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Primrose was sick of Vervain.
After Hazel's escape, she was certain the police captain had put her under close watch. She saw him everywhere, every day. Sneering down at her at silflay, watching coldly in the Mark burrow. Even with Blackavar helping her keep a look out, she was rarely left unsupervised long enough to continue work on the escape tunnel. Even when the sentries were inattentive, Vervain was not.
Something about him made her shiver. No, not just a nebulous something—it was the knowledge of what he'd done to a thousand other rabbits before her. He wasn't Woundwort's captain of police for nothing. She shuddered to think what he might do if he caught her trying to escape again.
I'll make you scream for the Black Rabbit, he'd promised. He was watching her for an excuse. He wanted her to try.
It wouldn't dissuade her. She had to get out of here. She just had to be…careful.
Coming in from night silflay, Primrose was tired. Much of the day, when she ought to have been asleep, she'd been digging the escape tunnel. Her natural rhythm had kept her awake in the burrows during the evening hours, though she would have much preferred to go up and eat then, and then as the night wore on the guards had called the Mark aboveground. Vervain, for once, hadn't been there, but there was no peace under the watchful eyes of the sentries either. There was no peace anywhere in Efrafa.
She didn't have the energy to work on her tunnel right now. She'd do better to sleep and digest the grass she'd eaten that night so that she'd have the strength to dig when she woke. She tucked in on herself at the far end of the Mark, in one of the side burrows, and shut her eyes. A cool relief stole over her at the idea of sleep. She paid no mind to the pawsteps and shuffling around her; Efrafa was too crowded to ever be quiet.
Barely an instant later a sharp voice roused her.
"I think it's time we had a little conversation."
Her senses poured back into her in a river of ice. She froze in place even as her heartbeat skyrocketed and her fur stood on end. She could feel him standing over her.
Slowly, she opened her eyes and turned to face Vervain.
"Thinking of running?" he leered.
"I'm only going to sleep," she said evenly. The others in the Mark burrow had moved away from them.
He scowled at her. "Going to sleep, sir," he prompted.
Primrose reflexively wrinkled her nose in disgust. Vervain cuffed her across the face.
She took a deep breath, refusing to react even as a sharp pain bloomed on her cheek and faded to a throb. She didn't want to give him the satisfaction of seeing her in pain. Still, she'd go along as much as she could right now. She had no illusions about the danger she was in. Vervain was an officer, she was a Mark doe—he could do anything short of killing her. No one would stop him. She couldn't count on Campion for help again, either; he was out on Wide Patrol. And who else could stand up to a captain and get away with it?
She sat up without a word.
Vervain watched her unblinkingly. "You spoke with Hazel that day, didn't you?"
Primrose's heart skipped a beat. "There wasn't much to speak about," she said calmly.
"He must have told you something. Something about his warren, his friends, where he came from."
"No. I told him about Efrafa."
Vervain laughed, high and ugly. "I saw you two together. You were talking about something more cheerful than Efrafa."
Primrose was quiet.
"Answer me!" Vervain snapped.
"I don't know what to say."
He pressed in close, his muzzle a whisker away from hers. "Tell me where to find his warren," he hissed.
"I don't know." It wasn't even a lie: All she knew was that it was in the high hills, and those hills could be anywhere. Of course, if she did know, she wouldn't tell the bloodsucker. It would destroy Hazel and her one true chance at freedom.
"I know you're going to run again," Vervain growled, breath hot and rank on her face. "I know you're thinking about it every moment. I want to know where you plan to run to."
"I haven't been out of Efrafa in seasons," Primrose said shortly. "How should I know where to run? Surely the great Wide Patrols can find out more than I can." She latched onto one thing: She could not implicate Blackavar. He was already in enough danger, having been caught running twice. Even if Vervain already knew she was planning something, she had to make him believe it was only her.
Vervain hissed out an impatient breath. "Don't play games with me."
"I don't know anything." Keeping her voice calm and even was exhausting when she was already so tired. "May I go to sleep?"
He cocked his head, considering, then grinned at her. "No."
Her stomach dropped. No?
He watched her for a reaction. She didn't give him one. She sat there, impassive as could be, hoping he would get bored.
"No, I think we'll talk instead," he continued. "You won't tell me what I want to know? I'll tell you a thing or two." He sat down, too close, pressing against her and penning her into a corner. "I saw you and Hazel that day. I know he said something to you. I know he's going to come back—and what do you think will happen when he does?"
He waited, then resumed in a smug hiss, "Do you think he stands a chance against Efrafa's Owsla? Against Woundwort? He escaped once through a fluke, a trick—do you think it would happen again? Will you stake your life on that? His life?"
Primrose didn't think he actually expected an answer. He kept on. She tried not to listen.
"No, I don't think that would be wise," he mused. "But I can see you—I'm not blind. You expect your Hazel to come back. But we'll be waiting, Primrose. We'll destroy him," he said in her ear, almost softly. "Kill him, I suppose, but sometimes death can be a mercy. How much mercy do you think the General will have for him? There is so much that can be done before death. And I promise you, I'll do my best to make sure you can watch."
The words wormed into her ears, twisting around like maggots. Her one hope—her one chance—dead in the hraka ditch like any other prisoner— She tried to swallow down her horror.
Vervain seemed to grow more cheerful as her agitation mounted. "It all depends on how the capture goes. Maybe he'll get lucky and go down fighting." His ears perked as if an exciting idea had occurred to him. "Maybe Campion will be the one to finish him. I do wonder if he'd be able to meet your eye after that."
"Stop it," she whispered, trembling at the thought. She squeezed her eyes shut.
"Oh, is that a sore spot?" he asked gleefully. "The idea that Campion might do his job? You'll be easier than I thought, Primrose! Don't tell me you think of him as a friend."
Primrose was quiet. She didn't…really think of Campion as a friend. She wasn't stupid; he was Woundwort's officer. But she felt deep in her heart that he was better than the rest. He had helped her. She held onto some kind of foolish hope that he could be a friend.
Vervain laughed. He must have seen something in her expression. "You know it was both he and I who arrested your friend Blackavar?" he remarked. "Perhaps he would have been the one to execute him if the trial had gone differently. Speaking of, I had my own suggestions for a punishment if the General had passed a different sentence. You just had to speak up."
She looked hard at the ground. She didn't regret it. They'd both made it out of the trial alive, and she'd survive tonight too. Vervain would leave and she could sleep and in the morning she could dig.
"Though I suppose," Vervain said with a leer, "now I can save it for a particular occasion. Maybe you, if you're so set on running. Anyway, I thought—what's a rabbit without his ears?"
Primrose shuddered violently as a visceral horror churned in her stomach. Her ears flattened down subconsciously.
"Yes, exactly," said Vervain with vicious satisfaction, nipping mockingly at the base of her ear. She winced in disgust and pain. "That's right. You saved him, but I'll have you," he promised in a low voice. "You had your day, Primrose, and I'll have mine. You'll learn fear soon enough."
She swallowed, breathing shallowly. Her head swam. She didn't know if it was from exhaustion or fear.
"Now, I'd love to stay and chat, but there are other things to be done. Guard!"
Primrose's head spun. What was he calling the guard for? Was she under arrest?
"Keep her awake until I get back," Vervain told the guard. "I don't want her so much as resting her eyes."
Primrose bit back a whimper. She'd been awake since dawn, digging or feeding or watching for guards. It wasn't natural for a rabbit to go so long without rest. Hours and hours and hours—she didn't have her strength. Hours more…
Vervain grinned at her one last time before he left the burrow.
The guard did not speak, only watched her. Sometimes he paused long enough to scratch an ear or groom a patch of fur. His attention wasn't perfect. Maybe he wouldn't notice if she wasn't too obvious about it?
Carefully, Primrose let her eyes slip shut, though she stayed sitting upright as if awake. For a few heartbeats there was no reaction and she thought she might have won for the moment. Then a blow struck the side of her head, sending hot pain radiating through her skull.
"Didn't you hear the captain?" snarled the guard. "You don't get to sleep tonight."
Primrose collected her paws beneath her, careful to breathe evenly. She didn't look at the guard.
It was…well, she'd been tired before. It might be fine. Yes, her head was fuzzy, yes, her eyes burned a but, but it wasn't as if she was dying. At least she hadn't been truly arrested. It wasn't like she was…
Her thoughts slid back to Vervain's threat of mutilation. Dread swarmed over her. She didn't doubt he'd do it.
The shiver woke her back up for an instant, but her head pounded painfully with the need to rest.
By midnight, exhaustion weighed her to the ground like stone in her veins. The guard glowered suspiciously at her as she lay down but allowed it when she did not close her eyes. Studiously, she tried to focus on something to keep herself awake.
She thought of her escape tunnel. She was making good progress, she thought. Another day or two would do it, provided she came up in the right place. Efrafa was so maze-like; she could hardly tell where she was, where her tunnel led. She tried to retrace it in her mind.
Her thoughts flitted around like slow, clumsy moths. Everything was fuzzy. Her bones felt sore.
She hoped Blackavar was all right. He'd gone to a different part of the Mark that night. It was better that Vervain didn't see them together every second. Less suspicious. She just hoped he hadn't been singled out too.
It was warm in the Mark with so many bodies. Everything was so dark, hazy. Her vision grew bleary and her eyes slipped shut.
Sharp pain brought her abruptly back to her senses. The guard didn't comment this time after cuffing her, just scowled at her.
She sighed and stared at the ground. The area behind her eyes throbbed with a fiery ache.
In the smallest hours of the night, panic began to creep up on her. Would she die if kept like this? Her head hurt. Her limbs trembled. She felt ill.
She needed to sleep. Her dreams were the closest thing she had to something of her own in Efrafa. Sometimes she dreamed of Redstone. The only freedom she had left was in sleep, either in dreams of elsewhere or in utter senselessness, and Vervain could take that from her too? Bitter indignation welled up in her chest.
Vervain had told the guard to keep her like this until he came back. Sick to her stomach, she realized that she did want him to come back. He was the only one who could grant her mercy now, and the thought made her want to cry. How could she expect any mercy? Would he keep her like this just because it suited him? No one else could do anything about it except Campion or the General himself. Woundwort would hardly intercede for her, and Campion out on patrol likely wouldn't be back for days.
The thought struck her like lightning. Oh, Frith, the idea of being like this for days, the ache and misery and panic only mounting all the while—
She shut her eyes against a hot wave of tears.
Instantly the guard struck her again, and she gasped at the stinging blow. Taking sharp, desperate breaths so that she didn't let out a sob, she sat up straight, hoping that the rigid posture might help her fight off sleep and another blow.
She was cold and aching and exhausted as the dawn began to rise. She couldn't see it, of course, but she was a rabbit and had a good sense for that sort of thing. For the first time in her life, the thought of going up for dawn silflay was a miserable torment. She trembled at the mere thought of standing up and hopping up the run. She wasn't sure she could move if she wanted to. Her Mark was…later in the day, right? Or had it changed? She forgot when it was set to change. Last night it had been…not sunset. So not dawn now. Right?
Thinking was hard.
The guard had cuffed her more times than she could count, but the half-formed bruises didn't really hurt any more than the rest of her body. Every part of her was sore and weary after a night of shivering with fatigue. Frith how she just wanted to close her eyes!
Her chest hurt with panic. She didn't let herself cry. That was maybe the only thing she could focus on: breathing regularly. That was the only thing simple enough right now.
Darkness swam in front of her eyes again. She had to…she had to…
Fur brushed against hers and a scent hit her nose. Icy fear drenched every one of her nerves. She went rigid, for an instant completely awake.
"Missed me?" drawled Vervain, circling her closely as he entered the burrow.
Primrose flinched away, oddly slow as if dragging herself through mud. The blood rushed in her head.
Vervain laughed. "Oh, you're pathetic. This affected already? It's only been a few hours."
That couldn't be right. She had—since dawn yesterday. A full day and night now. Was she wrong? Maybe she didn't remember. Or else he was lying. Or he was wrong.
It didn't matter, she told herself. He was just being cruel.
"Have anything to say now, Primrose?" he leered. He was too close. She wanted to pull away but could hardly move, shaking with exhaustion.
It couldn't still be an interrogation. She could hardly string a thought together, let alone words. Had he kept her awake to make her sloppy? Fog her head, dull her senses, so she'd make a mistake and reveal her plan? Miss the guard watching her tomorrow and try digging under watch? (That would be stupid. She couldn't dig at all like this. He wouldn't be able to catch her doing anything.) Did he just take joy in abusing his authority, then, whatever the excuse? That sounded about right for him.
He nipped at her ear again, more viciously than he had before. She gave a jolt at the sharp pain.
"You'll answer when I speak to you!"
She whimpered softly, a small sound of defeat in the back of her throat. She could feel him grinning down at her.
"I said, do you have anything to say to me?" he hissed.
And through the haze of weakness, she understood what he wanted. He wanted her to give up. He wanted her to beg for mercy.
Briefly, a blaze of spite flared in her heart. She wouldn't cower before embleer Vervain just because he wanted her to. She wanted to snap and snarl just to irritate him.
But the impulse faded as exhaustion swamped her again. She was smarter than that. She didn't have to really give up, just pretend.
Everything was so vague and dreamy. She told herself it wasn't real.
Trembling with fatigue, she whispered, "Please. Please, I—I want to go to sleep."
He laughed again, low and satisfied. "Oh good, I was hoping you'd learn. All right: At ease, Primrose. If I were you, I'd hurry up and get some rest before your Mark's silflay."
She sank to the ground in relief. Still, some part of her felt hollow and defeated, something sour turning in her stomach. It was pretend, she told herself. She had pretended. She wasn't really desperate enough to give in to the buck she hated more than anyone and beg him for lenience. She hadn't given up, just let him think she had.
His laughter followed him down the run.