“Alone.”
“Always alone.”
“He saw what you are and ran.”
I cover my ears with both hands, bottle clinking against my temple, hoodie sleeve soaked with tears and snot and whatever's left of me.
"Shut up," I whisper. Then louder: "Shut up shut up shut up—"
Scratch across my ribs—hot, deliberate, like claws testing how much pressure it takes to open skin.
I don't even flinch anymore. Just curl tighter, knees to chest, hoodie pulled over my head like a child hiding from monsters that live inside her.
Another scratch—lower back this time, deeper, blood warm and wet against the fabric.
The cold has settled in my bones. Frost creeps across the inside of the windows even though the heating's on full. My breath fogs in front of my face with every sob.
The bottle slips from my fingers, rolls across the floor, vodka glugging out in a slow dark stream.
I don't move to pick it up.
Just lie there, face buried in his hoodie, breathing him in like oxygen I don't deserve.
I cry into the fabric—quiet at first, then louder, great wracking sobs tearing out like they're trying to take pieces of me with them.
"Please," I whisper into the fabric. "Please come back. Please don't be dead. Please don't have left me."
A fresh scratch rips across my ribs—hot, deliberate, punishing hope.
The whispers laugh.
Soft.
Satisfied.
Like they've won.
I pull the hoodie tighter, fists clenched in the material over my heart, and cry until there's nothing left but dry heaves and the taste of salt and vodka and despair.
The shadows in the corners thicken, watching.
Waiting.
Knowing I have nothing left to fight them with.
Not tonight.
Maybe not ever.
23
DROGO
I woke to pain.
Ribs throbbing where the guards had beaten me after the kill—deep, bone-ache pain that got worse every time I breathed. My mouth tasted like copper and regret, tongue running over the split in my lip that kept reopening. No windows in my room at the safe house. Just the constant hum of the AC and the faint smell of Chinese takeout from the guards stationed outside my door. I wasn't free to wander. They'd made that clear. But I was alive. Functional. Which meant Klaus wasn't done with me yet.
Someone brought coffee—black, no sugar, exactly how I took it. I didn't ask how they knew. Didn't want to think about how thoroughly they'd researched me, how long they'd been watching before Klaus made his move. The coffee was good. Too good. Like everything else in this gilded cage—designed to make you forget you were trapped.
