But my stillness is deceptive.
I do not give a fuck about him anymore.
And he’ll never know that I did.
When we finally get back, I will never speak to him again.
Screams break me out my blood-boiling trance. The sentinels at the back of the herd are burning prisoners with torches to get the line to move faster.
After running and leaping over inmates who have tripped—we arrive at the community showers. The room fills up beyond capacity standards. Jack is separated from us, jostled away from the hysterical group.
“Get to a wall!” he shouts to us.
People begin fighting, punching, kicking, and throwing the weight of their bodies into getting away from the center of the circle. I yelp as an elbow flies into my temple. My feet are being trampled. Shoulders slam into my back. I’m being thrown from side to side by caged animals, stampeding in every direction.
“Sapphire!” Niklaus shouts as he torn away from me. He reaches his hand out, and that’s the last I see as a stray fist plows right into my nose. Blood springs free, dripping down my mouth.
“Damnit!” I hiss.
A man tries to use my body to jump over the crowd, taking me to the ground. I land on my back but quickly flip over to protect my vital organs. Feet step on me, kick the back of my head, stomp on my shoulders—and there’s nowhere to seek shelter. I can’t even lift myself off the ground. It’s an endless beat down. My only hope is to crawl through the brief open spaces.
I scurry on my elbows and slither along the damp, scummy floor. Rolling, twisting and shimming through legs, and around jammed areas of fighting inmates.
Get to a wall.
Get to a wall.
Get to a wall.
After getting a knee to the cheekbone, I run my fingertips along the rocky dark gray wall. With a sigh of relief, I claw my way up its jagged terrain to stand up. Men and women shriek and cry to be let out of the center of the showers, but the room is so packed, there is no escape. I’m plastered to the wall, wedged between two younger men who are shielding their faces.
What the fuck is going to happen? Ice water? Poison? Are they going to kill us?
A man and a woman kiss, then hold each other in tears.
No. They’re going to kill us, aren’t they?!
“Niklaus!” I screech. But I can’t see him through the great mass of bodies surrounding me. Tears spring to my eyes. What if this is it? We both die here? Fifty years in the past? And we don’t even get to say goodbye?
A Guardian, a member of the Blood family, eclipses the room like a dark curtain pulled over a window, smirking as he toys with a lever.
“Devietzx né lïevitz quinxcéitz!”
The room erupts in a nuclear blast of panic and terror.
The lever is pulled.
And just before pipes burst with steaming water, Niklaus shoulders his way through the crowd to me. In a forceful thrust, he throws his body against me, slamming his hands down on the wall of either side of my head. He encloses me in, blocking the sudden downpour that beats down his back and head.
The sounds of the room drastically morph from terror to agony.
But it all blends into the background as Niklaus screams.
And he doesn’t stop screaming.
Residual drops and a fine mist scorch my arms and the sides of my calves. Boiling water mixed with something. Not as potent as acid, but a chemical that leaves a mephitic odor and lasting burn.
I squeeze my eyes shut, in misery as I can feel the Nightlung floating closer to the surface. I reach for it. The fingers of my mind curl around nothing.Please!I beg for it to take us somewhere safe.Home. Home. Home. Please bring us back to our families!
