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The tunnel eventually opened out into a cavern larger than anything Hope had ever seen in her life, lit from end to end with hundreds of torches, turning the place into a grotto fit for a fairy king or queen. But Hope's pleasure in the sight was shattered when she saw Jhansi standing on the ledge near where the tunnel let out, and with a snarl of incoherent rage, Hope clambered out of the water and threw herself at the Pandoran woman with intent to kill her with her bare hands. Jhansi, however, proved herself slicker than a snake; in short order, Hope found herself on the ground, and she spat out dirt and blood as she tried to get up, only to find Jhansi's foot planted firmly in her back. "Haven't you humiliated me enough?" Hope demanded. "It's not enough you put me on a train to hell, but then you show up just when I thought I was free of you! What the hell is going on?"
"I had to do this," Jhansi said, her voice tight with anger. "If you hadn't acted up in Isonor, I wouldn't have been forced to send you on a different train. But I had no choice!"
Hope almost laughed. "You had no choice," she said. "My God. They really taught you how to lie in that police academy, didn't they? You knew full well where you were sending me, and the moment I get full use of my hands, I'll beat you to a bloody pulp!"
"Shut up!" Jhansi snapped, seizing her by the hair and hauling her to her feet. Her pupils were dilated to the point her irises couldn't be seen, and had she a tail, it'd be fluffed out to twice its size. "You have no idea what you're doing," the policewoman said. "I have to do this - otherwise I'll get my fur handed to me on a silver plate, without so much as a chance to say goodbye to my daughter!"
"What the hell are you talking about?" Hope demanded, rubbing her skull and cursing the Pandoran woman's strength. "You won't tell me what's going on, so how the hell do you expect me to act? I'm supposed to go meekly along like a lamb to the slaughter? Is that what you did to Saanvi's mother? To all the other mothers who supposedly 'miscarried' their children, only to be drugged and induced into early labor?"
Jhansi took a deep breath. "If I don't do this the right way," she said through gritted teeth, "you and I, and the women you're so carelessly endagering, are all going to die, very slowly, and very painfully. I'm doing this the way I've been taught, and your loud mouth is risking our skins almost as much as if I'd brought you here directly!"
"You don't expect me to trust you, not with the way you've been treating me ever since you hauled me off to the lockup," Hope pointed out. "If you don't at least give me some sort of hint, I'll go back into the pool and find my own way back."
"You can't," Jhansi said, sounding almost apologetic. "You may have worked it out already, but if you go back into the water, you'll drown. The moment you came out was the moment the defences came back up; if you go back in, you'll be at the mercy of the creatures who live on the bottom, and they are not kind. They'll drag you down, and likely devour you while you're still drowning. Not a pleasant way to go, and I'm sure you don't want to find out what happens when you piss off the people into whose care you've been thrust, whether you like it or not."
"There you go, spinning more crap," Hope said, folding her arms. "Look, just tell me straight; are we about to walk into another abandoned city? Or are we going back to Isonor where I'll be subject to yet another stint in jail before you put me on the correct train back to Earth?"
"No and no," Jhansi said. "And that's all I'm telling you, unless you can promise me you'll grow the fuck up and actually listen to what I'm saying!"
Hope rolled her eyes. "Let's just get this farce over with," she said crossly. "I really don't give two shits anymore."
Jhansi sighed. "I wish I could tell you more," she said, sounding regretful for the first time since the whole jail incident. "But if I did, I'd be in more trouble than you could ever imagine, not just from the guardians of this place, but from the people back home. Right now, there's not a lot keeping them from being able to get into my head; if I say the wrong thing, they will get in, and then we're all dead, do you understand me?"
"No," Hope said bluntly. "But I suppose it's going to have to do for now."
"Then follow me, and keep your damn mouth shut," Jhansi told her curtly. "If you dare speak until I say you can, I'll throw you in the pool myself and take great comfort out of getting rid of an insolent child who hasn't the sense to keep her big mouth shut!"
This seemed like bait, but Hope wasn't going to rise to it, and she fell in behind Jhansi, wondering what sort of fresh hell awaited her. She no longer hoped it would be better than the ghost city she'd left behind; in fact, she felt the ghost city and all its horrors would be far preferable to what waited for her on the other side of the cavern.
93Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡCHlLqLtG5O
