“What?” I asked as loudly as I could, in basically still a whisper.
Alexander started shaking his head slowly, looking… amazed? “How do you still have anything left in you?”
I was still going. I tried to smile. “At least my organs aren’t failing.”
A solid five seconds more had my body continuing to release at least another half-gallon of pee before it was finally over.
With a sigh, I winced at the lack of toilet paper and waited before pulling up my sleep pants.
With any luck, we’d be out of here soon, and I’d have access to a shower and toilet paper. Real food and—
“Would you hurry up?” the impatient voice across the room asked.
I guess some things hadn’t changed.
* * *
I was weak, and we both knew it.
But I’d done the best I could and eaten a nutrition bar slowly and drank as much water as possible despite my wrecked throat.
I could tell he was antsy to get out of there, and I was too. He knew things I didn’t and didn’t feel up to asking about.
The truth was, I was nervous. Or more like practically scared shitless. But I hoped like hell everything went smoothly. It was some kind of miracle that those people hadn’t come back, and I knew it. Despite everything else wrong, my stomachache hadn’t started up again, but I couldn’t trust that to be enough of a warning sign that something bad was about to happen.
If I had ever needed to keep my shit together, it was now, and I would put one foot in front of the next for a thousand miles if I had to.
And that was how I struggled to my feet too when he finally stood and gave me a serious nod. The man who had joked with me about stinky breath and not talking because of his bad mood was gone. It was time to fucking go.
Gathering all my will, I followed him stiffly to the big, metal door.
He turned to me, dropping his voice. “Wait here. Let me deal with the guards, and I’ll come back.”
I blinked, my chest going instantly tighter than it already was. “Can I come with you?”
He started to shake his head before his gaze swept over my face, maybe sensing my fucking panic at the idea of him leaving me behind. “It’s safer for you to stay,” he explained slowly.
I understood, but I really, really didn’t want to get left. “I’ll stay out of the way. Promise.”
Alexander, The Defender, hesitated, really not looking all that happy about it, but after a second, he nodded reluctantly. “Let me see your wrist. I don’t know what these will do, but I don’t want to risk it.”
I held it out to him. He took it carefully, and in the blink of an eye, I watched his fingers curl a millimeter closer around the band on my wrist. It cracked into three pieces and fell to the floor, and in the time it took me to blink again, he’d ripped the ones on his wrists off and threw them beside mine. Only then did he place his hand in the corner where the door met the frame, and he pushed. The door popped open like it was nothing.
Like taking candy from an ant. Not even a baby, an ant.
Then he reached over, wrapped his fingers around my forearm, and started pulling me behind him.
If he felt the way I started shaking at the thought of being left, he didn’t react.
The hallway was exactly the way I remembered it. Long and straight, reminding me of a storage facility except for the normal-sized doors instead of the big, garage-style ones. My brain had been too busy panicking before, and I hadn’t paid enough attention.
And that’s when I thought about something.
“Psst?”
He turned to look over his shoulder, giving me a hard glare as he let go of my arm to press his index finger to his lips.
I mouthed,Is there anyone else here?
