“Drop the weapon, or I’ll do it again.”
I release the gun immediately.
Stein smiles, and he keeps speaking. “We need you both.Two hearts enamored are more powerful to debase than one empty.”He seems to be repeating something, quoting Burbank Gates if I had to guess.
I remain still.
My heart races. My limbs feel numb. I need to get to him.
I need to move.
I do not look away from Sullen Bram Rule. He anchors me. He always has.
“I am going to lay him beside you.” Stein runs his nose along the side of Sullen’s face and Sullen’s complexionturns green. “Then you two will be allowed to fuck one last time.” He glances at Klein. “While we watch, of course.” A grin twists his face. “The final ritual. The end of the experiment begins with carnal lust.”
My stomach bottoms out.
Sullen looks blank, as if he is not here.
“Maybe he will impregnate you. It will be interesting to watch you grow, while we torture you.” Then he shoves Sullen away from him, and despite his awful words, I can breathe a little easier. “Lie down beside her, my dear child, and you will get the release you so desperately need. She is gorgeous, I will give you that. Much more than you deserve, you pathetic vermin.”
Sullen seems dazed.
He is closer to me, but I know, by looking at him, that he is far away.
How did my friends let Stein get so close to him?Frustration mounts, but then again, here I was with Klein.
“Did he hurt you?” Sullen’s first words. Hoarse and broken and far from here.
He means Klein.
“No,” I tell him honestly, smiling despite the fact I think we will die here. “No, baby, he didn’t.”
Sullen blinks, as if he hears me. Sees me.
His head is angled down.
His eyes are locked with mine.
Stein says, “Oh, well that won’t do.”
Before I can tear myself away from the bottomless depths of Sullen’s eyes, there is a force inside my chest that makes my entire body ball up.
Sullen is running, my ribs feel as if they are broken, and it is only when I look up and see Klein breathing hard before me that I realize what happened.
He kicked me. In the chest. With his boots.
Tears prick behind my eyes.
Sullen is on his knees, throwing his body over my own. “No,” he whispers, but he sounds robotic. The pain is blinding.
I am crunched up, my knees to my chest as Sullen hovers over me, so much bigger than I am, so much more beautiful in his depths.
I have been so shallow. He has loved me to hell.
“I don’t deserve you.” It is the only thing I can think to say, my hands over my chest, splayed there where ache agonizes me. It is hard to draw breath. “I never have.”
Sullen shakes his head.
