Page 514 of Coal Hearts

Sure, Victor could keep track of me on his cameras. Sure, he’d see me ignoring Ily and utterly unable to touch her. But...I didn’t think he’d question my unwillingness to play. My ribs and arm still hurt like a bitch, and Ily’s bruises had lost the round edging and turned into splashes of gruesome stains. Thanks to the arnica tablets we both took, an electrolyte drink every day, along with some antibiotics for the cuts on our feet, we were healing...albeit slowly.

Everyone in this godforsaken fortress was healing.

The entire vibe had gone from alive to dead. The furniture didn’t have white sheets thrown over them like some abandoned manors when their Masters left town, but it might as well have.

It was so quiet.

Eerily quiet.

Far, far too quiet for the mess in my mind, and that was why writing had become my crutch. Without the laptop, I doubted I would’ve made it past the first day of loneliness.

Ily remained at my side, but every time I looked at her, the darkness inside me throttled my voice, refusing to let me speak.

The rest of the jewels either hobbled or limped, keeping to the shadows and not coming out of their quarters.

Massaging my nape, I struggled to shed the tiredness that’d dogged me since Emerald Bruises. Just like Ily and I crashed for three days after our initial welcome into this cesspit, we both turned inward and lethargic.

For a week, we’d barely talked and never ever touched.

Something had changed between us, and I had no idea what.

Whenever she looked at me, sad secrets danced in her bright tawny stare. She smiled instead of glowered. She acted eager for my command despite the pain of her heavily bruised body. Her energy had turned softer, acting like a sedative against mine.

And it hurt.

Goddammit, it hurt.

Her kindness, when I deserved no such thing, chopped me into bleeding pieces.

Swallowing hard, I glared at my laptop screen. The glare from the sun throbbed in my skull. I sat beneath an umbrella by yet another pool in the western gardens, where a running track looped close by, revealing a few jewels who hadn’t been butchered a week ago.

Two girls jogged side by side, no doubt doing their best to expel the very real urge to run far, far away.

Dropping my arm, I flinched as darkness descended once again. Cloying and thick, veining over my heart until all I breathed was black.

He’s replacing them right now.

Where was Victor hunting?

How many had he already caught?

Guilt crushed my bruised chest as Peter’s and Ily’s voices braided together in my head, repeating that damn sentence.

“I see what you are now. You did come for us. You’re going to free us. I know it—”

Slamming my laptop closed, I swung my legs off the lounger and tossed the computer beside me.

Raking both hands through my hair, my eyes trailed to Ily where she exercised a few metres away. Carefully, slowly, hurt and healing, she flowed through a sequence of poses that had stupid names like bird of paradise, eagle, cat-cow, and tree.

She said it helped her pain and kept her muscles from seizing.

I said it was pure fucking torture.

Watching her contort into all manner of delicious positions?

Christ, it was unbearable.

Time slipped through my fingers as I became utterly entranced by her.