I woke up screaming; the sound ripping through the quiet room like a siren. My body shot upward, hands clawing at invisible restraints, my lungs burning as I gasped for air. The harsh fluorescent lights blinded me after so long in near-darkness, and for a terrifying moment, I couldn't place where I was. Not the cell. Not the concrete floor. But not safety either, nowhere was safe.
My heart hammered against my ribs like it was trying to escape my chest. The unfamiliar beeping of machines sent fresh waves of panic through me. Hospital. I was in a hospital. But was that real, or just another cruel dream my mind had conjured to torture me with hope? Something tugged at my arm; it felt like restraints, like Damien's hands holding me down. I clawed at it frantically, desperate to free myself.
"No!" I screamed, my voice hoarse and broken. "Don't touch me! Please!" Hands grabbed my wrists, and blind terror exploded through me. I thrashed wildly, fighting with what little strength I had left. My fist connected with something solid, and I heard a grunt of pain, but I couldn't stop fighting. If I stopped, he would hurt me again. He always hurt me when I stopped fighting.
"Poison! Cade, it's me! It's Ryder!"
The nickname cut through the fog of panic. Poison. Only one person called me that. I froze, my eyes finally focusing on the face above mine. Not Damien. Not my tormentor. Ryder. Hisdirty blond hair and blue eyes, now wide with concern. Ryder, who was holding my wrists gently but firmly, preventing me from tearing out the IV in my arm.
"That's it," he said, his voice softer now. "Come back to me, Poison. You're safe. You're in the hospital. We found you. You're safe now." My breathing came in ragged gasps as reality slowly reasserted itself. The nightmare receded, leaving me trembling and disoriented in its wake. My eyes darted around the room, taking in the medical equipment, the sterile walls, the daylight streaming through partially closed blinds.
"R-Ryder?" My voice cracked, barely recognisable even to my own ears. His face softened with relief.
"There you are. Quite the right hook you've got there." He gestured to his cheek, where an angry red mark was forming. "Remind me never to startle you when you're sleeping." The attempt at humour fell flat as horror washed over me. I'd hit him. In my panic, I'd struck out at the person trying to help me. Fresh tears welled in my eyes, spilling over onto my cheeks.
"Oh god, I'm s-sorry," I choked out. "I didn't mean-"
"Hey, none of that," Ryder interrupted, his tone gentle but firm. "You have nothing to apologise for. Nothing. Do you understand me?" The kindness in his voice broke something inside me. A sob tore from my throat, then another, and suddenly I was crying uncontrollably, my body convulsing with the force of my grief and relief and terror. Ryder didn't hesitate; he gathered me carefully into his arms, mindful of the IV and the monitoring equipment, and held me against his chest.
"I've got you," he murmured into my hair, one hand cradling the back of my head. "I've got you, Poison. You're safe now. No one's going to hurt you anymore." But I didn't feel safe. I felt raw and exposed, like my skin had been flayed from my body, leaving every nerve ending exposed to the air. I felt dirty, contaminated,like no amount of scrubbing would ever make me clean again. Most of all, I felt afraid, terrified that this was just a cruel dream, that I would wake up back in that freezing cell with Damien looming over me.
"Is this real?" I gasped between sobs. "Please tell me this is real. Please don't let me wake up there again. Please-"
"It's real," Ryder said firmly, his arms tightening around me. "I swear to you, Cade, this is real. We found you. You're out of that place. You're never going back."
I clung to him, my fingers digging into his shirt as if he might disappear if I loosened my grip. The sobs wracked my body, each one sending fresh waves of pain through my battered form. Everything hurt: my ribs, my throat, between my legs, my heart. But Ryder held me through it all, his steady heartbeat under my ear a counterpoint to my own frantic pulse.
Gradually, the storm of emotion began to subside. My breathing evened out, though each inhale still caught painfully in my chest. The tears slowed, then stopped, leaving my face feeling tight and swollen. Exhausted, I pulled back slightly from Ryder's embrace, suddenly self-conscious about my appearance, my smell, the state of me.
Ryder let me go immediately, his hands sliding to my shoulders to support me as I settled back against the pillows. His eyes were red-rimmed and suspiciously bright, though he blinked rapidly to hide it. The sight of his unshed tears twisted something in my chest. Ryder, always so confident and carefree, looked like he'd been through his own kind of hell. He had bags under his eyes like he hadn’t slept for a year, and his face held a scruff showing he hadn’t shaved in a while.
"I'm so sorry," he said, his voice rough with emotion. "I'm so fucking sorry it took us so long to find you. We never stoppedlooking, not for a minute, but we should have found you sooner. We should have-"
"How long?" I interrupted, needing to know. "How long was I... there?"
Ryder's expression tightened, a flash of something dark crossing his features before he controlled it.
"Six weeks," he whispered. "You were gone for six weeks." Six weeks. The words hit me like a physical blow. Only six weeks? It had felt like years in that darkness, in that pain; time had lost all meaning, stretching into an endless nightmare of abuse and terror. How could it have been only six weeks?
"It felt longer," I whispered, my voice cracking. "It felt like forever." Ryder's hand found mine, squeezing gently.
"I know, Poison. I know." The understanding in his eyes told me he did know, somehow, what it was like to lose time to trauma. I remembered the fragments I'd learned about his past, his time in Lexington, his own demons.
A thought struck me suddenly, and my heart rate picked up again.
"Logan? Cole? Where-"
"They're okay," Ryder assured me quickly, sensing my panic. "Logan was here all night with you. He wouldn't leave your side, not even when the nurses tried to kick him out. I finally convinced him to go back to the hotel about an hour ago to shower and change. He'll be back soon." Relief flooded through me at the news that Logan was safe. The last memory I had before being taken was our fight, his anger, my defiance as I stormed away from him on the street.
"And Cole?" I asked, my voice small. Ryder's expression darkened slightly.
"Cole's at Ivory Crest Manor, that's where we found you, with a Trivium team. They're gathering evidence, going through theproperty." His jaw tightened. "He's...handling things his own way." I didn't need to ask what that meant. The cold, lethal precision I'd glimpsed in Cole when he was truly angry told me all I needed to know about how he was "handling things." A shiver ran through me at the thought.
"It was Damien," I said suddenly, the words spilling out before I could stop them. "He was the one who took me. Well, he didn’t take me, but he was the one who was in charge. He..." My voice broke, unable to articulate the horrors he'd inflicted on me. "He was there. In that place."
"We know," Ryder said, his voice hardening to steel. "We know it was McIntyre. And we're hunting him, Cade. We have our best people on it. We'll find him." The promise in his voice was absolute, chilling in its certainty. "He won't get away with what he did to you."
I opened my mouth to respond, but a soft knock at the door interrupted me. My body tensed immediately, fear flooding back in an instant. Ryder squeezed my hand reassuringly.
