Page 85 of Freedom’s Inferno

I need to go. The thought reverberated through my mind, coming back to strike me again and again.

I need to go. I need to go.

I didn’t wait for her to say anything else. I turned and bolted down the hall, my shoulder clipping the doorframe hard enough to sting.

Gloria called after me, her voice fading behind the pounding in my ears. My boots hit the pavement too fast, slipping on the slick concrete as I ran. My breath came ragged, burning through my chest.

I need to go.

The words pulsed with every heartbeat, matching the rhythm of my footsteps.

I fumbled for the keys, nearly dropping them before wrenching open the car door. The metal was cold under my hand. The interior smelled like her. I inhaled ripe strawberries, sitting in a fleeting moment of stillness. Then the panic came roaring back, so loud I could hardly think.

“Come on Lucky Lana,” I whispered. The words barely made it past my lips.

I loved her.

Chapter 33

Lana

Iwoke in thick, suffocating darkness. I couldn’t move for a long, shapeless moment. Couldn’t think.

I tried to sit up, but the motion sent pain ricocheting through my skull. My head pounded, deep and dull at first, then sharp enough to pulse behind my eye sockets. My hand went to my temple where the ache concentrated, and when my fingers came away sticky, I froze. Even in the dark, I could feel it: the tacky drag of half-dried blood against my skin.

Nausea rolled through me, violent and sudden. I pitched to the side, heaving until my stomach emptied, bile burning the back of my throat. The acrid smell turned my stomach again, but I had nothing left to give. I remained still for several moments, breathing through the sickness, waiting for the spinning in my head to slow.

My eyes adjusted, and I worked to piece together my surroundings. A few weak threads of light filtered through cracks somewhere above me, slanting across rough, metallic walls. I blinked hard, trying to make sense of the shapes around me. The space was small, but not claustrophobically so. The air smelled like dust, oil, and rust. The floor beneath me was concrete, cold and gritty against my palms.

I shifted, testing my limbs. Fabric tugged across my shoulders, the pull of my jacket.

I’m still wearing it. Thank God.

I drew the coat tighter around myself, trying to stave off the sharp cold that seeped into my damp skin. The weight of something pressed against my hip when I pulled my knees closer. It took me a second to place it, but when I reached a hand into my pocket I knew. My fingers trembled as I brushed past the rough lining, and they closed around the cool metal of the cross.

The rosary.

I turned it over once in my palm, the chain slipping through my fingers, and that’s when it hit me: my hands were free. That discovery sparked the first flicker of control I’d had since waking up.

Pieces of memory slotted together, jagged and uneven. I was with Charlie at Haven House. The tense, chorded muscles of his back shifting beneath his shirt as he walked away from me.

Then there was… the clock shop. The sharp smell of gasoline. A car door slamming. My chest constricted as I recalled the startling pain of being struck, and the sensation of drifting into nothing.

I pushed myself upright too quickly and had to grab the wall as dizziness swept over me. My stomach lurched again, but I forced myself to breathe through it. I pressed the heel of my hand to my temple, trying to steady myself.

I could recognize the signs: headache, nausea, dizziness, that strange floaty sense of disconnection. I had a concussion. Mild, maybe, but enough to make everything feel slow and distant. I needed to stay awake, to stay alert, but even that was an uphill climb.

“You’re okay,” I whispered to no one, though my voice shook. “You’re okay, just think.”

Had they taken Charlie too? Did he think I’d willfully left him? The idea twisted something deep inside, an ache that constricted my throat.

Jesus Christ, after everything we’d learned about his mother, if he thought I’d left him there—the thought was too painful to bear. He’d spent so long expecting people to betray him, and now, even without meaning to, I’d proved him right. And that crushed me until it hurt to breathe.

Somewhere along the line, without realizing it, I’d stopped seeing him as the man who threatened me, the man who could ruin me, and I’d started seeing him as the only person who ever saw me. Somewhere between his anger and his tenderness, his contradictions and his rare, unguarded moments, I’d started to see him. The man beneath the armor. The one who carried his wounds like secrets. The one who looked at me like I wasn’t broken, even when I was.

Somehow, impossibly, I loved him for it. God help me, I did.

The thought tore through me, raw and aching, because if he believed I’d abandoned him, if he thought I’d become another person who walked away when it mattered most, then this place could bury me alive and it still wouldn’t hurt as much as that.