I look at Hailey again.
“How long have you been in here?” I ask. Alex said Hailey was the newer one, but she didn’t give me much more than that.
“Two weeks,” she says. “Maybe three.”
My chest tightens. “You don’t know?”
“They drug us a lot,” she replies. “It… it messes with your head.”
Oh, god.
I’ve watched documentaries about psychos like these, back when my life was still ordinary enough for true crime to feel like entertainment. They always trot out that line about how to become a monster you have to be hurt first, and I hate it from the bottom of my soul right now. I don’t want to spare a singlethought of sympathy for the man who slammed my head into his car like he was trying to crack a walnut. And the fact that he’s doing this with his wife, like some shared hobby they’ve turned into a marriage project, makes my skin crawl.
What kind of delusion is that?
Still, under all the disgust and fury, fear slips in anyway, thin as smoke and just as hard to grab. Feeling powerless is practically a theme in my life, and here it is again, heavier than ever, hanging over me like a ceiling that’s about to come down.
“They won’t drug you again,” I say, forcing the words out. “My men will track this son of a bitch down wherever he’s taking us. They’ll save us.”
Hailey stares at me like I’ve just handed her a bedtime story.
“Are you sure?” she asks.
I hesitate, because the truth is I’m not sure about anything.
“I’ve got hope,” I say instead.
It doesn’t land the same. It’s not enough. Her throat bobs as she swallows, and she nods anyway, solemn and small.
My hands curl into fists.
Come on, Skye. Do something.
I shut my eyes for half a second and reach inward.
The bond I have with my men should be there. It should feel like a thread in my chest, a pull, a warmth. Something that answers when I call. Maybe I can find energy in it and lead them to me, tug on it like a line in the dark. Maybe I can coax some kind of silver thread from them back to my sternum, the way a fairy tale would do it. I don’t know. I’m reaching for anything that sounds remotely possible.
I’m right about one thing, though. I feel them. All three of them, even Cassian, shot and bleeding somewhere out there.
Relief hits so hard it almost buckles me.
They’realive.
And I still can’t do a damn thing with it. They feel far away from here, too far for me to catch their emotions, and I don’t have what it takes to manipulate the bond itself. It’s like I’m a radio receiver stuck on a weak station. I can pick up fragments, static-laced impressions, but I can’t broadcast anything back.
“Goddamn it,” I whisper.
Plan B.
I reach for the only other lifeline I have.
Pain.
He didn’t answer me in the car last time, but he has to answer now. He simply has to.
I don’t know how long I sit there, meditating, emptying my mind, cycling through every monk technique I’ve ever heard of. It feels long. It feels obsessive. By the time I’m done, I’m spent and exhausted, with sweat sliding down my forehead from tensing my muscles and holding my breath like that will force the universe to listen.
And I get nothing.
