This was about to turn violent.

"Stop."

Shuyin’s voice cut through the tension, her voice icy cold. She sat up on her bunk, moving with fluid grace, her jade eyes casting an eerie glow in the darkness.

"Princess, they....." Tank stuttered but immediately shut up gazing at those eyes.

"I said stop." Shuyin swung her legs over the side of the bunk, dropping to the floor with barely a sound. She walked past her cellmates, past their protective instincts, moving toward the door with calm purpose. "Everything is under control. Don’t act impulsively..."

With her current situation, no human should be able to hurt her, no matter how many of them there will be... And if they dared to, she wouldn’t mind letting blood rain.... She already hated humans...

"How can you possibly know that?" Blade demanded, though she didn’t move to stop her.

Shuyin paused at the threshold, turning to look back at them. Her jade eyes seemed to see through them, past them, into possibilities they couldn’t comprehend. "Because if they wanted to harm me, they wouldn’t come with just two guards. They’d bring a dozen. This is something else."

"What kind of something else?" Razor asked, her voice small, worried.

"The kind that might change everything." Shuyin stepped into the corridor. "Or nothing at all. Either way, fighting now only sends you to isolation. Stay here. Wait. I’ll return."

Before any of them could protest further, she was gone, walking between the two guards who closed ranks around her but didn’t touch her, didn’t grab her arms the way they normally would with prisoners.

The cell door clanged shut, the lock clicking into place.

Tank, Blade, and Razor stood in the darkness, listening to the footsteps fade down the corridor.

"That was stupid," Tank muttered, though her voice lacked conviction. "We should have fought."

"She told us not to," Blade said quietly, moving back to her bunk. "And she was right. Fighting would have accomplished nothing."

"So we just wait here cluelessly?" Razor’s voice trembled slightly. "Just sit here while they take her somewhere no one knows in the middle of the night?"

"We wait," Blade confirmed, settling back into her meditation pose though her eyes remained open, watchful. "We trust that she knows what she’s doing."

"Trust," Tank repeated, the word heavy with skepticism. "How can it be? We have to trust her?"

"Yes," Blade said simply. "Because she’s protected us twice now. And because we don’t have any other choice."

The cell fell silent again, but this time the quiet was different, charged with anxiety, with questions, with the terrible uncertainty of not knowing whether they’d see their cellmate again.

Or what would return in her place if they did?

The walk through the prison was longer than Shuyin expected. They took her through corridors and corridors she hadn’t seen before, past administrative offices and storage rooms, moving steadily away from the cells and the sounds of incarcerated humanity.

Neither of the guards spoke to her. Their tension was palpable, radiating off them like heat. They were probably afraid of her, and that’s what she thought. Word had spread about the fight, about Guard Chen’s mysterious collapse, about something being fundamentally wrong with the woman they were escorting.

Good.

Fear was the most useful thing in prison.

They stopped in front of a door that didn’t belong in a prison. It was too nice, too clean, and too expensive. One of the guards knocked twice, waited, then opened it.

"Inside," Guard Wu said, gesturing with his flashlight.

Shuyin stepped through the doorway into a room that could have been transplanted from a luxury hotel. Her jade eyes swept across the space, cataloging every detail, the expensive furniture, the artwork, the private bathroom....

And then, her gaze landed on a figure seated on the couch. For a moment, she simply stared.

He was... Very striking. Beautiful and handsome in equal measure, with features that seemed almost too refined to be entirely human. But what caught her attention most was his hair, silver, mid-length, neither too long nor too short, catching the dim light with an otherworldly sheen.

It reminded her of something. The silver foxes that swam through the deepest trenches of her ocean home, creatures of legend even among her kind.

Without thinking, driven by curiosity and impulse, she moved forward and stretched out her hand to touch those silver strands.

Before her fingers could make contact, the man moved his head sharply and his hand shot up to swat hers away. But Shuyin’s reflexes were faster, inhumanly fast. She withdrew her hand before he could touch her.