Chapter Eleven
Finnic
The next morning,I wake to small strands of light sneaking through the cracks in the warehouse windows.
The building smells like cold metal and damp concrete, the rain from the night before still clinging to everything.
I stand up, stretching as I move toward the hall.
A long yawn comes out of my mouth as I stand in front of her door.
Last night was the most that I talked about her.
Maya.
I remember how my fingers used to be entangled in her coiled curls. The feeling of my lips traveling down herhazelnut toned skin. The way she’d look at me with her honey-colored eyes when I surprised her with dessert.
Every bit of her keeps rushing back into my head since I opened up to Chloe about it.
Why did I say anything to her? We aren’t friends.
She’s a hostage that I’m holding here against her will.
I’m one of the villains in her story. Nothing I can say about my past will make her understand why she needs to concede.
I hesitate to open the door.
It’s immensely quiet behind it and the few morals I have left push me not to wake her just yet.
I glance down at my watch. It’s only 6:03 in the morning. I’d slept for a few hours. But it doesn’t really feel like I slept at all.
A soft sound comes from behind the door and the mattress creaks along with it. I imagine her repositioning herself and stretching, waking to find herself yet again in a bad situation. She’s probably used to waking up in a lavish four poster bed with silk sheets and Egyptian pillows.
Down the hall behind me, footsteps approach. Dante saunters over with a cigarette lit in his mouth and a paper cup of coffee in his hand like this was any other morning. His eyes flick to me, then to the door.
“You look like you’ve been up all night,” he says.
“On and off.”
He takes a sip of his beverage. “That sounds like shit.”
We standthere in a quiet pause, rain tapping faintly against the metal siding outside.
“She talk to you again?” he asks.
“I haven’t went in yet,” I admit. “I just walked over here seconds before you came down.”
Dante’s brow lifts slightly. “Well, let’s wake her up and serve her a royal breakfast fitting for a queen.”
“What do you-”
I don’t get to finish the sentence before he’s opening the door and walking straight to where she is.
An eery smile spreads across his face. “Good morning, Princess.”
With a swift move of his hand, he tears off the lid from the coffee cup and throws the hot liquid in her direction.
Her scream rattles my bones. I’m moving before I realize it, boots crossing the threshold as the cup clatters to the floor, rolling as it leaks brown liquid across the cement.
