It’s tricky to unlace my right shoe with one hand, but I manage it. I probably shouldn’t be doing this. Mabon could use the shoelace to garrotte someone. But fuck it. A piece of string is less dangerous than a bunch of pins, and to be honest, right now I wouldn’t care if he did garrotte someone. They’d deserve it. This is not how prisoners should be treated. It’s not honourable.
“There, all done,” I say as I finish tying off the end of his plait with my shoelace.
Mabon’s shoulders stop heaving. He sniffs. His fingers trace over my awful plait. Oh lord, he is going to hate it. I’ve made things worse.
“You have given me a braid,” he says so softly that I only just hear him.
“I have,” I say.
Suddenly he moves. He turns and climbs onto my lap and buries his face into my shoulder. His hands clutch at my tee shirt and a deep shuddery breath spills out of him.
My arms encircle his back, and I hold him tight. My heart is breaking. Shattering into a thousand shards. My soul is tearing. I bite back my sob and hold him even closer. The floor is cold. The wall is hard. Mabon is nearly as tall as me, so this isn’t at all comfortable.
But I don’t care. I’m not moving. I’m never, ever going to let him go. I’m going to hold him until the last star burns out. It really is the very least I can do.
Regret. Guilt. Dismay. I’m drowning in them and rightly so. This is all my fault. What the fuck have I done? What on earth was I thinking when I thought handing Mabon over to the Resistance was a good idea?
There is only one question on my mind now. The most important question of my life.
How the hell am I going to fix this?
Chapter twenty-four
Ihad to stop holding him, and it is breaking me apart. Even though I know damn well that sitting there with Mabon in my arms was not a long-term solution, leaving him feels like the worst thing I have ever done. And given recent events, that’s really saying something.
I’m so glad he fell asleep and I was able to tuck him up on the narrow bunk and slip away, but the thought of him waking up all alone and panicking, is destroying me. I want to run back to him. My arms are aching to hold him.
But I have to be strong. I can’t help him if I’m in his cell with him. I need to be out here, making plans. And apparently that looks an awful lot like sitting on my bunk staring blankly at the wall.
I’ve snapped my remaining shoelace in to two bits, and fixed my shoe and now I’ve run out of things to do. So I am just sitting here.
I might as well have stayed with him. I’ve abandoned him for no reason. He is going to wake up all alone and hate me even more than he already does.
I groan and run my hands through my hair. Think, Blake, think. But I’ve got nothing. My mind is empty of plans, I have no idea what to do, and it’s doubly frustrating because I’m pretty sure if the roles were reversed, Mabon would have no problem at all with figuring out something genius.
Not that he would have betrayed me.
Or let me come to harm.
Bile rises in my throat. This is a nightmare. One I cannot wake up from. One entirely of my own making.
A sharp knock on my door has me jumping out of my skin, but it is only Amanda.
“Hey, wanna grab some lunch in the mess hall?”
My stomach rolls queasily, but sitting here isn’t filling me with inspiration, so perhaps a change of scene will be good. Or miracles might happen and I might overhear something useful.
I nod mutely, climb to my feet and follow Amanda down the featureless corridor. The mess hall is busy, which is good for my half-arsed spying plan, but terrible for my mood. All this noise and movement feels like too much to deal with. Too much stimulation for my already racing mind.
Amanda tells me to grab a table while she gets us some food, so I do. The plastic chair is uncomfortable, it’s clearly designed for people of a much shorter stature than me. And that just proves what a bad mood I’m in. I’ve lived in a world designed for smaller people since I was sixteen years old. It doesn’t normally even register, let alone irritate me.
Thankfully, Amanda returns quickly. She slides a tray of what looks like macaroni over to me. I grimace and start shovelling it in. All the food at the palace was fresh. Wholesome and delicious. I miss it.
We eat in silence for a while, but my skin is prickling. I glance around. People are staring at me. They are trying to pretend that they’re not, but it is pretty bloody obvious.
“What are they looking at?” I grumble to Amanda.
Her eyes dart around nervously. “You’re a hero!” she says, far too brightly.
