Shadows of Sherwood Read Online Free PDF

and snaked through the grid-like streets of Sherwood. The two MPs rode up front. Robyn finally got a glimpse of the one who had been holding her. He was much younger than the other, with dusty-brown hair and strong, chiseled features.
    In the backseat, Robyn’s hands were bound with a thin elastic rope, secured to the jeep bar above her head. Through the gap between her elbows, she studied the unfamiliar scenery. Tall buildings with many windows, built close together. The buildings did not have front lawns but were right upagainst the sidewalks, which were right up against the street. Small shops and many nondescript doorways flitted by, separated only by the occasional alley. In the distance she recognized the iconic twin steeples of the Nottingham Cathedral, standing tall above the city.
    Robyn had seen pictures of Sherwood, of course, but she hadn’t ever seen it in person. She concentrated hard on the buildings and the people to counteract the looming question in her mind: Where were they taking her?
    Along the sidewalks, people walked and talked and gathered. People everywhere. Some of them looked quite ragged, Robyn thought, but Sherwood was a poor district, so maybe that was to be expected. She noticed hunched elder women pushing small, loaded carts along the sidewalk. Men in ill-fitting suits standing in line beside the padlocked door of a building tagged Employment Office. Barefoot children jumping rope and chasing one another through a blacktopped empty lot.
    Many of the people were dark skinned, some light, and some in between, like Robyn herself. A whole range of colors, whereas most people in Castle were either quite dark or quite light. The dark-skinned men reminded Robyn of her father. He never spoke much about growing up in Sherwood, but she knew he had gone into politics to try to help the people back home.
    The jeep bounced to a stop alongside a wide, low concrete building. The young MP exited the jeep and when he reached in to untie her, Robyn renewed her struggle to get free.
    He grabbed her wrists tightly and yanked her toward him. She fell halfway out of the jeep.
    â€œDon’t fight it,” the young MP whispered. “If you value your life.” He had striking green eyes. Their gaze upon her seemed incongruously kind. The words seemed less like a threat and more like a warning. He lifted her out and set her on her feet, then led her inside.
    Robyn followed calmly.
    The larger MP opened the metal door, carrying Robyn’s backpack. The young MP ushered Robyn into the cool, dry lobby of Sherwood District Jail.
    The room was very plain and very intense. No windows. Three doors, including the metal one that led outside. The other doors were glass, studded with vertical steel bars and fitted with computerized keypad locks. One led to a room with a row of glowing blue computer screens on one side and a rack of cubbyholes filling the opposite wall. The next led to a long row of old-fashioned, metal-barred cell blocks. Robyn swallowed hard.
    Behind a tall desk sat a heavyset woman in a wider version of the MPs’ brown uniform. The desk surface held a computer monitor, a hefty ring of metal keys, a placard that read WARDEN, and an open magazine. Next to the warden stood another short, thin guard.
    A large portrait hung on the wall behind the warden’s desk, but the woman in the photograph was not the warden. A plaque on the gilded frame read, Marissa Mallet, Sherwood County Sheriff. Her still, dark eyes pierced theroom. Pale-brown hair hung straight at the sides of a light-brown face similar in shade to Robyn’s own.
    â€œThis is the girl?” The warden turned a page in her magazine without even glancing up. Robyn forced her attention down from the portrait above.
    The guard came forward and took Robyn’s rope from the young MP. He yanked her toward the desk by her wrists. Robyn stumbled, her hip slamming painfully into the edge of the desk. She lurched forward and found