I try again, louder. "I know you can hear me. We need to move. Now."
Still nothing.
The sedative they gave him must have been strong enough to drop an elephant. Combined with whatever psychological break he had in that medical wing, watching Cosima on that table...
Fuck.
She's still alive. I can feel it. That thread between us may be gossamer thin, but it hasn't broken yet, even though the alphas—heralphas, I remind myself with a twinge of pain—apparently told her what was happening before the doctors started fucking around with her head.
How much did they tell her?
Enough to potentially trigger the kill switch?
I refuse to even consider any reality where that’s the last time I will ever see her alive.
Gripping the bones of the cilice until they dig into the broken flesh of my palm provides clarity. I see a flicker of white in the corner, just behind Knight. Hear the rustle of feathered wings. The vision is gone when I look up, but the shackled giant is still there.
Her guidance is clear.
"Knight,” I grit out through the haze of my own sedation, fighting to keep my eyes open and on the alpha who almost scooped out my brains with the curved metal claws on that iron gauntlet.
And Cosima’s only chance at survival. If we can somehow stop the exam?—
His massive frame shudders.
For a moment I think he's still unconscious, that the movement was just an involuntary spasm. But then I hear it.
A sound so broken it takes me several heartbeats to identify it.
Sobbing.
Knight issobbing.
Not the violent, uncontrolled sounds of typical grief. These are the muffled, hitching chokes of someone who's forgotten how to cry properly. Someone who can't shed tears but whose body still remembers the motions. He's fighting it—I can see the way his shoulders lock up between each broken sound, the way his breathing stutters.
The sound makes my stomach turn.
I've witnessed torture. Inflicted it when necessary, though the necessity always left a bitter taste. I've seen strong men reduced to begging, seen warriors break under pressure that would crush steel.
This is worse.
Those men broke under external force. Knight is breaking from the inside. From damage so deep and so old that even his body has forgotten how to express grief.
Knight isn't breaking.
He was born broken.
"Hey." I soften my voice, stripping away the command. Just speaking to him like I would any soldier under my charge who's hit their breaking point. "I need you to look at me. Can you do that?"
His shoulders shake harder. More blood drips from beneath that curtain of white hair. I can see now that some of it is fresh, bright red against the darker stains. He's still bleeding from whatever wounds he inflicted on his own face with the curved metal claws of the gauntlet replacing his right hand.
"Listen to me," I say, keeping my tone steady even though everything in me wants to rage at the chains, at my brother, at this entire fucked situation. "I know you're hurting. I know you're terrified. But Cosima is still alive. She needs us."
At the sound of her name, his head moves. Just slightly, but it's something. His breathing hitches.
"But she won't be for long if we don't get out of here." I pause, letting that sink in as much as speaking the words out loud feels like a betrayal. Goddess knows I’ve betrayed her enough. "I need your help. Can you help?"
Slowly—so fucking slowly I want to scream to hurry—his head lifts.
