“I don’t… feel well.” Mera began to sat up, only to collapse back down.
Carissa rushed to her side. “Don’t move. You’ve taken quite a few hits to the head.” And a rather brutal one to the stomach. Carissa swallowed back bile. Hopefully the baby was still small enough that there wasn’t any damage…
Mera’s struggled to sit up again. “I just need to lean on something.”
“I’m afraid that’s not an option.”
“What do you mean?”
Carissa glanced at the walls. They shimmered with thousands of needle-sized spikes, like a black lake beneath moonlight. “The walls here are the same as the walls of the city.” Judging from the bloods and scraps of shriveled skin, a few of the cell’s previous inhabitants had figured that out the hard way.
Mera moaned, her eyes fluttering closed. She drove her fingers through her hair. When she drew them away, they were glossy with blood.
Carissa drew her hand back. “Don’t touch your wound. This cell is filthy.” She was doing her best not to think of the substances staining her trousers.
“Now what?” Mera croaked.
“We wait.”
“Until he comes back to torture us?”
Carissa drew her knees up to her chest. This was not the end she’d had in mind.
Mera stared up at the ceiling, tears wiping the scum from her cheeks as they rolled down her skin. “What was the point of all of this?”