We keep walking.
The corridor slopes slightly downward, the walls pressing closer. My knee throbs with every step, the joint stiffening despite the adrenaline buzzing through my veins. I stumble once, my weight shifting too far to the side, and Sting’s arm comes around my waist. He pulls me into his side, steadying me without slowing our pace.
“Easy,” he says.
“I told you. My knee.”
“I know.”
He doesn’t let go this time. His arm stays wrapped around me, my body pressed close to his as we move deeper into the Rot.
It should feel suffocating. Controlling. Instead, it feels safer than I’ve felt in days.
We pass more people as we walk. Rotters moving through the corridors with bundles or tools, somenodding at Sting, others just stepping aside, out of the way. A few glance at me with curiosity. One man openly stares until Sting’s gaze cuts toward him, and then he looks away fast.
“Does everyone know?” I ask.
“Know what?”
“That I’m... with you.”
Sting’s mouth shifts beneath the mask, not quite a smile but something close. “They will soon, if they don’t yet.”
The words send a strange heat through me. Not embarrassment. Something else.
We turn another corner, and a woman steps into our path. Tall, sharp-eyed, her skeletal face terrifying in the dim light. She looks at Sting first, then at me, her gaze lingering on the way his arm is wrapped around my waist.
“Sting,” she says, her voice light but edged. Her gaze flicks to me again. “You finally picked one?”
My face heats instantly.
Sting doesn’t rise to the bait. “Move.”
She smirks. “Careful. Runts don’t last long when they get attention.”
His fingers tighten against my ribs. “She’s with me.”
A beat passes. The woman’s expression shifts to something between amusement and calculation. Then she steps aside, gesturing for us to pass.
Sting moves forward without another word, his arm still firm around me.
My heart hammers as we walk past her. I feel her eyes on my back the whole way.
“What does that mean?” I whisper once we’re out of earshot. “That you picked one?”
“It means people won’t touch you without going through me,” he replies.
“And if they do?”
“They won’t do it twice.”
The certainty in his voice sends a shiver down my spine. Not fear. Something closer to relief.
“That’s going to make people angry, isn’t it?”
Sting’s arm tightens around me. “Let them be angry.”
We keep moving, the corridor narrowing again, the air growing damper. My knee protests again, a sharp ache shooting up my leg, but I grit my teeth and push through it.
