His fingers find mine, trembling violently as they make contact. I grasp them firmly, anchoring him to reality.
“You’re real,” he whispers.
“I’m real. You’re real. We’re both here, and we’re going to survive this.” I squeeze his hand tight, desperately trying to draw him back.
“How long was I out?”
I swallow, closing my eyes. “They held you for hours. I don’t know how you survived.”
We sit in silence, my hand clasping his through the wall. I feel him slowly returning to himself, the trembling gradually subsiding.
“Thank you,” he finally says, running a thumb over my knuckles.
“For what?”
His grip tightens on my hand, and I feel that electric current between us, stronger now after witnessing his vulnerability.
“For being real when everything else is madness.”
I don’t have a response to that. There’s nothing I can say to make this better. Nothing I can do that will wash away the horror of this place.
How long before I break? How long before I’m the one Kier needs to pull back from the brink? How long before they move him or me?
“You know,” he drawls dryly. “It’s nice having an emotional support glory hole.”
I splutter out a laugh. “Geezus, Kier. Way to ruin a moment.”
“I live to surprise.” He squeezes my hand. “In all seriousness, you can let go now. I’m okay.”
Despite the pain in my shoulder, I keep holding on.
“Well I’m not. So don’t let go.”
And he doesn’t.
Chapter
Seven
Time loses meaning, bleeding together into a strange, sick mix of waiting and torture. There’s pain and boredom, and the brief spikes of adrenaline when my cell door opens.
I mark the passage of minutes not by meals—if you can call the gray gruel food—or by the rhythm of guard rotations, but by the scrape of stone and Kier’s murmurs on the other side of the wall.
It’s become my only escape.
When the pain wraps too tight around my ribs to breathe, when the silver sears deep enough I swear I can feel it in my bones, I press my fingers through that small, jagged opening and wait for Kier to touch back.
Sometimes we talk.
Sometimes we don’t.
Sometimes it’s just the quiet rasp of his breathing, or the warmth of his fingertips against mine, or the low rumble of his voice murmuring nonsense just to keep the silence from swallowing us both whole.
It’s strange how quickly I’ve come to rely on him—this smart-mouthed nomad with too many scars and not enoughself-preservation.
And it terrifies me.
I know what trusting someone can cost you. I know better than to let someone in. It’s why I’ve forced myself away from the wall, curling on my mattress as I stare in the dark at the door to my cell.
