I hate to tell her but no one in this hell walks away holy.
“He’ll be nothing like his father. I’ll make sure of it.” Reaching out, she picks up a piece of glass.
I get to my hands and knees and crawl across the cell. “No. Don’t?—”
“That bastard is a man of his word, and I will not be the reason my son turns into his father. I’d rather break his heart.” Her watery eyes fall to the glass in her hand. “Sometimes you have to hurt the one you love.” She repeats what she’d told him when he was down here earlier.
Blue eyes are on mine as she reaches up and runs the tip of the glass along her neck, sacrificing herself.
I blink. Harsh light has me lifting my hand to try and cover my eyes.
Groaning, I close them and let out a deep breath. “Fuck.” My chest hurts. Why does it feel like something is sitting on top of me? My hand goes to remove the bulletproof vest, thinking it’s still on, but there’s nothing there.
“He-hello?” I ask roughly. My throat is sore, and my body is sluggish.
Looking to my right, I see a bag hanging that has a tube connected to my arm. It’s an IV.
Where am I?
I manage to sit up, and the room sways. My hands go to my temples, and I press on them, trying to calm my breathing. My heart is racing, and that pressure on my chest is getting heavier.
“Kash-ton?” I clear my throat. Fuck, why is it so sore? Am I at Carnage? Somewhere in the building I’ve never seen before?
Crawling out of bed, I get to my shaking feet and wobble like a newborn giraffe, trying to remind my legs how to work. I’ve never been so weak in my life. I slowly pull the IV from my arm and see a gown draped over the end of the bed. I pick it up and gently slide my arms into it because I’m naked. Then I take a quick glance at my body.
I’ve got bandages and bruises all over that I can see, and I can’t put much pressure on my right leg, but I have to find Kashton. Did they kidnap me? The last thing I remember was lying on the floor in the cathedral, bleeding out, with a gun pointed at my face.
Tying off the gown in the front, I make it to the door.
Opening it up, I look left and right to see a dimly lit hallway. Nothing butconcrete walls, but there’s a door at the end on the right. I have a moment of panic that it’s Dollhouse. That they dragged me here and Kashton is being tortured in another room.
Everything was for nothing. I refuse to let them get away with this. What has Kashton done? I’m the one who was killing Lords. I’m the one who reported the video to Bill, alerting him to the fact that Haidyn was trapped in Dollhouse by Isabella. That led to the halt of Dollhouse. No one else would want to run that hell.
My heart races as I let the door close behind me and lean up against the wall to help keep me upright. I could use my gun, but I didn’t see it anywhere. They must have stripped me naked and saved my life just to make me watch them take my husband’s.
After a second, I pull up the gown, trying to get a better look at why I’m so slow and out of breath. I see stitches in my thigh and more in my arm.
Have I been drugged? Was that what was in the IV? With a quick glance around the hallway, I don’t see any red bulbs.
How long have I been out? Did I save Kashton? Is he in the clear? What if everything I did was for nothing and they hurt him? I left my cell at Barrington, so I don’t have any way to contact him, and there wasn’t one in the room I woke up in.
I hear a phone ringing at the end of the hall on the other side of the only door. Pushing off the wall, I grit my teeth from the sharp pain that runs up my side and push on, dragging my right leg behind me.
I put my hand on the knob. Turning it softly, I push it open just enough to peer inside it.
“Hello?” I see a familiar face answer the cell that sits on a desk. What the fuck am I doing with him?
“I need you to come home.” I know that voice too. It’s Saint on the other end of the call.
“I can’t do that,” Adam says, falling into his chair. The top three buttons are undone on his button-down. He’s sans tie, sleeves rolled up, and he’s got a rag in his hands while cleaning off the blood that covers them.
“I don’t ask you for much. If anything,” Saint snaps, and then he lowers his tone. “But I need you. We all need you.”
“I’m sorry, Saint?—”
“Haidyn has spent days in the basement. Days, Adam,” he growls. “If I have to hear that damn ‘Hallelujah’ song one more time, I’m going to cut my fucking ears off.” Saint sighs. “And I honestly don’t know what the fuck he’s doing down there because Kash killed most of our prisoners. We don’t have many left.”
Kashton.Thank God. He’s alive. Happy tears sting my eyes. He’s at Carnage. Safe. I can’t wait to see him. But if I’m not there, where am I? And why?
