Calla’s POV

Consciousness returned in fragments—cold concrete beneath me, the metallic taste of blood in my mouth, and a splitting headache that felt like someone had taken a sledgehammer to my skull.

I forced my eyes open, blinking against the dim light filtering through what looked like a single bare bulb hanging from a ceiling somewhere above me. The room was small, maybe eight by ten feet, all concrete walls and steel bars. A cell. I was in an actual goddamn cell.

The air tasted wrong, ...