'You probably think you know what I'm gonna say.'

Degan raised his head. Through the black bars of his cell he saw her, decked out in the luminous blue suit of Nova Femen, leaning her arms over the horizontal bar of his cell door. He sat on a hard wooden bench rubbing his rough hands together after a long stretch of silence and unwelcome thoughts.

'Yeah,' He had to snort a laugh at himself, 'pretty sure I do.'

'Well its not going to be "I told you so".' Millie tapped her long fingers against the hard steel wistfully, 'I don't think we've spoken until now.'

He nodded and rubbed his sore neck. Three nights sleeping on a hard concrete floor had been punishing. Still he felt this conversation would be more like torture than anything he had experienced so far.

'So say it.'

'You brought this on yourself.'

'Yep,' Degan rolled his eyes, 'saw it coming.'

'Its the truth.'

'Nah,' He got to his feet and stepped closer to her. She barely flinched. 'I mean I saw this coming. Me fucking myself over on some insane mission into the asshole of nowhere.'

'Huh,' Millie shrugged, crossing her lycra-covered legs while standing, 'I thought you guys were alphas.'

'There's a lot you think you know about us.'

Neither of them spoke for a moment. Their voices rang on a few seconds through the heavy, damp basement cell. Degan wondered if she had any real reason to be there, or if she had just come to stare at the captive male stupid enough to wander into the lioness' den. She wasn't his first visitor.

'Don't you need thrumbscrews if you want me to talk?'

Millie laughed.

'In case you hadn't noticed, I'm not in charge around here. I don't get a say in what happens to you. I had to make a deal just to get the bouncers away from my front door. If they haven't decided what to do with you by now, its not my job to help them out.'

'You talk like you're not one of them.'

'Yeah because we're all the same, right?' She shot him a hard look. 'This chicken-shit outfit needs a reboot before I call myself a Nova.'

'That suit says otherwise.'

'A girl runs out of clothes quickly in the jungle. Plus if I don't play by their rules we might end up sharing a cell.'

'So, what...' Degan stepped closer still, a half-foot from Millie with only the cold bars between them, 'you're gonna take control? Form some kind of mutiny?'

'What have I been doing for the past year?'

'If I knew that, you'd be in the compound.'

'Mmm. But you didn't know. Wilkes didn't either. He wanted me bad in Connecticut, I can tell. And you found out where I was, came here alone. I'm guessing that since we haven't been hit with a Bluenorth security force, you didn't tell anyone you were coming. So...'

She paced around the cell slowly. Her deep black eyes were fixed upon him as though she were trying to read a language she only half-understood.

'...so you want the glory. You want to embarrass Wilkes. You want to bring me in and show me off, get the top job yourself when everyone sees how clueless Wilkes is?'

Anger burned in Degan's stomach. He followed her with his own eyes, arms flexing with enough fury to punch through those flimsy bars and strangle her.

'You're a smart woman.'

'Imagine that!' She feigned a gasp, rolling her hips in that figure-hugging suit. 'Smart enough to know there's trouble in paradise. I don't even care that the dumb cunt told you where I was. I bet myself I had four days until you got it out of her. What has it been... weeks? Months? You boys are slower than I thought. You'll need to speed up for what's coming.'

This was her way of tormenting him, he was sure. She had not come to gloat but to twist the knife. The other Novas might point and sneer but Millie had a mind that required more refined entertainment. He stood and let her speak, trembling with rage internally, saying nothing.

'I'm not just fucking with you,' she went on, 'I'm disappointed. You come here with a big bell around your neck ringing 'Bluenorth boys hate each other'! That's something I can work with. But stupidity? Missing the small things? I don't need that. That's for the morons who run this place.'

'Yeah?' Degan tried to keep the shudder out of his voice, 'so what good am I? I deserve to rot in here.'

'You'd walk out tomorrow if you could. I know you.'

Degan bit his tongue. Losing control he spun around and grabbed the horizontal bar of his cell door, kicked against the hinge and lifted at an angle. The barrels unlocked and the door slid free, resting in his grip.

Millie stepped back, mouth ajar, a touch of serious concern in her eyes. Degan let her panic for a few seconds and then slid the door back into place, catching his breath.

'I belong in here.' He said, and now she knew he meant it. 'I'm serving my time. Like you said, it was stupidity got me in here.'

Millie recovered from the shock and stepped closer. Her expression had changed; she was no longer raking her brow with smug satisfaction. It looked almost as if she were worried about him.

'Whatever has happened,' she spoke slowly and more quietly than before, 'you don't die in here. That's not how this story is supposed to go. If I beat you I want you out in full view where the world can see. I want a crash that fits the crime. Not that you care, but you dying in a hole in the Amazon would be very disappointing for me.'

'I'm glad to disappoint.'

Millie shook her head.

'No, you don't get it. I'm not letting you off that easy. None of you. There's only one way you get out of any of this with your head still on your fucking neck, and that's with a Nova Femen brand on your chest.'

Degan laughed in spite of himself.

'You think any Bluenorth man would fight for you?'

'No,' She cast her eyes to the ground, touching her lips together thoughtfully, 'but then, you're not really a Bluenorth man any more, are you?'

With that she turned and walked her slim body away from him, closing the gate behind her and leaving him in darkness.