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He sits at the end of the bed. His presence is so real that the bed shutters beneath him.

“Take a nap, baby. We can figure it out afterward. I’m not going anywhere.”

“I want you to lie down with me.”

He wipes his nose and crawls in beside me. So close, but he doesn’t touch me. It’s enough, though… He suffuses the air around me. I let out a huge breath, the kind when you settle for the night and shift from a state of alert to a sense of peace.

I doze. I’m not sure how long I sleep, but the laughter is gone, and it’s the first time I’ve truly slept since Micah left.

It’s just Maison now.

I let sleep take me, and it’s glorious.

When I wake up, it’s late afternoon, and the shimmering snow is reflecting outside as it usually does.

My wrists are raw, burning from the wire hitting my flesh. But I’m rested and ready to face the challenge awaiting me.

“It’s time to get up, baby.”

I lift my head to see him and smile. Maison’s still here, just as he promised he would.

He cautiously raises a brow. “Are you ready?”

I swallow hard and nod. “Yeah, I think so, but I can’t get out of this bind.”

His firm hand sends a warm shudder down my spine. He gives me an adorable, faint smile. “You know exactly what you have to do, London. Your hand isn’t fully healed, is it? Micah never really made it better. You still feel the broken bones, don’t you?”

I wiggle my fingers. The tightness in my hand sends a shooting pain up my wrist.

Micah didn’t tie the wire completely. A sliver of space exists between the wire and my wrist. I’m conscious of what I need to do, but there is no fucking way I can do it.

I sob, painfully aware I’m not strong enough. “I can’t do that, Maison. I can’t re-break my hand.”

He pauses for only a moment. “You have to, London, or you will die. I don’t want you to die yet because you’re not meant to die here. You’re meant to survive this.”

I shake my head. “He’ll be back. I trust him with my life and my whole heart.”

Maison bites his lip as I shift to relieve my leg, which has gone numb from the awkward position I’m lying in. “You heard them outside earlier throwing stones at you,” he says. “They will get to you before he gets back. They will kill you, and if they don’t, you will die the way you’re positioned right now. I can’t see you die like that, baby. I refuse to watch Micah kill another one of my girlfriends.”

I shake my head as if only realizing how fucked up I am right now. What am I even contemplating doing to myself? Perhaps Maison being here isn’t as good for me as I thought it was. He’s poisoning my mind against itself.

“Do it, London,” he begs. “Please, do it for me.”

“I can’t, Maison,” I breathe.

“You have to, baby.”

I squeeze my eyes shut.

“Bite onto the mattress. Otherwise, you will hurt your jaw when you do it.”

“Stay with me,” I demand, knowing he could be out of my grasp within a second.

“I will, London. I promise, okay? When you get out of here, make your way back to the others and find Jade. That’s the only way you will live through this.”

South. I’m positive about that. At least, I’m fairly sure. It’s a partial guess, and I really have no concept of how big this island actually is.

A feral noise fills the room, like a wounded animal getting killed. And only after a few agonizing seconds do I realize the noise is coming out of me as I pull on the wire binding my hand with every ounce of strength left in me.