“You’re fucking crazy,” he spits out, louder this time, hiding his fear behind the volume.
I shrug, unbothered. “So what if I am? What are you going to do about it, Gale?”
His jaw locks at the mention of his real name, and a muscle ticks along his cheek. The others stay quiet, listening with detached resignation. One stares at the ground like he’s already accepted what’s coming. Another shifts his weight, shoulders tensing, but keeps his mouth shut.
Only Gale falters.
His chest heaves, his knuckles white as he clenches his fists. His gaze flickers to the hole behind him for a moment.
“You know where you’ll end up if you don’t talk,” I say, voice calm, like it’s a foregone conclusion.
He flinches, just barely, but enough for me to notice. Enough for all of us to notice. “Don’t do this.”
I crouch in front of him, lifting his chin with the barrel of my gun.
“What’s that?”
He deflects it, his cold eyes boring into mine.
“I said… don’t fucking do this. You looked into me. You know.” He bares his teeth.
“Idoknow, Gale. I know all about your irrational fear of being buried alive. I know about your recent regression in Salister’s ranks. What are you fighting for here? A cult that played you from day one? That doesn’t give a fuck about where you are right now? Hmm?” I look back at Hawke. “Wrap this up and cover the hole.”
Combat boots pass me from behind. Hawke and the others finish the job as the screams get louder, and Gale’s panic grows deeper by the second.
“You can feel it already, can’t you? The wood trapping you inside. The darkness seeping into your pores, clinging to your lungs, and chipping away at your sanity,” I tell Gale. He grunts, squirming into the ropes we tied him with. “The roaches. The snakes. They’ll crawl all over you. Into your mouth, nose, and ears. They’ll eat you up from the inside out, and you’ll be awake to feel it all.”
“Shut up! Shut the fuck up, you sick son of a bitch!”
“Give me what I need, Gale, and I won’t bury you alive with the rest of them. You have my word.”
“Your word means nothing to me!”
I’m so close. He’ll talk. He has to.
I keep silent, watching the deliberation unfold on his face.
He glances at the hole behind him for the second time, then back at me. His breath comes faster now, shallow, ragged, but the next words coming out of his mouth are nothing like what I expect him to say.
“I don’t… I don’t know where they took her.”
I close my eyes, defeated, feeling my rage flicker inside me like the start of a wildfire before it burns the forest down. Standing up, I’mthis closeto pushing him into the last empty casket when he speaks again.
“… all I know is who did.”
seven
Dove
The groan of metal against concrete jerks me awake. My breath catches and I scramble back, every muscle in my body screaming in pain. My hand darts to my shoe where I hid the knife—the one Magnus slipped me, the one he said I shouldn’t hesitate to use.Go for the jugular, he told me, like it’s supposed to be easy.
I want to believe I can do it—that when the time comes, adrenaline will take over and I’ll fight to survive. But whenever my fingers brush the handle, I freeze. The thought of sinking it into someone, of watching them bleed because of me… It makes my stomach churn. At best, I could slash them just enough to get away. Anything more and I’d be the one collapsing on the floor, knife in hand, paying the price for what I’d done.
Still, I wrap my hand around the handle. The cold metal grounds me, forcing my trembling body to still. Slowly I shift into position, readying myself for whatever’s next.
“Wakey, wakey, little bird.” An unknown voice reverberates against the walls. “Time for your next shot.”
The man’s shadow hovers above me as the cap of a syringe comes off.
