Chapter 3: The Girl in the Cage, Part 2

Even for a logging village in the middle of nowhere, the jail was tiny. Just next to a house belonging to the town’s sheriff was a squat building about the size of a shed, with iron bars mounted over its lone window. It was still raining, but Sheriff Darshan remained seated in a rocking chair in his porch, smoking pipe in hand, quiver of arrows at his side, and a longbow strung and ready to use across his lap. His mustache twitched as Valerie and her escort approached, and he set his pipe aside.

“Do you people never get fucking tired? I told you, no one touches the thing until I say so.”

“Are you the sheriff?” Valerie asked, raising her voice to be heard over the rain.

When the sheriff realized he didn’t recognize Valrie’s voice, he tipped up his own wide brimmed hat to get a better look at her, and narrowed his eyes at what he saw. “Who are you?”

“Valerie Waymire,” she introduced. “I was sent here to help with your monster problem.”

The sheriff raised a bushy eyebrow. “Sent by who?”

“My instructor,” Valerie said. “Dr. Arden Lee Siren of the University of Olwin.”

“Never heard of him.”

Valerie wondered if the man had heard of anything outside the thirty square miles surrounding this village, but kept that to herself. 

“We’re not really from around here.”

The sheriff grunted like he readily agreed with her. 

“She came into the pub a little bit ago, asking about the attacks,” Valerie’s escort explained. “She said she rode five days to come help.”

Valerie stood rigid straight, her hands neatly folded behind her back and her chin held high as Darshan looked her up and down. Young, but confident and collected, the girl carried herself like a professional. And he’d caught the glint of metal on her wrist before she’d folded her hands. If nothing else, the girl knew how to look the part of a monster hunter. And five days' ride alone in rough weather was nothing to scoff at either.

“What exactly do you know about monsters?” the sheriff asked.

“With all due respect, Sheriff,” Valerie said. “More than you.”

Darshan grunted again, but got up out of his chair, slinging his quiver onto his hip and his bow onto his shoulder. “Well, let’s just see about that, why don’t we?”

He fished a ring of keys out of his pocket as he led her over to the jail, unlocked the door, and ushered her inside. After a bit of fighting with a damp book of matches, he managed to get the oil lamp inside the shed burning. It was even less impressive on the inside; a single room with a barstool in one corner and a large cage that took up most of the space in the other. Inside it, huddled in a corner with a chain collar around her neck, was a girl.

She was about Valerie’s age, unhealthily lean and pallid skinned. Her dark hair was frizzed and frayed, with dried mud caked into it in several places. Her clothes were ragged, stained with a dozen different things and roughly repaired or held in place with twine in several places. Her short sleeves exposed a series of intricate tattoos snaking up her right arm, though of what, Valerie still couldn't tell.

When the lamp came on, the girl instinctively shielded herself, and then, when she saw Valerie and the sheriff, she let out an angry, snarling hiss while glaring at them with whiteless, solid red eyes. Her pointed ears flattened against her head, and a devilish tail flicked out from behind her. 

She was a hellborn.

“Fucking hells!” The man from the bar jumped back, muttering a prayer under his breath. Even Valerie winced, but Darshan barely batted an eye.

Valerie was incredulous. “You can’t be serious.”

“We’ve had volunteer patrols since the attacks started. Two nights ago, one patrol caught her skulking at the edge of town,” the sheriff explained. “She attacked, and nearly tore a man’s throat out before help got there. It took five people with ropes to get her into that cell. And by morning, she’d chewed through the rope.”

“She’s not a monster,” Valerie said. “She’s hellborn.”

“Call her whatever you want. She’s not human.”

Basic scholarship disagreed with the sheriff, but Valerie got the impression he wouldn’t care. 

“She’s still a person.”

“Something’s been attacking. If it is her, and just about everyone’s sure it is, locking her up is the least we should do to her.”

The girl growled again from inside the cage, and Valerie frowned. Hellborn might have profane blood in their veins, but it rarely amounted to much beyond an off-putting appearance. The girl couldn’t be the monster she’d come here for, not if the stories she’d heard were even half true. And yet, the constant, near feral sounds weren’t exactly helping her case.

“What about you?” Valerie asked.

“What?”

“You said just about everyone is sure she’s your monster. Are you?”

The sheriff’s mustache twitched again. “I’m not taking any chances. It could be her. That’s enough to hold her until I know for sure, one way or the other.”

“Is the chain necessary? You’ve already got her in a cage.”

“If you want to take it off her, you can be my guest. See if you keep all your fingers for your trouble.”

“Fine.” Valerie held out her hand. “Give me the key.”

Darshan raised an eyebrow. “What?”

“The key to the chains. Unless you want me to break them.”

The sheriff looked at her like she’d just grown a third arm. She waited expectantly. Shaking his head, he sifted through his keys and plopped one into her waiting palm. Valerie looked from it to the girl in the cage, who was still glaring like an angry housecat, bared teeth and all. All rational notions about hellborn being as human as anyone vanished in favor of what Valerie’s own eyes told her—that anything she stuck into that cage would not come back out.

What did I just get myself into?

“I need the room.”

Darshan shook his head. “What?”

“As long as you’re here, she’s going to be on edge. Just give me five minutes, you can wait right outside.”

He narrowed his eyes, but with a grunt and a shake of his head, the sheriff left, leaving Valerie alone in the jail with the girl. She hadn’t stopped glaring.

Valerie took a deep breath, and tried to start simple. “Hello.”

“Fuck off.”

Okay. At least she talks.

The girl’s accent took Valerie by surprise. Besides just being surprisingly posh sounding for someone covered in filth, it was the first Valerie had heard in months besides her teacher’s and her own that didn’t sound like it was from around here.

“I’m trying to help you.”

“I don’t need your help.”

“You could have fooled me. Unless you like that thing around your neck.”

Valerie held up the key in offering once again. The girl’s glare wavered, softened, then faded to a light scowl. Valerie took that to the closest thing she was going to get to an “okay,” and stuck her hands through the bars. 

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The girl tensed for a moment before offering her neck. The instant the lock was undone, she pulled away from Valerie and tore the collar off with a growl. After hurling it off into one corner of the cage, the girl retreated to the other, sitting down as far away from it as the small space would let her get.

Valerie let her calm down a moment before speaking. “So, do you have a name?”

“Why do you care?”

“I told you, I want to help. I know monsters, and you aren’t one. You shouldn’t be here. But I can’t get you out of without finding out what’s really going on. I just want to know who you are, and how you fit into this.”

The girl folded her arms and dragged her knees up to her chest, curling up to shield herself from Valerie’s gaze. As she stared at the now discarded collar, what spite was left on her face softened away, until all that remained was a forlorn frown. She let out a sigh.

“. . . list.”

“Sorry?”

“My name. It’s List.”

“What kind of— is that like your scavenger name?”

“It’s just my name, alright?” List snapped.

“Alright.” Valerie threw up her hands. “List. I’m Valerie. It’s nice to meet you.”

List rolled her eyes and scoffed, but didn’t actively tell Valerie to dig a ditch and die in it.

“Do you mind if I ask you a few questions?” Valerie asked.

“You were going to ask them anyway.” 

She had her there. “They say they found you skulking around the edge of town. What were you doing out there?”

A sullen silence preceded her answer.

“I was hungry,” she said without meeting Valerie’s eyes. “I thought I could find some garbage to go through.”

Valerie tried to hide the brief spike of revulsion she felt in the pit of her stomach at the thought of eating garbage. She imagined the level of desperation it would take to look for your next meal in other peoples’ refuse, and the things that must have happened to a person, especially one as young as List, to end up that desperate. She frowned.

“Are you . . .” she looked for the gentlest way she could think to broach the subject. “Alone?”

“Yes.”

“For how long?”

“Two years.”

“How did that happen?”

“What does that have to do with anything?”

“Nothing. I was just—”

“Then shut up about it,”  she hissed.

Sore subject. Obviously. Valerie cleared her throat. “Sorry.”

“Whatever.”

List shifted, turning more of her back to Valerie, and the monster hunter cursed herself for overstepping. Her window was closing, and she hadn’t learned a damn thing yet.

“Did you see anything?” Valerie asked. “While you were out there?”

“Trees.”

“I meant anything like a monster,” Valerie retorted. “Or signs of one.”

List stayed silent, and Valerie mentally kicked herself. Understandable or not, List’s constant need to be difficult was annoying, and Valerie had let her annoyance leak into her tone. Which was the last thing she needed to do with someone who was already looking for an excuse to dislike her. But just when she thought it was over, List answered.

“. . . there was some kind of shed.”

Valerie’s ears perked up. “What?”

“In the woods. I was looking for somewhere to sleep, and there was a shed, just sitting in the middle of the forest. Or what was left of one,” List said. “It was broken down, covered in claw marks. I thought maybe an owlbear or something was using it as a den, so I left, and ended up here.”

“Where was this?”

“Sort of outside of town? Maybe half an hour’s walk?”

“Which way? North, south . . . ?”

“I don’t know.” List pointed vaguely off to her left. “That way. Away from this side of town.”

“That’s west.”

“Why does it matter what it’s called?”

Valerie stopped herself before she got caught up in a pointless argument. “I guess it doesn’t.”

She sighed, recentering herself. “Half an hour west in the forest outside of town. I can work with that.”

List stared Valerie down, her solid red orbs locking with Valerie’s flat gray eyes. No, they weren’t quite solid, actually. When Valerie stopped and really looked, she could see little flecks of lighter and darker red in List’s eyes. Those red orbs looked her up and down, searching for answers in her neat, prim, slightly drab ensemble.

“Why are you doing all of this? Looking for the monster? Helping me?”

Unconsciously, Valerie straightened her posture and held her chin high as she answered, mimicking the demeanour of the one who’d taught her the answer to this question. “Because it needs to be done. And no one else will do it like I can. I’m going to find the real monster terrorizing this place. And I’m going to get you out of here. I promise.”

List gave a half-hearted scoff, like she didn’t believe her. “Sure.”

It was alright if List didn’t have faith in Valerie. She was going to do her job just the same. For the time being, she left List some of her trail rations, bid the girl farewell, and forced herself not to bother arguing about the personhood of a hellborn with the sheriff again. Searching for List’s forest shed was going to be an inefficient mess in the rain in the middle night, especially with so little direction to go on, so for the time being, Valerie retreated back to the saloon, paid to have her horse properly stabled, and rented out the storage closet under the stairs to sleep in.

It was about as comfortable as it sounded, and yet Valerie fell asleep almost instantly. It had been a long night just getting to this town, and come morning, she had work to do.

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