Someone else. Someone who belongs.
37
VI
I waketo the sound of the lock disengaging.
For a moment, I don’t move. I keep my eyes closed, my breathing steady, listening to the soft metallic scrape of the bolt sliding free. My body is stiff from sleeping on the cot, my knee throbbing dully beneath the blanket someone must have draped over me while I was out.
I don’t remember falling asleep. I remember sitting on the edge of the mattress, fingers touching my lips where Sting kissed me. I remember the spiral, the outsider looking for me, the girl’s cold smile, the realization that being a Runt isn’t temporary. That I’m stuck here. Forever. And then... nothing.
The door swings open.
I keep my eyes closed for another second, trying to gauge who it is by sound alone. Footsteps. Steady. Notrushed. Easy, like whoever it is has all the time in the world.
Not Sting. His rhythm is different, kinetic, purposeful, like he’s always moving toward something. Not Armen either. Armen moves quietly, deliberately, like every step is calculated.
This is...
“I know you’re awake.”
Rogue.
I open my eyes.
He’s standing in the doorway, half-skeleton mask in place, arms crossed loosely over his chest. He’s wearing dark pants and a fitted shirt that’s seen better days, but somehow he makes it look effortless instead of desperate. His posture is relaxed, but his eyes are sharp, assessing.
Amused.
“Morning, sunshine,” he says, thrusting a water bottle at me.
I sit up slowly, wincing when my knee protests. When the blanket slides off my shoulders and pools around my waist, I realize I slept in my underwear, a black camisole with a little hole at the hem, and some light blue panties. Rogue does not bother looking away.
“What time is it?” I chug my water.
“Early,” he replies. “But not too early. You slept longer than I expected.”
I rub my face, trying to shake off the fog in my head. “Where’s Sting?”
“Busy.”
“Doing what?”
Rogue’s mouth curves beneath the mask. “Things that don’t involve standing guard over sleeping Runts.”
I glare at him. “I don’t need a guard.”
“And yet,” he says, gesturing to the locked door behind him, “here I am.”
I push the blanket aside, swing my legs over the edge of the cot, and pull my cami down, as if that’s going to cover my ass. I reach for my jeans, neatly folded on the floor. My knee is stiff, swollen, the joint hot to the touch. I test it carefully while I dress, putting weight on it, then more.
It hurts. But it holds. Back in the day, I might go to a doctor for something like this.
Pretty sure that’s not an option in the Rot.
Rogue watches me with the kind of focus that makes my skin prickle. Not hungry. Not threatening. Just... curious. Like he’s cataloging every movement, every wince, every breath.
“You’re limping less,” he observes.
