Steel doesn’t care about willpower.
Hours pass. Maybe more. They drag me out again before sunset. Paraded through the compound once more. This time the crowd is larger. Word’s spreading. Slaves whisper. Guards laugh louder.
“Smile for the cameras,” one of them says, shoving my head up.
I bare my teeth.
Not for them.
For her.
Because if she’s watching—if she intercepted the broadcast like I know she did—I want her to see I’m still standing.
Still breathing.
Still fighting.
They chain me back in place.
Night settles heavy and humid. The cell grows colder.
I lean my forehead against the steel and breathe through the ache.
You absolute idiot.
You were so busy trying to die for her you forgot she’d never let you.
And now she’s walking straight into the trap you built.
I close my eyes.
And I wait.
Because if there’s one thing I know about Roxy?—
She doesn’t run.
CHAPTER 28
ROXY
The gates open like they’ve been waiting.
No alarms. No guns. No dramatic claxon screaming bloody murder at the top of its lungs.
Just two rusted slabs of metal creaking apart on ancient hinges, swinging wide enough to swallow me whole.
No guards at the threshold.
No orders barked.
Just… eyes. Dozens of them.
Watching from shaded awnings and half-built scaffolding. From guard towers that track my every step with twitching scopes and fingers hovering over triggers. From behind thick visors and cracked windows and mouths stuffed with disbelief.
I walk through.
Alone.
