3. Disappointment

“Up!”

Remora groaned, shedding the last tatters of unsettling dreams.

The voice spoke again, more insistently. “Up, girl. Inebriates are allowed no more than six hours in the recovery room.”

Blearily, she opened her eyes, then immediately wished she hadn’t. Light stabbed through her half-opened lids and burst painfully against the back of her skull. With a gasp, she lifted her hand to her head, feeling a tender lump beneath her leather cap.

Why did her head hurt? She remembered the bar, and that brutish, smelly captain accosting her. Then another man had come up and a fight had broken out. Someone had hit her with something. She hadn’t seen who or with what, but it must have knocked her out.

She’d never been knocked unconscious before. In the novels she read, the hero or heroine awakened from being knocked unconscious to find themselves either in dire peril or in the safe arms of their loved ones.

Tentatively, she peeked through a half-lidded eye at her surroundings. The small cot upon which she lay had only a single thin blanket. Boring cement walls that had once been painted a wan green framed the room. A solid metal door cut into the far wall and a single uniformed woman stood in the doorway holding a clipboard and tapping an impatient foot against the floor.

Remora was most certainly not in loving, safe arms. Nor did she find herself tied to a doomsday apparatus while villainous cackles peppered the air around her: no dire peril, either.

Disappointed, she frowned. As a matter of fact, the books never mentioned the splitting headache she was currently experiencing, either. The hero always sprang immediately back into action with a ready energy she most certainly did not share. Her arms and legs felt useless and sluggish.

Granted, it wasn’t as though she’d intended to experience being knocked out, but she had to admit, the reality fell rather annoyingly shy of the fantasy. Were she home, she might consider writing a sternly worded letter to an author or two for their duplicity.

Were she home . . . The thought sent a jolt of panic through her. Fumbling, she moved the hand from her head and quickly pressed it against her ribcage. She was still wearing her corset beneath her borrowed coveralls. The rush of relief was so strong that she closed her eyes and simply lay still. She’d hated the constant requirement to wear a corset when she was a child, but now it acted as a familiar shield. She was safe, so long as she had her corset.

She allowed herself only a moment to relax. She was, after all, Lady Remora Windgates Price. Weakness was not a Price personality trait. Tenacity, her father often admonished her, was what made a Price different. She certainly wasn’t about to let a little bump on the head keep her down!

As she rose to a seated position, the guard made an impatient sound, clucking her tongue against the roof of her mouth. “You’re moving. Good. If you’re nauseous, it would be appreciated if you’d use the bucket provided to you at the head of your cot. It saves us a great deal of cleaning up after.”

Horrified, she glanced down to the object in question. Primly, she said, “Thank you, but I do not believe that will be necessary.” Remora swayed gently, her stomach rebelling, but she quashed the feeling. Really, what sort of person vomited into a bucket in public? The entire situation was unthinkable.

“Excellent.” The guard checked something off on her clipboard. “You have exactly five minutes left before your mandated six hours of recovery are over. I recommend you spend that time standing up and walking. If you find yourself unable to walk, protocol dictates I call in another guard to carry you to your holding cell.” The guard tapped the end of her pencil impatiently against the top edge of the clipboard.

How dreadfully rude. To suggest that she might need to be carried, like a sack of potatoes or a large puppy! Remora lifted her chin, then rose to her feet. Her stomach sloshed uncomfortably, but she ignored it and instead leveled a superior look at the guard.

“Congratulations,” the guard said in a droll tone. “You can stand. Now, I want you to do it again, only this time against the far wall, next to the cot.”

“Pardon me?” Remora blinked at the woman. She might not be feeling up to her normal observant self, but that seemed a singularly odd request.

The guard pulled a pair of handcuffs from her belt and dangled them meaningfully. She pointed to Remora. “You. Stand against the far wall.” Her hand moved to point to a nearby wall. “I am going to handcuff you in accordance with Standard Prisoner Transportation Statute 4.1, and then we’re going to walk from the recovery room to the holding cell.”

Prisoner Transportation . . . by the light of the dawn­star, she was in prison! How fascinating! She’d never been to prison before. “Oh, I hadn’t realized!” Excited, she took another glance around. She should remember as many details as she could. It wasn’t every day that she had the opportunity to experience imprisonment! She turned to the guard, brown eyes sparkling. “Please, what are the charges against me?”

The guard frowned at her eagerness. “You are currently being held for public inebriation and charges of participating in altercations which lead to the destruction of private property on the grounds of a bar known as . . . ” here the guard flipped a page on her clipboard, her eyebrows raising, “the Jolly Rooster.”

“Marvelous!” Remora breathed.

The guard’s frown returned. “Ma’am, this is not a joke.”

Hastily, Remora lifted her hands. “Oh, no, I didn’t mean to imply that it was. You wanted me to stand against the far wall, you said? With my hands behind my back, I assume?”

The guard’s eyes narrowed. “Yes,” she replied shortly.

Remora moved to the spot and folded her arms behind her back. To think, she might be knocked out and imprisoned, all in one night! What an adventure!

After a pause, the guard moved forward and swiftly cuffed her wrists.

“Now turn.”

Remora did, testing the handcuffs tentatively. If she absolutely needed to, she might be able to slip her wrists from the metal, but not without considerable bruising, which would be unsightly and difficult to explain at parties. She glanced over her shoulder. The guard’s keys dangled from a large ring on her hip. That was important to note, just in case she needed to instigate a jailbreak. Heroes were always stealing keys from prison guards.

“Face forward!” the guard barked.

Startled, she swiveled her head back around. She imagined this particular prison guard might be more difficult to finesse than the average literary constable: she was far too attentive.

“Through the door and to your right.”

Meekly, she obeyed, though her eyes darted around the room and subsequent hallway. It didn’t look much like a prison. At least, not the way they were described in the books. No stench of mildew or vague odor of urine—she smelled a hint of bleach, but that was about it. The walls appeared solid enough, though the paint was obviously faded with time. Most of the cells they passed were empty, and even the ones that were occupied held silent prisoners—not a single ravening murderer in the bunch. The metal bars were clean and rust-free, and despite taking extra care to watch for them, she saw not one roach or rat during her trip from the recovery room to the holding cell.

All in all, she had to admit it was a rather disappoint­ing prison.