“Roman’s not going to get what he wants,” I say eventually.
He pauses. Just for a second.
“You think I don’t know that?”
“You brought me here.”
“I kept you alive.”
I look down at our hands, at the way his thumb brushes too close to my palm. There’s heat there, but not warmth. Not anymore.
“You should’ve let me die on that mountain,” I say.
He looks up at that, eyes searching mine, jaw tightening.
“I couldn’t.”
I pull my arm back once the bandage is secure, flexing my fingers even though the burn hasn’t faded.
“You think patching me up makes you less of a coward?”
“No,” he says quietly. “I think it makes me human.”
The wolf inside me snarls, low and deep. I don’t let it show.
“You were never human,” I whisper.
“Maybe not,” he replies. “But I’m trying.”
Something in his voice flickers then. Not hope. Not guilt. Something older. Something like recognition.
And for the briefest second, before I bury it under rage, I feel something shift too.
Just slightly.
6
SILAS
The corridor outside her cell is quiet except for the soft hiss of the vents, the sound of my boots against the concrete, and the distant murmur of the guards in the outer hall. Night in the lower levels of the compound always feels heavier than day, not because the lighting changes — it doesn’t — but because there’s no noise to mask the weight of what’s buried here. I have stood watch on a hundred cells in a dozen facilities for Roman, and yet I have never lingered in any of them like I linger here now.
I press my palm to the panel, the door clicks, and I step inside with a tray balanced in one hand. Simple food. Bread, broth, a canteen of water. Roman thinks starving a captive makes them pliable. I know better. I want her strong, because if she’s strong she won’t break, and if she doesn’t break maybe I’ll remember what it feels like not to be a blade someone else swings.
Mary sits where I left her, knees drawn up, hair falling across her face. The chains clink softly when she moves. Her eyes track me the entire way from the door to the chair I drag across the floor. She doesn’t speak. She hasn’t since Roman left thismorning. I set the tray down, lean on my knees, and meet her gaze.
“You should eat,” I say.
“I’m not hungry,” she replies, voice low and steady.
“You haven’t eaten since yesterday.”
“I’ve gone longer.”
Her stubbornness draws something almost like a smile from me but it fades before it can reach my mouth. I shift in the chair, the old habit of scanning corners and sightlines rising in me even here where I know the cameras are mine.
“You think this is about feeding you,” I say. “It’s not. It’s about keeping you from bleeding out.”
“Why do you care?” she asks, still without looking at the food.
