The Goblin Warrior (Beneath Sands Book 2) by Emma Hamm (100 books to read txt) 📕

being quiet since moving here. Quiet meant that people didn’t realize she was around. Quiet meant they didn’t ask questions.

Unfortunately, she needed questions to be asked now.

“Ahem.” She cleared her throat. “Excuse me?”

The man looked up and seemed to stare at her for a moment.

“Yes?”

“I’m here to see my brother.” She said quietly.

The pen in his hand tapped against the table loudly.

“And your brother is?”

“Luther.”

“Luther who?”

“Luther Penderghast.” She responded with a sassy tone. He knew who her brother was. Willow had been here before.

His nose wrinkled slightly as his eyes traced the wild tangle of her hair. “He’s busy.”

“He’s not too busy to see me.”

“He most certainly is. I’m afraid, little girl, you’re going to have to go back to school.”

“No school today.”

The man’s head tilted to the side. “Funny. I dropped my son off at school just this morning. Sure looked like there was school. Go back before you get in more trouble.”

And then he looked back down at the desk as though nothing had happened at all.

Willow wanted to hit him. She wanted to smack her hands down on his desk like she had done to that boy at school. Maybe then he would look at her. Maybe then he would realize that she wasn’t just some little girl that didn’t understand what was going on around her. She was a person! And she was smart.

She reminded herself of that and took a deep breath. She was a smart girl. Which meant she knew that she didn’t have to go into the hospital this way. The front door was only one of the many ways for a person to get into this place.

“Thanks so much.” She gritted between teeth and turned on her heel to leave.

“To school!” The man said as though he needed to remind her where she was supposed to go.

The door closed behind her with a clang and she shook her head.

“School. Right.” She glared at the distorted reflection of herself in the metal door. “As if.”

She took off down the stairs and around the back of the hospital. Her eyes narrowed as she scanned the alleyway. There it was, the exact thing she was looking for.

A vent.

Now Willow didn’t like to lower herself to such tactics. Luther had yelled at her more than once when she had come home with grease smeared all over her. The vents were sometimes clean as a whistle. Other times they were being repaired which meant she was going to get a little dirty.

She looked down at the pristine white school uniform she was wearing and shrugged. Dirty was better in this case.

The vent was fifteen feet off the ground and was covered by a grate. That wouldn’t stop Willow in the slightest though. She clambered up onto a trash can and hoisted herself onto a fire escape. From there, it was relatively easy to balance her way across the edge of the building until she could sit on top of the vent itself.

Her hands busied themselves in her pockets until she yanked out a screwdriver. Luther didn’t know she carried it around with her, but she liked to think it was handy.

Wasn’t it coming in handy right now? Besides. She liked to have some sort of weapon on her and no one would blink twice at a screwdriver.

She made quick work of the screws holding the grate in place and then let it drop onto the alleyway. They’d fix it eventually. Until then, she was going to squeeze her little body into the vent and find her way to the place she wanted to go.

Willow had always thought she would be claustrophobic in a place like this. She was so small, and she just barely fit into it. But on her hands and knees she could travel much farther here than walking. And she had seen all sorts of adventures.

Couples fighting, babies crying, teacher’s dressing themselves in the opposite sex’s clothing. It was a wonder of secrets in here. Secrets she knew she wasn’t supposed to know, but Willow liked to know them anyways.

She scooted along until she paused at an opening in the vent. There was a hallway beneath her, full of people in white lab coats. They all carried clipboards and they all looked exactly the same to her.

She rolled her eyes and kept moving.

Everyone here always wanted to look exactly the same as the others. It was like they were afraid to stand out. No one wanted to be the person that someone looked at.

Except Willow.

She wanted to be the one that was wearing the bright colors with her tangled hair a mess around her. She insisted that Luther let her wear the jewelry she had brought from home. And when she thought he wasn’t looking, she slid beads into her hair so that they clacked when she moved.

Willow was meant to be a creature of the wild. They had locked her up in here, but they couldn’t tame her.

She paused again at another opening and stared down through the vent at the lab beneath her. Creatures she had never seen before struggled in cages. There was a bird with feathers of every color that squawked loudly. A sand cat snarled as it beat itself against the edges of the bars around it.

“What?” She whispered as she stared down at the bald spot on the man below her. He was staring at one of those damned clipboards too before he started moving in another direction. Willow turned left to follow him.

She made sure to stay quiet, but stared down again through the vent as the man knocked on a door.

“Ma’am, the delivery is here.”

A woman opened the door and closed it behind her sharply. Willow saw her take off latex gloves.

“Excuse me? The delivery is supposed to be here tomorrow.”

“Well it’s here today.” He shrugged and handed her the clipboard. “Sign here please.”

“I’m sorry, but I’m supposed to be supervising the handling of these creatures.” She said. Willow wondered if she thought that tone of