He may have shoved blood bags into my hands and mouth, he may have whispered one pathetic apology when no one elsebesides his asshole brother was listening, but that doesn’t erase the month he’s spent standing by.
There’s no reason for him to smile now, like we’re anything but a prisoner and her guard. He can’t look at me as though the simple act of holding me here, against his chest, somehow makes us allies.
The fury tastes heavy on my tongue, thick enough that it almost drowns out the fear still scraping along my ribs as to where he’s taking me. The anger festers, twisting with every memory I’ve been trying not to keep count of.
They watched me stripped of dignity, stripped of breath, stripped of blood until I wasn’t sure what was left. And not once–not once–did they even try to stop it.
Even the small fractures in Callum’s composure can be reduced to him having a weak stomach and not wanting to be a part of this. It has nothing to do withmeor any of this sick cruelty by his uncle being an issue.
My stomach twists from the memory of Dante and how after that first torture session he cleaned my skin with such a gentle touch. Ever since then, I’ve been mocked by the memory of thinking maybe a soft soul was caged in this prison with me. Each time I’ve awoken to a new torture session, I’ve felt the grime of all the blood from previous days on me. I can smell the rancid scent of the grime plastered to me as proof of what I’ve endured.
None of them are innocent. Not Callum with his sudden flashes of conscience. Not Elias with his steady silence. Not Dante with his calculated distance.
If anything, Dante’s and Callum’s half-gestures make it worse, because they prove they could have acted all along. They just chose not to.
As Callum takes me further from the mist in my cell, cold air scrapes down my throat in ragged gasps. My lungs convulsearound it, coughing and clawing for more of it as physical sensation seeps in further.
My fingers tighten against Callum’s chest, dragging the soft material of his shirt into my hands.
“It’s time,” he mutters softly. “We can’t wait any longer.”
Every muscle in my body seizes at that.
No, no, no.
I don’t want to go.
Words that mean movement toward that room. Toward another day of fighting to cling to what little sanity I have left and holding onto the memory that my parents will burn down this world to get to me.
I just need to survive until then.
The small pocket of strength kindling in me sparks, wild and frantic. I thrash weakly against his chest, my fingers splaying against him in an attempt to push away.
“No–” The word rasps out of me, broken and barely more than a scared plea, but I don’t care if it makes me look weak.
The panic in me is all consuming, drowning out everything else.
Callum tightens his hold, his chin pressed hard against the top of my head like he can pin me into stillness by force alone. But the fresh air has given me enough fight to keep twisting, my limbs jerking sluggishly but determined, and the struggle drags Elias closer.
His shadow falls over me, and then his face twists into radiating fury. He leans in until his voice scalds directly against the shell of my ear.
“We’re risking everything to get you out with us,” he growls, low and lethal. “So stop fucking fighting.”
Stop fighting.
My breath stutters.
Stop fighting?
As if my fight isn’t the only reason I’m still whole and have refused to break.
The one thing I can be proud of.
My pulse hammers so hard it makes the edges of the world swim with black dots, but I force my eyes to meet his dark blue ones as he pulls back. His heavy gaze bites into me like he’s attempting to will me into obedience.
Obedience. That’s what they want. That’s what they’ve all wanted.
How dare he?
