“One more,” I repeat. “Then you rest.”
We work her together, hands moving in sync, mouths on her skin. She’s so sensitive now that every touch makes her shake, every stroke pulling sounds from her throat she can’t control.
It doesn’t take long. She comes with a broken cry, body arching off the bed, thighs clamping around our hands. We keep touching her through it, drawing it out until she’s sobbing, pushing weakly at our hands.
“Stop, please?—”
We do.
Sting climbs off the bed and disappears through the curtain into the washroom. I hear water running. He returns with a damp cloth and cleans her, between her legs, her stomach, her face where cum still clings to her skin.
I’ve never seen him like this.
When she’s clean, I pull the blankets up over all of us.She’s in the middle, surrounded by heat and skin and the steady rhythm of our breathing.
“Sleep,” I tell her.
“Can’t,” she mumbles. “Too much.”
“Try.”
Her eyes drift closed. Her breathing evens out. Within minutes, she’s gone.
Rogue looks at me over her head, brows raised. “Think she’s accepted it yet?”
“Figured what out?” Sting asks.
“That she’s not leaving,” Rogue says. “Not ever.”
I look down at her, face relaxed in sleep, marks covering her throat and collarbone, body tucked between ours like she was always meant to be here.
“Hard to tell,” I say.
We stay like that, wrapped around her in the warm glow of the lanterns, until sleep pulls us under too.
And for the first time since she arrived, the Rot feels almost quiet.
50
VI
This service tunnel smells forgotten.The walls are close enough that my shoulders almost brush them on both sides, and the only light comes from a string of bare bulbs dangling from frayed overhead cords. Every few steps one flickers, throwing my shadow long and jagged against the concrete.
Rogue walks ahead of me, slow, deliberate. He hasn’t said a word since he pulled me away from the sorting tables with nothing more than a tilt of his head and, “Come.”
I followed. What else would I do?
But the question that’s been circling my head for days finally pushes its way out.
I take a breath. “Sting said someone came looking for me. A few days ago. From outside.”
He slows. Just a fraction. “He did,” Rogue says.
“Has anyone come back?” I press. “Do you know who it was?”
Rogue stops now, turning to face me. His expression is unreadable in the dim light. “Why are you asking?”
“Because no one’s mentioned it since,” I say. “And I don’t know if that means it’s handled or if you’re just not telling me.”
