Leaning back against the headboard, I think, trying to suppress the urge to cry. I can’t fucking cry anymore.
I need to think.
Nat is visiting me all the time, but she’s always wearing just black leggings or some tight black coveralls, looking like an assassin but without any weapons on her. If she ever wears any, she takes them off before she visits me.
My gaze falls to my feet. The cuts from the sharp stones are already healed. The little blood stains are still on the sheet. My feet are a bit dirty and I fucking reek of sweat.
Lucien really doesn’t seem very interested in me. He lets me rot here. Whatever his evil plan is, he probably didn’t expect I will stay here this long. My wrists got so red and raw from the handcuffs that Natalya took a blue ribbon and curled it around the metal of the handcuffs so it wouldn’t scratch me anymore.
She acts like she wants to take care of me but at the same time she looks like she has no idea what she’s doing.
All of this feels like I was meant to be bait, just quick collateral damage. But instead, I’ve been here for a week. A hostage in the hands of a psychotic couple.
I close my eyes and see the images haunting me since I woke up in this prison.
Kasien’s body, soaked with water, blood pouring from his forehead, his eyes fighting to stay open, his body trying to get up but failing over and over.
The thoughts I try to fight every minute of my days here creep in again.
What if he’s dead. What if they didn’t make it.
The pain shoots to my chest so violently I cry out loud, not fighting the sobs since there’s no point. The chain rattles again as I catch the tears in my hands.
?
Natalya is sitting on the other side of the bed, her legs crossed in front of her, bowl of grapes in her hand. She takes one grape in her fingers and throws it up, trying to catch it with her mouth.
I just can’t take my eyes off her. She looks so fragile, pale, and sick. Her bleached hair is long and thick, falling around her thin body, wrapped in tight black clothing. Despite that, she still has that magnetic beauty—the foxy green eyes and the hint of mischief she carried everywhere she went.
“How long have you been here, Nat?”
She gives me that confused empty look, like a doll who was just turned off, waiting for someone to open her head and change the music cassette.
“I’m not sure.” She suddenly shrugs and pays attention to her grapes.
“Months? Years?” I try to pry it out, slowly.
“Does it matter?” She throws another grape into her mouth, giving me an unbothered look.
“It does. Do you remember anything before you got here?”
The freeze again. She remembers something.
“Tell me, Nat. You can trust me.”
I’m starting to sound like a child psychiatrist.
“Well, I know I was in some hospital,” she eventually says, unbothered.
“What? Hospital? Were you injured?”
“No, I don’t mean this type of hospital. It was like a hospital but for your head,” she explains with her hands, circling a finger by her temple.
She’s so utterly lost. It doesn’t make any sense. Adrien said they have someone keeping an eye on her. How is she here?
“You mean psych ward?”
“I think so. But it sounds too dramatic. I’m not a psycho.” She huffs and rolls her eyes.
