She kicked again, breaking the second panel of glass. Motion sensors or cameras must not be watching the cells. She froze, listening, stretching her hearing. She kicked with her heel, shattering the first panel. The glass was double-paned, secured with a latch on the outside.

The pain was a tiny blip in her consciousness, and then her brain pushed the feeling aside. As her shoulder popped from its socket, a small gasp escaped her. Thea reached across her body, grabbing her left wrist with her right hand. If she angled her body while sliding through the window, her hips would pass easily. The widest part of Thea was her shoulders, not hips, and she’d never been more happy for it. Little more than a meter and a half tall, roughly forty-seven kilograms in weight, with a figure like an inverted pyramid. When she’s first surveyed the room, Thea though the window in the door was too small to fit her. She’d told him she had one just moments earlier – her first words spoken to him telepathically. They were monsters together now, forever altered by the contagion they’d encountered on Achlys.

There was only Coen Rivli, the boy monster in the cell beside hers. No matter how hard she stretched the limits of her now-extraordinary hearing, she couldn’t make out their heartbeats. It was meant to serve as a passage for food, so that guards could pass meals to her. She cocked her head, considering the small window in the base of the door.

Not a room or personal quarters, but a cell. There was no mincing words that’s what it was. ALTHEA SADICK STOOD IN FRONT of the door to her holding cell.

Immunity erin bowman