“We need to tell Jasmine about last night.” Kane’s voice snaps everyone back to attention. Yet when he looks at me, those dark eyes soften, holding a wisp of grey. “We found the girl.”
I start to smile, then I feel it. Sadness.
His fingers pause on my skin. “It’s Kacey’s sister.”
The sister Kacey thought she’d lost, she’s been here. All this time. A prisoner, tortured, assaulted,right beneath her feet in the cells...
And I found her. Then lost her.
Anguish rips through me.
“She’s alive,” Ezekial adds gently. “Kacey spent the night healing her.”
Kane’s shadows trail up my spine, a soft pulse trying to soothe the sorrow.
“He had her, all that time…” I murmur.
“Makes you wonder what else he kept from us,” Sai grumbles, and everyone holds those words for a moment.
“When we got to The Divide, most of the prisoners were already dead. Surviving there is… difficult.” Ezekial’s voice lowers, and my fingers reach under the covers for his. “The ones that did survive, had been compelled to attack. It wasn’t possible to break that many compulsions at once, I barely managed to put a barrier up in time to stop the Cloaks from fleeing.”
“How many were there?” I ask.
Kane and Ezekial share an unsettling look.
“We were overwhelmed,” Kane provides, rather than giving a number. “There were no other survivors,” he adds, not to be cruel, just honest.
I swallow. “Is that what triggered your… darkness?”
They both go still, and I try to picture what they must have faced. The chaos of The Divide. The horror of the attack. Kacey’s sister emaciated, brutalised, terrified…
“It was seeing her there,” I say with quiet realisation, turning to Ezekial. “Seeing Kacey’s sister there, it reminded you of...”
“Of Sherida.” He nods. “The moment I broke through Lucanus’ mind, he showed enough of The Divide for me to flit and I…” He looks away. “I let my rage lead me, I just… went. I should have strategised, I should have waited, should have told you all first.” His eyes sweep over us. “I’m sorry. My impulsiveness risked us all.”
“Zeek, you think we’d have been any better?” Sai scoffs, but it’s soft. “I trained the fucker. I should’ve known something was wrong with him when Orion voted against his promotion.”
“Lucanus has had the serum infused with my blood, many times.” Julien’s voice lowers. “I should have been more observant.”
“I should have broken him sooner.” Kane’s eyes hold his brother’s. “It shouldn’t have been you.”
They don’t even see it, how instinctively they protect one another, how quick they are to share the burden. And that quiet, stubborn devotion… it makes me want them all the more.
“When I saw her… in that cage…” Ezekial winces. “The memories, the sounds of that place, the smell…”
I squeeze his hand so tightly, my darkness unfurling, covering him in gentle vines of grey.
His soft silver eyes land on me. “But after, when everything was still, my darkness brought me here.” He lifts myhand from under the covers, brushes his lips over my knuckles. “To you.”
A flutter stirs low in my belly.
“You grounded me. If you hadn’t…” He shakes his head, eyes closed as his mouth keeps brushing my hand. “I was ready to burn it all to the ground. Every barrier, every district, the realms. The urge to find every last one of them, no matter the destruction, no matter the lives—”
“But you didn’t.” I cut in before he drowns in what-ifs. “You came back to me.”
His metallic gaze burns, lips searing the pulse at my wrist.
“And when Dark Zeek turned up here, me and Julien joined the fun.” Sai grins brightly, shattering the tension like only he can. “Had to drag Kane outta there, didn’t we, Daddy Darkness?”
