But now that I’m actually being dragged toward it, dread floods my veins so sharply I want to crawl out of my own skin.
They haul me across the floor, and the moment the door swings open, dread shakes loose inside me. Then they throw me in, and my body hits the floor—a teeth-rattling collision that sends a brutal shudder through every raw inch of me.
It feels like my whole frame is nothing but stitches and bruises. I roll onto my side, clenching my jaw as the discomfort spreads in harsh, pulsing waves.
Through the haze, my eyes track Lucia. She locks the cage door with a sharp twist of the key, metal scraping against metal, before turning to the guards. She says something—her lips move, her expression shifts—but the piercing ringing in my ears swallows every word. I only see her gesture them away, sending them down the corridor, and then her gaze returns to me.
“Dante,” she says, or at least her mouth forms the shape of the name. The sound doesn’t reach me. I look around, disoriented, breath hitching as the walls close in.
Every inhale tightens my chest. Every heartbeat stutters faster. Panic spikes as I take in how cramped the space really is.
Old memories, long-buried but never dead, ignite like gasoline catching flame. They surge up the back of my skull and race across my vision—those days and nights locked in a cage just like this.
The reek of rust and blood. My father’s footsteps. The beatings that left me numb to my own limbs.
They rise and drag me under before I can brace against them. I slap a hand over my face, trying to force my thoughts into order, but everything slips through my grip. The memories swell, suffocating, pulling me toward the same drowning place I’ve escaped from a thousand times but never outrun.
I needEstella. I need the warmth of her hands, the calm in her voice. She was the only thing keeping those memories from swallowing me whole.
But she’s gone. And with her gone, the past floods back in, dragging me to the deepest point of the ocean right when I try to surface.
Voices echo from every corner of my mind. I squeeze my eyes shut, forcing back the tears, but they spill through anyway, lining my lashes and breaking loose down my cheeks.
“Dante?” Her voice finally pierces through, faint but real. I shake my head, annoyance blooming through the despair like a crack through glass.
None of this would’ve happened if she hadn’t been so unbelievably stupid. If she hadn’t put me in this fucking cage. If she hadn’t trapped me in the one place she should’ve known I can’t survive.
“Lucia,” I say slowly, pushing myself up onto my feet. My eyes stay shut as I fight the storm of emotions, memories, and sensations ripping through me. “I need you to let me out of here.”
A quiet sob breaks the air. “I’m sorry, Dante… I can’t.”
My nostrils flare as I inhale sharply, disappointment sinking deeper with every passing second. There’s no saving them. Not her. Not Jason. Jason is already gone, and Lucia is determined to follow him in her stupidity.
“I’m uncomfortable here,” I say, a flat, humorless laugh slipping out, scraped from the bottom of my throat. “I don’t?—”
“I’mscaredof you, Dante,” she says, echoing the same words I’ve heard once already, the ones that branded themselves into my skull. I scrub a hand down my face, trying to ground myself, to force the storm of thoughts to settle, but the attempt only stokes my irritation. “I want to help you, I really do, but you’re scaring me. What you did to Jason?—”
“Was self-defence,” I cut in, forcing myself to meet her gaze. “I promise you, I didn’t want it to end like this.”
Tears pool in her eyes, trembling at the edges before she shakes her head, disbelief contorting her features. “His hands were… broken. And his eyes—” Her voice fractures, and she sniffles loudly. “It’s as if his soul is still hoping for the best.”
I barely manage not to roll my eyes. “I’m sorry, but I had to protect myself,” I reply. “Do you want to keep me here for the whole night? What’s your plan?”
She exhales sharply. “Yes, we’re keeping you here. You’ve proven to be a danger to everyone around you, so this is for your own good.”
I try to hold myself steady, searching Lucia’s expression for some flicker of the softness I know she’s capable of, the humanity that’s always there in her eyes. “I can’t stay here, Lucia,” I say quietly. “I won’t hurt you, I have no intention of it. I just want out. That’s all.”
“To do what?” she snaps back. “To chase afterher, maybe? And then what?”
Her jealousy strikes me like a sour, unwelcome scent, causing my brows to jump in surprise. “I’ve been closer to Estellathan you and Jason ever will,” I reply, my voice calm but sharp. “I saw her for what she is. All I’m asking is to let me find her. We don’t want anything except to leave this mess behind.”
“You forgot your real purpose,” she fires back, and the muscle beneath my eye twitches. “You got played. Manipulated. I’ve never seen you like this. And—” She cuts herself off, turning away as fresh tears trail down her cheeks. “You killed Jason.”
The dim, frail thread of hope snaps clean. She can’t be reasoned with. She’s just like him—locked inside her own little imaginings, blind to the truth, blind to what’s written plainly on my face.
I step away from the wall, my gaze skimming the cramped cage. My mind drags me back into old horrors as if eager to make me relive each one, to force me to drown in memories I never asked to revisit.
“Everything will go as planned,” Lucia says softly.
