The words feel foreign. Ugly. Too honest.
I’ve survived too much to talk like this. I’ve swallowed knives and learned to call them meals. I’ve slept in the shadows and learned to breathe quietly.
But this—this steel throat around me, this waiting—
It’s different.
“You won’t,” he says instantly. No hesitation. No lies. “I’ll get you out.”
I close my eyes.
And I hate that I believe him.
That’s the part that terrifies me more than the chamber.
I slide down the wall and press my forehead into the cold door, lining myself with the warmth of where I know his breath must fog the other side. My skin remembers him like a bruise—still humming, still aching in the shape of his voice.
“You sound so sure,” I murmur.
“I am,” he answers. “Whoever it is — they’re not faster than me. They’re not stronger than me.”
A lie.
Not the comforting kind.
The terrifying kind that means he’s already prepared to bleed.
Something slips loose in my chest. I curl tighter, suddenly aware of how small this room really is. How close the walls are pressing. How my lungs feel too big for my body.
“What if they open it?” I whisper.
“They won’t,” he says, like he’s daring fate to challenge him.
“And if they do?” I push.
A beat.
His voice lowers. Changes.
"They will need to deal with me before anything else."
The image hits too fast—Santino in the tunnels, blood on his hands, rage in his eyes, his body between mine and something worse—and my stomach flips in a way that has nothing to do with fear.
“Don’t,” I whisper. “Don’t say that like it's nothing.”
“It’s not nothing,” he replies. “It’s everything.”
The door creaks again.
Closer this time.
Intentional.
I pull in a silent breath and press my lips to the steel where I know his face must be, even if I can’t see him.
“Santino,” I whisper. “If I get out of this—”
“You will.”
