“So… how did it go?” she asks, her gaze flitting over us all.
Doesn’t take an empath to sense the sudden unease seeping into the room.
How did it go? As well as it could, considering we were torturing a man who we’d all once trained to resist torture by myvery hand, who had also been compelled to die before telling us anything.
Zeek managed to break through the compulsion, just. But it left him a blubbering mess. A mind-melted zombie. Kinda felt sorry for the poor bastard, but we got what we needed.
But now… I’m not sure if it’s what we want.
Zeek steps closer. “We’re confident that we’ve eliminated the remaining Cloaks from this district.” When he doesn’t immediately continue, Red’s wary gaze jumps between us.
“And… that’s great, right?” she says slowly, carefully, while trying to dissect our expressions. “So… why do you all feel so… uneasy?”
How the fuck do I keep forgetting she’s an empath? Does that mean she felt how turned on I was before? Or maybe she’d become desensitised to that by now.
Ezekial moves closer, taking a seat at the top of the bed nearest to her. “Because it means we have no reason to keep the lockdown barrier in place,” he explains, but not directly answering her question.
She frowns—her confused expression ridiculously adorable—then her gaze bounces between us all, searching for someone who’ll explain in simpler terms.
And they land on Kane. But even he can’t say it.
Big guy steps up. I barely caught him moving to the other side of the bed but now he’s settled on Jasmine’s left.
“Without the lockdown in place, there’ll be no restrictions. Creatures will roam freely again.”
She slowly nods. “Yeah, I understand that.” Her brows dip lower, waiting for the punchline. “What I don’t understand is why you’re acting like this is a bad thing?”
Who’s gonna say it? We all look between one another but no one speaks.
“You can leave.”
Kane.
Never one to mince his words, but I still wince at how bluntly he delivers it.
“That’s why you feel like that?” she says softly. “You think I’ll run?”
No one answers.
Because what would be worse? Admitting the truth? Telling her that’s exactly what we think she’ll do? That she’ll run back to that so-called ‘family’ who’ll fill her head with more fucked-up shit and we’ll never see her again?
Oh fuck.
What if she never wants to see us again? What if she tells them what we did?
We gave her that mark.
We wiped her memory.
Why the fuck would she stay with us?
With me?
“Sai.” Her hands are on me, my face, and her calming warmth seeps into me. The static energy, the slicing dread… all of it soothed with that one touch.
“I’m not leaving,” she says. “I’m not leaving you.”
I let out a sound, an exhale, a plea. I don’t fucking know. But those words hit me hard. Sinking straight to the part of me that still remembers being the boy who was left behind.
