Read Online An Outlaw in Wonderland by Lori Austin - Free Book Online

a cot in the center of the crowd. His fists clenched,
     he glared at the floor.
    “Fedya,” Mikey murmured, taking a step forward.
    Ethan set a hand on his brother’s arm as a man punched Fedya in the shoulder. “Hear
     you’re quite the sniper.”
    Ethan recognized the voice even before Fedya shifted and revealed the speaker. Not
     a prisoner, but a guard, and the worst of the lot.
    As wide as he was tall, which wasn’t very, the man Ethan knew only as Beltrane possessed
     a squashed nose and protruding black eyes. He prodded Fedya in the stomach with the
     barrel of his Richmond rifle. “You must be the best if they sent you to kill the president
     and General Lee. We’re gonna make you pay for that, boy. Pay long.”
    Fedya began to stand, and one of the other guards—all of them seemed to be here, which
     made Ethan wonder who was elsewhere—slammed a rifle into his head. When the sniper
     went to his knees, they began to kick him. The other inmates did not come to his aid.
     Instead they shouted encouragement and placed bets on how long until he lost consciousness.
     Or died.
    It was most likely a mistake. One both he and Mikey would be sorry for, but Ethan
     couldn’t just stand there and do nothing. As Mikey was already grabbing offenders
     and tossing them out of the way, Ethan waded in, too.
    He was a doctor; he spent his time healing not hurting. But he also knew how to incapacitate
     a much larger foe with little but his hands and the knowledge of certain pressure
     points. He hadn’t studied anatomy for nothing.
    A jab to the kidneys. A thumb to the throat. A few other tricks he hoped no one saw.
     Within moments, the prisoners had retreated.
    “I have enough folks in my infirmary,” Ethan said. “I don’t need any more.”
    Mikey growled; Beltrane glowered. But the guards left without any more violence.
    Ethan wasn’t so foolish as to believe that would be the end of it.
    •   •   •
    “Shut the door.”
    Annabeth complied. There was no one on the other side of it who would help her anyway.
    The room was dark, the single window so dirty, the sunshine cast gray beams onto the
     floor. The speaker stood in the corner farthest from the light. She couldn’t see his
     face, or much else beyond a man-shaped shadow.
    “What in hell are you doing here, Annie Beth Lou?”
    Annabeth blinked. “Moze?”
    He stepped into the shallow light. He was so covered in filth, she wouldn’t have recognized
     him if she hadn’t known him nearly all of her days. Not recognizing his voice, she
     attributed to fear, panic, and exhaustion on her part, and also the fact that he sounded
     like a bullfrog with laryngitis.
    “Of course,
Moze
,” he snapped. “Who do you think?”
    She resisted, barely, the urge to kick, to punch, to rain her fists on his chest and
     scream. “You scared me!”
    “You should be scared.” He glanced at the door. “Getting you out of here is going
     to take a goddamn miracle.”
    “I didn’t
do
anything.” She cleared her throat. Every time Moze moved, dust filled the air.
    “Well, you did, but no one knows that.” The dirt on his face cracked as he frowned.
     “And maybe . . . maybe they shouldn’t.”
    Annabeth thought maybe they shouldn’t either. It was bad enough that Ethan had been
     caught in her trap; having him learn the trap had been hers . . .
    No, thank you.
    “Walsh doesn’t know you’re a spy,” Moze continued.
    “I’m not.”
    Moze lifted his once-sandy brow, and Annabeth cursed. She was. Or at least she would
     be in Ethan’s eyes.
    If he ever learned the truth.
    “He trusts you. You can discover more, if you stay.”
    “Discover what?” She threw up her hands. “Ethan’s in prison. What’s he going to learn
     there?”
    “I won’t know that until you do,” Moze said in a perfectly reasonable voice that made
     her want to throttle him.
    “I’m going back to Chimborazo,” she said.
    “Everyone here believes you’re a traitor.