Alpha Group:
Alive. In Resus. Sedated.
The replies came almost instantly.
Ryder:
Hunting.
Cole:
I'm here, just outside.
Bruce:
Thank you, on our way now.
Killingham:
Enforcer team en route to hospital. Full protection protocol.
Lynch:
Purcell, I got the hunt. Go see your girl.
Ryder:
Thanks mate. Logan, I’m on my way.
I slipped the phone back into my pocket, my eyes never leaving Cadence's face. She looked impossibly small in the hospital bed, swallowed by blankets and medical equipment. My jacket was still draped across her shoulders, my t-shirt still covering her torso beneath the hospital gown they'd managed to place over her arms. They were the only barriers she'd allowed, the only protection she'd accepted.
I thought of all the barriers I'd torn down since she came into my life, her defiance, her independence, her sense of self. How I'd systematically stripped away her defences, justifying it with the contract, with the Trivium's rules, with my own selfish pride. And now, looking at her broken body and shattered spirit, I silently apologised for every boundary I'd ever crossed, every wall I'd ever demolished.
"She's safe," a nurse murmured, adjusting a blanket over Cadence's legs. "The medication will help her rest. That's what she needs most right now." I nodded, not trusting myself to speak. Rest. As if rest could heal what had been done to her. As if sleep could erase the horrors she'd endured.
The room grew dimmer as some of the overhead lights were switched off, marking the transition from the crisis phase to something more controlled. The monitors beeped steadily, the IV pumps hummed, and Cadence's chest rose and fell in the shallow rhythm of sedated sleep. The nurses finished securing dressings and lines, set the pump rates, and tucked the blankets more securely around her frail form.
I studied her face, bruised, swollen, almost unrecognisable, and yet still unmistakably her. I counted each breath, syncing my own to match, as if by breathing in tandem I could somehow share my strength with her. Carefully, mindful of the dressing at her temple, I leaned forward and rested my forehead against the crown of her head. I closed my eyes, inhaling the scent of her beneath the hospital's antiseptic and the lingering stench of that hellhole; there was still something uniquely Cadence, something that had survived despite everything.
"Rest, Princess," I whispered, the promise forming itself without conscious thought. "I'll do the fighting now."
Pain. Blinding, tearing pain between my legs as he thrust into me again. The cold concrete beneath my back scraped against my raw skin with each violent movement. I couldn't scream anymore; my throat was too raw, my body too weak from days without food. Or was it weeks? At this point, I'd lost all sense of time in this freezing, everlasting darkness.
"Please," I whimpered, the word barely audible. "Please stop."
"Shh, sweetheart," he whispered, his breath hot against my ear, the pet name a mockery of tenderness. His weight crushed me, pinning me to the filthy floor. "You know you love it."
I turned my face away, tears leaking silently from the corners of my eyes. The stench of him, sweat and something rotten underneath, made me gag. His hand gripped my jaw, forcing me to look at him. In the dim light, I could just make out his face, twisted with a cruel pleasure I'd never seen any other time before he had ripped me away from my life. Not even when he attacked me.
"Look at me when I'm inside you," he hissed, his fingers digging painfully into my cheeks. "I want you to remember who owns you now."
"No," I sobbed, trying to twist away. "Please, we were friends-" His palm cracked across my face, the impact snapping my head to the side.
"Friends?" he laughed, the sound echoing in the small cell. "You were never my friend. You were just a means to an end, sweetheart. I had hopes once, but since you started whoring yourself to those bastards, I knew you were just like all those other sluts and gold diggers at that place."
The pain intensified as he picked up his pace, each thrust feeling like he was tearing me apart from the inside. I closed my eyes, trying to escape to somewhere, anywhere else. But his voice followed me, dragging me back to this hell.
"No one's coming for you, sweetheart," he whispered, his lips against my ear. "They've forgotten you already. You're mine now. Forever." I screamed then, a sound of pure anguish that tore from my battered throat,
