Her chin trembles.She swallows it down and leans forward until the chain between us goes taut.“Cassius.”Her voice is a whisper now.“I knew you’d come for me.I did everything you said.”
I could tell her how many ways I’ve already mapped it in my head.How I’ve counted the screws in the vent above us, how I’ve memorized the rhythm of the footsteps in the hall.How if I break the chair leg just right, I can get both hands free and wrap them around every throat in this building.But all I say is, “Iwillget you out.”
Her mouth curves.“I know.”
The door opens and two new men enter.One braces my neck.Another crouches at her, fisting her hair, dragging her face up.
“Sheissoft,” he grins at me.“I get why she makes you weak.”
I lunge; the rope holds; a knee drives between my shoulder blades.Pain lights my ribs.A blade kisses under her jaw just enough to line her in red.My vision tunnels.
“Look at me,” she says.
God help me, I do.
“I’m okay.”
He hits her.Again.And Again.Every time I jerk forward, the other one yanks me back, forearm grinding my neck.Knife man enters and draws a thin line from her jaw to the hollow of her throat.Her breath hitches and steadies.I twist hard and the cut opens, blood flooding my hands.
“You breathing like a scared little boy,” one taunts in my ear.
I pull until the skin across my shoulder blades splits.Heat runs toward my armpits.I don’t stop.If I don’t get free in sixty seconds, I’m going to watch the only good thing I’ve ever touched get destroyed in front of me.
The phone in the pocket of the one near Lindy chirps.“Get the camera,” he says to Knife.The three of them step back, laugh, and slip out.The door slams.
“Listen to me.”Her voice cuts the dark and aims at the ceiling corner, not at me.“I know you hate him.I know you follow me because of him.I know you all hope he suffers the same fate.Maybe he will.But not like this.”Her voice climbs, raw around the edges.“If you ever wanted anything from me, take it.Take my sleep.Take my peace.Take my fucking life if you want it.I’ll trade places with any one of you.Just—” she breaks, swallows, starts again, louder, “—just keep him breathing.Keep him breathing and I’ll sell my soul, I swear it.Gideon help him like you help me.Please.”
“Lind—” I try.
She’s staring into a corner of the room like it’s a face.“Please.Do not let him die in here.”
I don’t say anything for a beat because the hair on my arms lifts, and I don’t believe in God, but I know bargaining when I hear it.
“Gideon?”I rasp to the corner she’s addressing.
Her eyes finally find mine.“I see them,” she whispers.“I have my whole life, never yours before, but after you it’s like anyone who wasn’t killed by you is terrified of being near me.So now I see yours.They came after you and never left.They follow you like a tide, Cassius, and they decided I was shore.They taunt me.They showed me knots.Angles.How to make the fear smaller.”Her mouth twists.“They loathe you, all but Gideon.And for a reason I don’t have, they help me.”
A normal fucker would flinch.I don’t.She’s dehydrated, beaten, probably hallucinating.Or, maybe she’s telling the truth, has been telling the truth.Either way, I have to get her out of here.
“If you’re here,” I tell the air, “listen the fuck up.You want me?This is it.Keep her alive.Keep me upright long enough to break this room.You can have me after that.I won’t run.”The chain above us gives a metallic tick, weight shifting where there isn’t any.
Her chin trembles.“No.”
Somewhere outside, boots hit the floor.The locks rattle.I straighten.Not away from her—never away from her—but enough that I can spring.Because they’re coming back, and I’ve been sitting here too fucking long.
The men come in grinning.One kneels at her again, runs the blade down her cheek.“All that muscle, all that reputation, and you can’t do a fucking thing to stop me.”
I want to tell her a hundred things.That I love her.That she’s mine.That they will die for touching her.Instead, I let the chain between us take the strain as I lean in, until my kneesfinallybrush hers.I keep my voice low, for her alone.
“They can break my bones.Cut me open.Put bullets in me.I’ll still find a way to kill them all.And I’ll do it with your name in my mouth.”
Tears kiss her beautiful face.“I know.”
Every hit they give her lands in my chest.Every flinch is a nail in my spine.I wrench and the gash opens again and again, rope chewing bone, ligaments screaming.I don’t quit.
Because this is my fault.I never had any right to her.I should’ve left her in her world of coffee and books and quiet.But she saidyes.She said she was mine.And I swore I’d keep her safe.
They don’t stop touching her.Every time I jerk forward, they yank me back.The one crouched in front of her traces the knife from her jaw down to the hollow of her throat.I can hear her breath hitch before she steadies it.
