The warrior has slipped aside to stand behind me, reached around to my throat, and the way he pins it has my whole spine moulded to his chest.
He doesn’t release me, but his fingers do start to soften slightly—enough that I can get breath.
Just in time for the next captive to be thrown at the feet of the general.
Only, she makes no move for this one. She steps back once, twice, then sheaths her sword.
The warriors watch, eyes alight in the dimness, as the chain-link fae unravels a whip from his forearm.
Shards of glass glitter down the length of the whip—and I blink on it just once, tears brimming my eyes, as it’s brought down on the man.
And it shreds him.
The only time I’ve ever seen anyone whipped is in movies or tv shows, not real life. Not even in this unit, not in all the time I’ve been with them.
So I don’t expect it to take just three strikes to the man’s neck for his full fucking decapitation.
My insides clench tight, like my stomach has stamped through my organs to my back—and it stays that way, tense, to stop any moans from spilling out of me, followed by the shallow nausea just swirling and swirling in my chest.
The tips of the cold one’s fingers dig firm into the sides of my neck, right at the bones—but his grip remains eased enough that I can shudder out a breath.
But he doesn’t make any move to back away from me, to let me go, to trust me not to scream as the next captive is dealt with, and the next, and the next—
I’ve never seen so much blood.
And I’ve seen plenty.
But this is a pool of it, spilling over tangled limbs, soaking into the soil, feeding the grass and the bodies far below it.
It’s tangy in the air, pungent on my tongue, edged into the breaths that tremble through me.
I wish I could say I weep for them.
The humans, the runaways, the attackers, are all cut down in all the worst ways, ways I couldn’t possibly imagine. Some are lashed through to the bones, spines shredded by the serrated whip; others are carved open, literally carved down the middle, their ribs cracked before their organs spill out onto the earth.
But it’s the horror for myself that’s gripped me tighter than the cold warrior’s hand on my throat.
It’s fear. Not pity.
The salty tears that slip into my mouth are for me. The trembles that shudder me against the solid, unmoving chest of the warrior are for my own panic.
I didn’t have any plans to run, no thoughts in my mind beyond one that now terrifies me.
I hoped that, maybe one day, I could steal the CB radio… and in doing that, I might make contact with Bee, and that would be it, our chance to break for each other, to run and find each other within the radius.
It wasn’t a scheme, it wasn’t a plan, it wasn’t a certainty. It was just a thought—a hope.
And that dies with the people slaughtered up there…
All twelve of them.
EIGHTEEN
Against the soft material of my sweatpants, the headstone is slick with cold, with ice, with frosty air—but not snow.
The cold is eating at me. All the way to my muscles, my bones, my fucking cartilage, the sort of chill that takes an hour in a hot bath to soothe.
I welcome it.
