At least I’d had kind of a… kind of an adventure. A fucked-up one, sure, butI’dchosen it, and it had been with one of the Trinity. Who got to say that? I’d given my life to help someone who had done so much.
If it was going to be a sacrifice, at least it was an honorable one.
It would fucking suck, but it could be worse. Right?
I sniffled again and tried to ease my features into a calm expression but failed.
The house had things that had mattered, but my life still mattered more.
I wouldn’t give up.
I hoped that every single person who had been at my house got hemorrhoids. Internal and external ones. If anything happened to me, I was going to come back from the dead and poltergeist every single one of their asses. None of them were ever going to have sex again if I had anything to say about it. They were never going to have a full night’s rest either.
I didn’t need to have super strength and speed to make someone regret being born.
So yeah, even if I didn’t make it out of here, I was going to ignore that light at the end of the tunnel and haunt these motherfuckers for the rest of their lives. That would be my consolation prize. That would be my new purpose—haunting. I was going to find every person in the cartel and haunt them and their families. Maybe throw some things around. Pull on some feet from under the bed.
Pressing my fingers against my face, I dragged in a big, deep breath that hurt like hell before slowly letting it back out, ignoring the way my body wanted to shake at being so overwhelmed.
“Are you done… throwing a tantrum?” came the deep voice from its spot across the room.
He hadn’t moved an inch since pretty much telling me that everything I knew was gone now.
Grief filled my throat, my soul again….
Then I thought about what had just come out of his mouth.
“I wasn’t throwing a tantrum,” I grumbled, rolling onto my side to find that he had moved. He was sitting up against the wall. His long legs were stretched out, and his arms were crossed on his chest. His breaths were deeper than they had been.
But he was still in pain. I could tell from the tightness at the corners of his mouth.
“You were throwing a tantrum,” he insisted, sliding his gaze over to me.
“No, I wasn’t,” I muttered, grumpier than hell but trying to be decent. Because none of this was his fault. It really wasn’t. I knew it.
“Yeah, you were. All that crying… and sniffling?” He made a dismissive sound. “Disgusting.”
I swear…. “There’s nothing ‘disgusting’ about being upset.”
He made a face. “You were wiping your nose with the back of your hand.”
“Well, there isn’t exactly tissue or toilet paper, is there?” I thought about it. Then I used my shoulder to wipe off my dry nose just to spite him. “I have a right to be upset. Everything I loved is gone.Maybe I’m never going to get out of here, and I’ve read about starvation; it’s not a pleasant fucking way to go.And I don’t want to fucking die, okay?”
Tears bubbled up in my eyes all over again, and I used the back of my hand to wipe them off, before sniffling so I could glare at him and look straight into those stupid purple eyes. “I’m scared, all right? And I won’t let myself regret helping you, but I’m going to regret a whole lot of other things if this is going to be the end.” Things like… things I couldn’t control. Things like never having a real boyfriend, never having sex. Never leaving the country. Never doing a million other things I had hoped would be in my future. I’d never even had a girls’ night out, for fuck’s sakes. “You’re not helping. At all.”
Oh God, I was going to start crying again.
The silence in the room might have been stifling if I gave a shit.
But I didn’t.
I’d lost all my shits somewhere between being kidnapped and finding out my home had been burned down. I didn’t deserve this. I had never done anything to deserve any of this. That was exactly what I was hung up on.
My whole life had revolved around decisions other people had made that affected me.
I’d had it. This could be it for me if I didn’t think straight and take advantage of any and every opportunity I had. I’d drink my own pee if I had to, and that was just the tip of the iceberg in the shit I was pretty sure I was willing to do to survive. I’d made a promise after all.
Fuck it. Fuck everything. I already knew I had nothing left to lose.
