“Hide this in the corner when you wake up. It’s contraband, but I’ve managed to keep it from the sentinels.” Sophia hands me a ratty, torn up blanket and a tiny metal jar.
“What’s this?”
“Rub it on his back. There’s not much in there, but it should help him sleep.”
I peek around my bars to Jack huddled in his cage, taking deep breaths.
“What about Jack? He was hit with the acid too.”
Sophia shrugs. “We’re used to it. I promise, we’ve been through much worse and for longer too. Take it. Your husband needs it.”
That’s…that’s my grandmother.
I can’t even begin to comprehend her kindness. Especially after being locked in the prison for God knows how long.
“Jack?” I call out.
“Take it, Sapphire.Please.” His boyish voice is a thin, exhausted rasp. He continues shuddering in his cage. “I’ll be okay.”
“Thank you so much,” I barely mutter through my tight throat.
I apply a thin layer of a silver jelly as Niklaus stirs and groans, waking slowly from his pain-induced sleep. My fingers work quickly, applying small amounts to sections of his flesh that bear the brightest scarlet color. Then, I cover us both with the large heavy blanket that smells like rust and an old attic.
Niklaus shivers against my lap, curling his arms around my hips a little tighter.
“Tell me—we made it home, Spitfire.”
I sigh, dropping myhead against the bars.
Disappointment.
Disappointment.
Disappointment.
I have failed us again.
“No.” My voice breaks, accompanied by a trembling chin. “Not yet.”
He doesn’t seem all that surprised. The agony of the chemical burns strikes again, convolsing his body tightly together as it racks through his core. He growls into my lap, grinding his fingers into my back.
“It’ll pass,” I whisper, stroking the spots on his sides that were saved. “It’s temporary acid. It’ll go away soon.”
I don’t tell him that he’ll have to endure this for another twenty-four hours most likely.
“Tell me something,” he grunts against my thigh.
I hold my breath as he moans again, louder this time—though it blends in with the orchestra of inmates bellowing at the top of their lungs from the horror they’re experiencing too.
I quickly dig through thoughts, memories, or stories I can tell him. Peering over at Sophia holding Jack’s hand and humming a song close to his ear, I find that something I can tell him.
“My middle name. The S doesn’t just stand for one name. It stands for two.” I lean down to his ear, stroking his hair away from the side of his face. “My mom couldn’t decide when she named me. It stands for Scarlett…andSophia.”
I check to make sure Sophia didn’t hear me, then watch Niklaus’s eyebrows raise while his eyes remain closed.
“Scarlett was your mother’s sister who died,” he murmurs.
“Her twin.”
