Because if everyone believes I had something to do with Afrim’s death, Roan won’t have a choice about what happens next. His position will force his hand. He’ll have to punish me, make an example out of me, even if he doesn’t want to.
The seconds stretch into minutes that feel like hours. Or maybe they are hours? Days? I genuinely don’t know anymore. Time has lost all meaning in this place. There’s no window, and if there ever was one, it’s been sealed shut. I can’t see anything, can’t think past the oppressive darkness and the bone-deep cold that’s shutting down my body systems one by one.
This is torture. Brilliantly effective torture, really. You don’t even have to do the dirty work yourself. You just leave your captives in here long enough to let the cold do its thing, and they’ll be begging to confess, desperate to talk, ready to trade whatever information they have to just to escape this frozen hell.
My breath comes out in shallow, painful pants that frost the air in front of my face.
I’m so fucking cold.
I don’t know how much longer I can last before hypothermia sets in and my body just… quits.
Everything hurts.
My fingers feel like they’re about to snap clean off. My toes are blocks of ice. My back keeps tightening in sharp, mean spasms, and my legs are locked in place from being stuck in this chair for God knows how long. Half my face doesn’t even register as mine anymore—just a frozen, numb slab attached to my skull.
The shaking gets worse. Violent, uncontrollable tremors that drag my head down until my chin hits my chest, and lifting it again feels impossible.
This is how I die, isn’t it? In the dark. In the cold. Alone…
Then suddenly, the room explodes with blinding white light.
What—
The glare is so harsh my body tries to flinch, but the cold has turned every movement sluggish and uncooperative. I fight to squeeze my eyes shut, but even that feels clumsy—my eyelids stiff from the freezing air, barely obeying me as they inch shut.
When I finally manage to open them again, it’s only to a thin, shaky squint, vision swimming as it tries to adjust.
Dhimitër stands in the doorway, torch in hand, staring at me like I’m filth under his boot.
Did he come to finish the job?
But then he steps aside and Roan walks in, and my heart gives a weak, pitiful flutter.
He doesn’t speak. Doesn’t look at me with judgment or rage or anything I can read. Just comes straight over and crouches down, unlocking the cuffs around my wrists with quick but surprisingly careful movements. Then he shrugs out of his jacket and drapes it over my shoulders.
The warmth seeps in slowly at first, then rushes through me so fast it knocks the air from my lungs. My skin prickles, almost stings, as the cold loosens its grip, and for a moment my body doesn’t seem to know what to do with the sudden heat—like it forgot that this was even possible. Before I can process it, he’s lifting me, one arm under my legs, the other bracing my back.
Pain flares at the shift, sharp enough to pull a small, broken whimper from my throat. But I grab onto him anyway, fisting his shirt like my life depends on it. Maybe it does.
His chest is solid and hot and gloriously alive, and I press my face against it, shaking too hard to pretend I don’t need every bit of warmth he’s giving me.
“She’s a great actress, Roan,” Dhimitër says behind us as we leave the freezing room. “What you’re doing is wrong and?—”
“Shut the fuck up.” Roan’s voice is sharp, furious, and it cuts through the darkness like a blade.
It’s night already? How long was I in there?
But even through the haze in my head, I can tell—he’s not angry at me. He’s angry at Dhimitër.
Which means Roan wasn’t the one who locked me in that icebox. He didn’t approve of my imprisonment there at all. Dhimitër acted on his own.
A dizzying wave of relief bathes my insides with warmth, and I cling to that hope, holding it as tightly as I’m holding onto him.
“I–I liked Afrim,” I manage through chattering teeth. “I w–would n–n–never hurt him.”
Dhimitër snorts, low and bitter. Roan doesn’t respond except to hold me even tighter against his chest as he walks carefully but quickly back towards his house.
At least he’s not letting me go.
