Page 30 of To Cage a Wild Bird (Divided Fates #1)

His lips opened to reveal a rotten smile, his brown teeth glistening in the dim glow from the nearby sconce as his toothpick

fell, forgotten, to the ground. “You don’t mean that.”

I spat in his face, watching with satisfaction as his smile dropped and my saliva slipped down his cheek. Then he backhanded me hard enough that my neck snapped to the side. Stars swam before my eyes.

“Behave, and I won’t have to do that again,” he whispered. He lifted his fingers, reaching for the zipper of my jumpsuit.

No.

I glanced around desperately, but none of the cameras within sight bore a blinking red light. None of them would witness what

Mort was trying to do to me.

I clawed at his arm, tearing into his flesh, feeling his skin open beneath my nails. He growled, rearing back to deliver another

blow.

“Mort. Let her go.”

Vale stood in the corridor, his hands clenched into fists at his sides, so tight his knuckles were turning white. The veins

in his neck pulsed as his eyes bored into the arm Mort had banded over me.

I held my breath.

“Come to join me?” Mort’s eyes flitted to Vale.

As soon as his eyes were off me, my instincts kicked in, and I lifted my knee up, driving it into his balls.

“Ahh!” Mort cried out, dropping his hands from me and leaning over to cradle himself.

I couldn’t help the cruel smile that twisted my lips.

To his credit, Mort recovered faster than I’d anticipated, and I wasn’t ready when he stood, drawing his fist back.

He swung it forward and I flinched.

But the blow never came.

I opened my eyes to see Vale’s hand clamped around Mort’s wrist.

“Leave,” Vale said, his voice rough. A muscle feathered in his jaw.

Mort finally seemed to take stock of Vale’s mood and ripped his arm from his grip. I scuttled away from him instead of giving

in to the urge to claw his eyes from his disgusting face.

“Come with me,” Vale said to me without taking his eyes off Mort.

“I’ll—er, get back to my duties,” Mort spluttered, eyes flitting between us for a moment, before he hustled toward the steps

that led to Endlock’s main level.

Vale turned, gripping me by the elbow and pulling me after him.

“Where are we going?” I managed to say in a grating whisper, betraying the uneasiness that scraped beneath my skin.

We’d reached the stairs, but instead of taking them, we veered right, heading down another dark corridor.

“There’s a locker room for the guards down here,” Vale murmured, his soft voice at odds with the tension that filled his body.

“There aren’t any shift changes for an hour, so it should be empty. You can shower in private, and I’ll keep watch.”

Another kindness but still no answers about who he truly was. Why he was helping me.

“The cameras?” I asked, looking down the hallway. There were many more of them that we’d pass on our way.

“Off,” Vale said without missing a beat. “None of the basement ones are on rotation at this time of day. Energy conservation.”

I tucked away that bit of information.

I needed to scrub the filth of the last week and the feeling of Mort’s touch from my skin, and I knew I’d be too nervous to

shower in the communal bathroom where Perri could launch another attack on me while I was weak.

But the thought of showering in a locker room where a guard could walk in without warning had another finger of dread clamping

around my heart—Mort couldn’t be the only one of them who liked to corner inmates in the dark.

But Vale would be there.

I was jolted by the realization that Vale being with me made me feel safe . When had that happened?

I fisted the fabric of my jumpsuit in my hands to stop them from shaking as we made our way down the hall in silence. I pushed

Mort from my mind, refusing to linger on what might’ve happened in the gloom of the corridor if Vale hadn’t found us. I told

myself that even if Vale hadn’t arrived, I would have killed Mort before I let him have me.

“What else is down here?” I asked, noticing the hall veered off in another direction at the end.

“The shared dormitory for the guards and some private quarters.”

“Who gets private quarters?”

“Larch has his own upstairs. Down here it’s mostly senior guards.”

“Does that include you?”

He nodded, then looked away, as if the revelation embarrassed him.

Vale had his own room and was considered a senior guard when he’d only worked at Endlock for a year. I was missing something.

Another piece in an inscrutable puzzle.

We reached a door that swung inward and didn’t seem to be protected by any kind of locking mechanism. Vale poked his head

into the room, confirmed it was empty, and then placed a hand on my lower back to usher me inside, the warmth of his skin

seeping through my uniform.

An L-shaped wall of lockers took up most of the space, some sealed shut and others with doors hanging off their hinges, with

garments spilling out onto the floor. The benches in front of them stood littered with stockings, a molding tray of food from

the mess hall, and all manner of rubbish.

Vale led me past a dividing wall toward a line of showers that were mercifully fitted with curtains. He motioned me toward

the nearest shower, and I stepped inside fully clothed.

I let out a breath when I found the stall much cleaner than the rest of the room had suggested.

“Give me your uniform,” Vale commanded from the other side of the curtain.

I blanched but recovered quickly. At least he couldn’t see my reaction—I could feign arrogance more easily this way. Hide

the fear that had overtaken me in the corridor. “Okay. But don’t even think about peeking. Seeing me naked is a privilege,

guard. And not one that can be bought with a hot shower and a couple of ration bars.”

He choked, and I bit my lip.

I unzipped my jumpsuit and stuck my hand through the curtain to hand him the saturated uniform, surrendering the filthy garment

without bothering to ask what he planned to do with it, and stepped under the stream of water.

A sigh slipped past my lips as the first scalding droplets kissed my skin.

There was soap .

I placed my palms flat on the tiled wall and hung my head under the spray of water, letting my hair curtain around me as I

took deep breaths, and tried to fight the images barreling through my mind.

In , two, three, four.

Aggie in my apartment, telling me Jed had been sent to Endlock.

Out , two, three, four.

Momo on the hunting grounds with a rifle pointed at his head.

In, two, three, four.

Torin crawling, begging, then taking his last breath. A guard pulling the teeth from his unmoving mouth.

Out, two, three, four.

The Blood Tree covered in crimson stains.

In, two, three, four.

The endless darkness.

Out, two, three, four.

Mort with his hands all over me.

I counted, over and over, until my breaths slowed and it didn’t feel like my heart was going to beat out of my chest any longer.

I stayed under the stream for as long as I could rationalize, scrubbing at my skin until it was red and tingling, working

at my hair until the worst of the knots were untangled. I even let a few tears leak from my eyes. Then I pushed the curtain

aside, snatching a towel from a nearby hook and wrapping it around my body.

“Vale?” My voice echoed softly in the open space of the locker room. “Are you still here?”

He appeared from around the corner, stopping in his tracks upon seeing me in the towel. His eyes darkened, and he ran a hand

through his hair to push it off his forehead. “I threw your uniform away. You don’t need it now, anyway. Larch upped your

ranking to an eight while you were in solitary. You’re in the Upper level now.”

My mouth dropped open. “What? How?”

“Don’t think of it as a good thing, Little Bird. I told you that hurting a hunter would make you seem more dangerous—Larch is counting on it. He’s advertising on what happened, in an attempt to save his ass. And promoting you to a Green means he can make more credits off you.”

Vale extended a new forest-green jumpsuit toward me. I reached for it, but a creaking sound interrupted us before our hands

could meet—the sound of the locker room door swinging open.

My heart leaped into my throat.

We stood, frozen.

The showers were hidden by the partition wall, out of sight from the rest of the locker room, but there was no telling whether

the intruder would come around the corner and spot us.

Before I could work out what to do next, Vale’s arms snaked around me, drawing me back into the shower stall I’d vacated.

The curtain fell closed, shrouding us in semidarkness. We stood chest to chest.

Footsteps stomped around the locker room on the other side of the curtain, each step threatening to bring the person closer

to discovering us.

I felt the rhythmic rise and fall of Vale’s chest against mine, his chin grazing the top of my head. Each breath he took sent

a cascade of warmth through my wet hair.

My breath quickened, my heartbeat surging. Only a thin scrap of material stood as a barrier between Vale and my bare skin.

His fingers firmly gripped the small of my back, maintaining the towel’s precarious hold on my body. Heat bloomed in my cheeks,

and I breathed in his clean smell.

It should have been the last thing on my mind, but all I could think of was the night we met and his urgent lips on mine in

the alley—the way he’d tasted and the way his skin had felt beneath my fingertips—

I let out a breath.

I needed to focus on remaining quiet. Kit and Yara had told me that some prisoners traded their bodies for favors, but I knew

guards weren’t supposed to fraternize with inmates—the Council thought it could create a bond and cause them to sympathize

with us.

Vale would have difficulty explaining himself if whoever was in the locker room caught us.

Vale shifted his grip, fingers tracing comforting patterns along my spine, over the towel, and then over the damp skin of

my upper back where the fabric ended.

“It’s okay,” he breathed, the soft promise in his voice working to calm my rising panic. “I’ve got you.”

My arms grew tighter around him, but instead of resisting, he leaned into my embrace.

Who are you? I wanted to ask again. It wasn’t so much that he’d changed—more like he’d been hiding behind a mask ever since I was brought

to Endlock. And finally, he was showing me the man I’d first met at Vern’s.

His hand trailed over the back of my shoulder, reaching the raised lines of my strike marks.

He stopped his perusal of my skin, his body going impossibly still as his fingers lingered on my scars. I couldn’t even feel

him breathing beneath me.

The footsteps grew distant, fainter and fainter, until we heard the creak of the locker room door once more, and they faded

entirely down the corridor.

I sighed, the tension draining from my frame. I looked up, finding Vale’s eyes mere inches from mine, our breaths entwined.

Vale seemed to shake himself from his thoughts. He flexed his fingers, moving his hand from my shoulder, and at the same time,

I remembered myself, jumping back to put space between us.

Vale was a guard . No matter what he said or how much he’d helped me, he wasn’t someone to trust or to touch—he was someone I hoped to use , however I could, to get out of Endlock. I’d been starved of companionship while in solitary, but I couldn’t let my craving

for closeness distract me from my purpose.

“I’ll go check everything out,” Vale said, voice hushed, even though there was no longer cause to whisper.

And then he slipped from the shower stall.

I discarded my towel and slid into the new jumpsuit Vale had left for me, its cold fabric sticking to my damp skin. I was yanking the zipper up when I heard his returning footsteps.

“All clear,” his rumbling voice came, cool and detached, with no trace of softness remaining.

I cleared my throat and stepped around the curtain, wiping my sweaty palms on my thighs as he guided me into the hall.