“Sinclair,” he tries again, but I just dig harder, making the screech of the pipe drown out his stupid, rumbly voice. “Just... Fuck,” he curses, before he turns and storms out of my cell, slamming the door behind him.
I keep digging long after he’s gone, my movements jerky and irritated. “Andy Dufresne never had to deal with this shit,” I mumble to myself, hating the heat I feel in my eyes. Nope. I will absolutely not have any emotion whatsoever about what just happened. I will not, under any circumstances, feel sad.
Fuck him.
And fuck me too for falling for it.
I growl, pissed off and needing to purge it as I slam the pipe down hard into the divot I’ve created in the wall. I use way too much force and must hit something super hard because the tip of the pipe skips away and somehow arcs over and slices deeply into my thigh. It hurts, and I grit my teeth against the pain. Blood immediately pools and quickly spills over my thigh. I try to pant through the stinging sensation and the tears that well up in my eyes.
“Fuck!” I shout, angrily chucking the pipe across the room. It bounces off the wall with a clang and then comes flying back at me.
Shit!
I dive to avoid getting impaled, and glare at the pipe as it clatters to the floor and rolls to the corner for a time out.
“I made you what you are today, and this is how you repay me?” I yell at it.
I hobble over to the blanket and press it against the cut on my leg. Like me, the blanket isn’t the nicest smelling thing anymore, but I scoff and shake my head. Who cares? I probably just got tetanus or fucking Ebola from the pipe. What’s a little blanket bacteria to add to the mix?
Blood soaks through the folds of the blanket quicker than I’d like, and I pack more against the wound and apply harder pressure.Fuck, that hurts.
I sit, angry, frustrated, and stewing in pain of the emotional and physical variety. What if I bleed to death in here? Iron isn’t good for shifters. It fucks with our natural healing properties, so who knows how much this thing will bleed?
I wonder how long it would take for anyone to find me if I did bleed out? Maybe my new food delivery friend, Selena, will be by to bring me some more stale cookies and find me in a puddle of my own rusted blood. Knowing me, my death-sprawl will probably be really embarrassing. I won’t be a pretty corpse, I just know it. I’ll be the cadaver with the drool hanging out of her mouth and a piss stain on her pants.
Sigh.
Continuing to dramatically think of my imminent death-by-plumbing-pipe, I stare up at the blinking fluorescent light, wishing I could just see outside. I need to feel fresh air on my face and smell things besides rotten desire and BO. At first, solitary confinement didn’t bother me, but I’m starting to go stir crazy now.
Lifting the blood-soaked blanket, I look at the cut on my thigh, noting that it sort of looks like the bleeding might be slowing down. Or maybe that’s just wishful thinking. I quickly tear long strips from the blanket of assholish origin—which is what I will now call it—and wrap the strips against my wound, tying it off tightly. I do that a couple more times until it feels pretty secure, and then I pull a knee up. I rest my elbow and forehead on my knee, and I just let my mind wander. It lands on Rook, but I flick the spinner away, trying to land on something else. Something pleasant. But my mat and pat come up next, so I flick them away angrily, only to land on Alpha Bowen next. Fuck you, mind spinner. Those are all terrible topics.
I need to get out of this cell.
I must doze off sometime betweennotthinking about one shitty person or another, because the next thing I know, a loud clang jerks me awake.
I pull my head up, alarmed, and swipe stringy orange hair away from my face. The door to my cell opens, and it takes my eyes a second to wake up and blur together who it is. I huff and look away from Rook, wiping the drool from my cheek and chin.
My head hurts, my body is sore from the weird ass position I fell asleep in, and I just know that there’s an embarrassing red mark on my face from where my head was pillowed against my arm. I blink, ready to steel myself with irritation that he woke me up and found me like this, but...I feel weird. I open my mouth to tell him tofuck off, but it’s so dry that I can’t seem to make my tongue work, and I’m a little dizzy.
“I said I would come back today, and I did. Sinclair, please don’t be—” He pauses, stopping in his tracks. “What the hell? Why are you bleeding?” he demands, his nose flaring as he takes in the scene.
A bag of something drops to the ground, and suddenly Rook is down on the hard floor next to me, his hands cupping my face. “What happened?”
He looks down at my leg, and I follow his gaze. The bandages that I wrapped around my cut are soaked in crimson, and there’s a drying puddle of my blood next to my leg.
Did he say today? Damn, how long did I pass out for?
“Didyoudo this?” Rook asks, and I have just enough wherewithal to roll my eyes at him.
I close my mouth and open it again to speak, but it’s as dry as the Sahara, and I croak more than talk. “You clearly think a little too highly of yourself,” I tell him, my voice all sand and gravel. “It was a tunnel-digging accident,” I explain, oddly out of breath.
What the hell is wrong with me?
His lips press into a thin line. “Come on, we need to get you looked at. Everything in this fucking prison is toxic, and you’ve lost way too much blood.” Rook scoops me up off the floor with minimal effort, and I’m impressed and pissed at the same time. I gather all the waning strength that I have and try to push out of his arms. I don’t budge an inch.
“You are not taking me back to that doctor. She’s a fucking psycho, Rook. Promise me you won’t take me there.” The words feel like glass in my throat as I utter them, but my eyes plead for him to listen.
He studies me for a second, and I can see the debate in his gaze. I shake my headno, and he exhales a defeated breath. “Fine. I won’t take you there, Sun—” he starts, but I glare at him, not wanting to hear the nickname that’s now tainted with disappointment and loneliness. “Sinclair,” he corrects. “But you need help, which means I’m going to have to patch you up. Can you stop hating me long enough for me to do that?”
