“Funny.” My throat rubs raw, and I double over in a coughing fit, tears stinging my eyes, and my side clenching in pain as I try to regain control. “I think you could be twins.”
“You don’t look good.”
“Gee, thanks. And here, I thought I was about to win the beauty pageant. But between you and me, I think my chances are looking pretty good compared to my competition,” I finish, swallowing all the saliva my body gives.
“You keep telling yourself that, Princess,” he says on a long sigh.
“Just leave me alone, Callum. I don’t want to talk to you.” But I can smell his scent from here, sticking out like something foreign, mixing with the stench I’ve grown accustomed to. Ittakes me back to before. The cedarwood and notes of eucalyptus seep into my nostrils, and I want to fall to my knees. The tears stay trapped underneath, not having any excess water to waste.
“Nobody said you had to talk. Truthfully, I would prefer it if you didn’t.” He pauses, taking a few leisurely steps toward my enclosure. “We’re going on a field trip. Do you need some time to freshen up?” His words are laced with sarcasm, and I’m wishing I would have saved the bucket throwing for this moment.
“That was a joke. Lighten up. Gods, you’re bringing the mood down.” At first, his comment doesn’t make sense, but I had forgotten that my thoughts aren’t my own. And without access to my magic, there’s no way to block him out. Blood-curdling rage builds, annoyed that even the privacy of my own mind is tainted with his ability to roam freely within my carnage.
The door to my cell unlocks, and my heart skips a beat. The fleeting thought of freedom rings in my ears before it’s quickly snuffed out by the shadows being lassoed around my wrists.
He tugs on them, and despite my best efforts, using the little strength I have to resist does absolutely nothing, and I stumble forward. How pathetic. I’m a pathetic waste of space, a phantom of the person I used to be. The girl I was, the one I worked so hard to become, is dead. Gone. Floating in the whispers of the past.
“It will make things so much easier if you just cooperate.” I know he’s right, but the feel of him, his shadows, is too much. I follow him down the hallway in silence, my mind consumed with the memory of what it felt like to have his shadows wrapped around me in a completely different way.
I’m pathetic. He stabbed me in the back with a betrayal that is so unforgivable, but all my mind can conjure up is the way it felt to be with him. In his bed. In his arms. His presence. My stupid heart beats longingly with the memories. But I push them away as much as I can, watching them fade to the corners of my mind,finally breathing a sigh of relief when they’re eradicated.
Guards come down the hall the opposite way, flanking the only other prisoner—at least that I’ve seen—on either side. Her head rises slightly before her swollen eyes widen as much as they can, and she begins thrashing, kicking and flinging her limbs while an ungodly sound erupts out of her. As one guard’s grip loosens, she frees one arm, backhanding one of her captors before using the momentum to break the hold on the other. But it’s no use. They use brutal force and throw her to the ground and place a foot on the middle of her back, pinning her down.
Callum keeps walking, tugging on the makeshift leash for me to keep going, but I can’t help but look back at the poor girl I don’t know.
“Who is she?”
“You’re asking the wrong questions.”
“Would you answer if I asked the right ones?”
“Nope,” he says, popping the P. My eye roll is instinctive, but I pay attention to the twists and turns we take, noting there are no windows out here either.
We’re underground.
We’ve been walking forever. Being cooped up in that shoebox didn’t leave me much room for cardio, and my legs are burning. We take turn after turn, one staircase after another, and I want to believe that Callum is taking us the fastest route, but something tells me that’s not the case. He’s fucking with me. More mind games I don’t have the energy for, nor ones I want to play. I’m tired. Of walking. Breathing. Living. If you can even call it that. Maybe I have one last fight in me, one strong enough to get me to the end I desperately crave.
We finally reach our destination, and Callum pulls open a door that looks identical to all the others we passed. The stark-white room shocks my senses, and I instantly shut my eyes to relieve my burning retinas. Gods, the overhanging lights have tobe turned all the way up. Bleach stings my nostrils, and my dry throat rages with more unrelenting coughing.
The door automatically shuts behind us, and Callum’s shadows recede. I rub my wrists like they were rubbed raw, but that’s not why. Now I feel emptier than I did before.
Scanning the room, there isn’t much in it. A patient bed, a tray of instruments, and a monitor. Great. A supernatural hospital.
“Sit,” Callum demands, pointing at the bed. I can’t suppress the scoff that escapes me, but with just one look, his shadows coil around me. I can’t help but shamelessly relish in the sensation of him enveloping me—even if it’s just an extension of him. The feeling is gone like the wind after they place me on the bed themselves, leaving me cold and empty.
“Stay.” He gives me his back, waltzing toward a different door on the opposite wall.
“Woof, woof,” I bark. It’s strange. I can almost see the tension in him, like he’s stiffening to suppress a laugh. But it’s gone in the blink of an eye, as if I had imagined it.
When the door clicks shut, I waste no time. Catapulting off the bed, I take one of the scalpels off the tray, uncaring of concealing it. There isn’t anywhere to put it anyway in this patient gown. Then I check the doors. There’s no way they’re stupid enough to leave them unlocked, but I had to try. I attempt to rein in the panic and search for some sort of key, a false wall, loose tile,somethingto get me out of here. But I come up empty. Of course, they wouldn’t leave me in a room where I could escape—that would be foolish. But people always make mistakes, always slip up, and I have to be ready when they do.
Sure, leaving the instruments out in the open could have been a mistake…or a test. Whipping my head side to side, I look for a clock, needing to figure out how long he’s been gone. But there isn’t anything. Not a gods damn thing in this hell hole to use to escape. I kick the metal tray, letting the other instruments clatterto the ground.
A blinking red light catches my attention in the far corner of the room—so small I almost missed it. A camera? They’re watching me.He’swatching me. Anger festers within me, frustration painted with every pinch of my face. And I snap. Screaming up at the camera, I take the fallen tray and throw it at the blinking light. But it does nothing.
“What do you want from me?” I yell. Fine. They want to watch? I’ll give them a fucking show. I tear the sheets from the bed and relish in the thud the monitor makes when I push it over. Next, I take the IV pole and briskly walk underneath the camera. Lifting it as high as my brittle arms will allow, I whack it against the taunting light. Again, and again, andagain.Until it finally breaks away from the wall and hangs on by the wires. I jump, and my fingertips skim the glass dome.
Are you fucking kidding me?
