“How are you feeling?”
She moves, and I hear a pained hiss. “Perfect. Like I could run five miles without breaking a sweat.”
I smile.There she is.
“Bob’s got steel-toed boots,” I tell her. “Compensating for other inadequacies, I’m sure.”
She snorts then groans. “How long was I out?”
“Six hours. Maybe seven.” I flex my fingers, trying to ease the ache from hours of stone-breaking. “You had me worried.”
“Don’t be. I’m hard to break.”
Of that I have no doubt.
Dawn approaches—or what passes for dawn in this windowless hellhole. I can tell by the subtle shift in the facility’s sounds, the changing of guards, the distant clang of metal trays being prepared for morning meals, the soft shuffling of the cleaning crews beginning their rounds.
Three years of captivity have attuned me to the rhythms of this place, such as they are. They’re the only way to mark time when darkness is constant. We won’t have long before we’re interrupted once more.
“I should have warned you about Prudence. I’m sorry.”
“Even if you had time—and you didn’t—would it have changed anything?” Lithia asks. “Maybe I’d have broken faster if I’d known what was coming.”
“Maybe,” I admit. “But I still should have told you.”
She reaches out, her fingers finding mine through the hole. Her touch is electric, shimmering up my arm.
Mate.
“Tell me everything I need to know.”
I thread our fingers together, wincing slightly as her fingertips brush over the raw wounds.
“Kier,” she says sharply, her voice cutting through the darkness. “You’re bleeding.”
I can feel her fingers exploring gently, tracing the torn skin on my knuckles, the deeper gashes on my wrist. My handsare still wet and sticky with fresh blood from my work on the wall.
“How badly are you hurt?”
“It’s nothing,” I try to dismiss, but she’s not having it.
“Bullshit. I can smell the blood, Kier. Your hands are torn apart.” Her grip tightens on my fingers, careful of the wounds. “Tell me.” The worry in her voice—for me, when she’s the one who was just tortured—makes my chest tight.
“Just some scrapes from working on the wall,” I admit. “I’m making the hole bigger.”
“You’ve been clawing at stone with your bare hands?”
I don’t answer.
She sighs heavily. “Fine. Tell me about Prudence.”
“She’s a fear-seer. Like all seers, it’s a rare gift. Unlike others who might see the future or the past, she can see what terrifies someone and project it as visions that feel completely real.”
Lithia’s fingers flinched in mine. “Yeah. It definitely felt real to me.”
I trace my thumb along her knuckles. “She’s not evil. She’s as much a prisoner as we are. They use her daughter as leverage.”
Lithia’s grip tightens. “They have her child?”
