He’s not a good man.
But neither am I.
The air smells of damp and iron, the taste of it heavy on the back of my tongue.
I inhale. One breath. Two.
Then I realise the truth of it, this meeting is not by chance. It’s a reckoning, long promised, and long overdue. They took their time leaving Penelope in the Sanctuary, knowing that we’d come, making sure we’d run into them first.
“She’s all yours.” Milus smiles at me, his stance casual but his body strong, imposing, too big for any one man to be, but that’s exactly what he isn’t, a man.
He’s a god.
Gore switches his hold from my shirt to my neck, cupping my nape and gripping me so tight it’s giving me toothache, but I’m grateful for it, in this moment, the pinching pressure, grounding me, keeping me sane.
I say nothing, Gore says nothing, and then the two men pass us by like a shift in the wind, carrying the weight of something unspoken. We don’t move until we can no longer hear their receding footsteps, the hollow echo of them dying.
And then we’re both running again, travelling down what should be the final tunnel, but in the dark it’s hard to tell, only oil lit wall sconces giving us any light to work with. Each one separated by too great a distance, leaving us in complete blackness for seconds at a time.
I find her by the sound of my own heartbeat, too loud, too frantic, like it’s trying to claw its way out of my chest just to reach her.
The sight of her stops me cold.
She looks so small, strung upside down in the centre of the pentagram, her naked body limp, blood slipping from her in slow, deliberate drops that hit the floor like precious seconds ticking away.
And then I see her hands.
These beautifully pale delicate little things that I so easily wrap inside of my own, heavy ancient nails forced through them.
For a moment, the world narrows to silence, not from shock, but from that terrible, surgical calm that comes after it.
My hands stay steady when they should tremble; my voice comes out even when it should break. I kneel beside her head, the stone biting into my knees, blood soaking through my jeans, and touch her cheek with a silent prayer.
She’s alive. Cold and wet. The blood on her skin gleaming dark, my jaw locking so tight it aches, a single pulse of fury trapped behind clenched teeth.
“You’re alright,” I whisper, and the lie tastes holy in my mouth, because maybe for the first time, this is a lie she needs to hear, one I need to tell.
Carefully, Gore pulls the chain, turning the circular pentagram so she’s positioned upright. Every movement is deliberate when we begin to untie her. Reverent, as if she might shatter under our touch, as if I already have.
Inside, something savage writhes, demanding I take the one who did this and make him scream for mercy he’ll never get. But I cage it, force it down until only the ache remains. My focus stays on her, on my Penelope, on the fragile, stuttering rhythm of her breath that feels like the only sound keeping me tethered to this world.
Her head moves, this slow, limp turn, her lashes twitch, then her eyes pinch, and she’s dragging one open, glassy and unfocused, the other too bruised, too swollen, to attempt it.
When she sees me, something faint flickers there, disbelief, relief, or maybe some fragile piece of trust that I’d come for her she hadn’t let die yet.
My thumb brushes beneath her swollen eye, a crust of dried blood and tears, my fingers combing their way into her hair, my thumb sweeping up to her temple, circling the small section of clean skin there.
“Billy?” she questions, like she doesn’t believe it, her voice not much more than a dry, cracked mumble, but she still stirs something in me I can’t name, violent and sacred, something that wants to hunt, fuck and kill.
I want to wrench her into my arms, shove my tongue down her throat and brutally ram my dick inside her cunt, and then shake her until she understands what she’s fucking done to me.
But I can’t.
I can only stand here, torn open by the sight of her, knowing that no matter what she’s done, I’d still walk through hell to bring her back to me.
“I’m here, baby girl,” I reassure her, her body getting heavier in my arms now that Gore has nearly untied all of the bindings. “I’ve got you, Nells.”
Her head drops to my shoulder, her neck freed, and her mouth brushes the side of my throat. Her lips part, a sound escaping not quite a word, a whimper, raw and wet and desperate. It slices through me cleaner than any blade, savaging my chest cavity and piercing directly through my heart.
