Chapter 21
Sierra
Voices reach me before anything else does, low and blurred at first, like they’re drifting up from the bottom of deep water. My body feels heavy in that strange, useless way it does when sleep isn’t sleep at all. When something chemical is still dragging through my veins and refusing to let go.
I try to move—instinct more than thought—and the pull of restraints answers me immediately.
The straps are still there.
Panic rises so fast it almost clears my head on its own.
I force my eyes open in slow increments, wincing as the ceiling light bleeds across my vision.
The room is still that same dead white cage, sterile and hostile.
My wrists ache where the leather has rubbed the skin raw, and every small movement sends the pain higher.
The restraints around my ankles pulse with the same cruel rhythm as my heartbeat, while the wide belt cinched across my waist keeps me pinned flat no matter how carefully or desperately I test it.
Then another pain begins surfacing beneath everything else, one I hadn’t even noticed through the drugs and adrenaline until now. It stretches high across my legs, above my knees, dull and heavy at first before turning sharper with every second the haze lifts from my head.
My breath catches before I can stop it, the sound thin and sharp in the silence. A faint metallic smell lingers in the air now, subtle but impossible to mistake, and when I shift my legs the slightest amount, something tacky drags against my skin.
No.
No, no, no…
I try to lift my head, desperate to look down at myself under the shapeless hospital gown draped over me, but the strap across my waist snaps me back before I get far enough.
The effort sends pain streaking through my neck and shoulders, tearing a strained sound from my throat.
With no other choice, I turn my head instead—quick and frantic—searching the room for answers as everything tilts and swims before slowly sharpening into the shape of men.
Cain stands beside the bed in a black shirt with the sleeves pushed to his forearms, looking clean, composed, untouched by everything that happened.
There’s no river water in his hair, no blood on his skin, no sign he drove us off a bridge and climbed back out of it.
He looks like a man waiting for a meeting to begin.
For one desperate second, seeing him hits me with such intense relief it almost hurts.
Someone I know.
Someone who can explain this.
Someone who can stop whatever nightmare I woke up inside.
Then another voice cuts through the room.
“Easy there, kitten. You’re gonna hurt yourself.”
Every muscle in my body locks as my head whips toward the wall. A man dressed in black stands there, broad-shouldered and still, a balaclava covering most of his face and leaving only his eyes exposed. I don’t need to see more. My body recognizes him before my mind catches up.
The same masked man.
The same hands.
The same presence that taught me what helplessness feels like.
My attention shifts back to Cain, but he remains perfectly still, as if hearing that voice beside him is the most normal thing in the world.
“What the fuck…” The words tear out of me raw and breathless as I look between them again.
The gun.
The beating.
Cain on the floor.
The threats.
My stomach twists so hard I nearly gag.
“What the fuck is happening?!” Something vicious cuts through the fear flooding my chest and settles into rage so fast it leaves no room for anything else. “You disgusting piece of shit,” I rasp at Cain, my throat so raw the words scrape coming out. “Let me go!”
Neither of them moves. Cain’s attention drifts over my face with the calm attention of someone checking whether medication worked as expected.
“You’re awake sooner than I thought,” he says, voice even, almost bored.
I thrash violently against the restraints, the friction burning instantly into my skin. “I said, let me go!”
The mattress shifts beneath me, metal groaning softly under the force of it, but nothing gives.
“I’m not crazy,” I spit out, louder now, panic threading through every word whether I want it there or not. “Do you understand me? “I’m not fucking crazy, so what did you tell them? What did you tell the ambulance? The hospital?”
He says nothing, and somehow the silence lands harder than laughter ever could. My breathing turns shallow as memory starts pushing through the fog in broken flashes.
My hands gripping the dashboard.
The road slick beneath us.
Then Cain beside me—too calm—one hand tightening on the wheel.
The violent wrench to the side.
The barrier.
The drop.
“You pulled the wheel.” The words come out quieter than everything else, but they shake far more. His expression doesn’t change, and that only feeds the terror spreading wider through my chest.
I pull in another breath, fragile and uneven, like my body’s struggling to keep up now.
“You wanted us dead.” My voice cracks before rising with the fear behind it. “Why would you do that? Why would you drive us off that bridge?”
He finally closes the distance between us, the clean smell of soap reaching me instantly, edged with something metallic that makes my stomach tighten as the memory of trusting him crashes back in. I hate that thought almost as much as I hate how untouched he seems by any of this.
He lowers his gaze to mine with the calm patience of someone entirely unbothered by the fear tearing through me.
“You still think the bridge was the problem.” The corner of his mouth lifts before a soft laugh leaves him—low and cold—as if my pain is the most entertaining thing he’s witnessed all day.
Before I can say anything else, his hand settles around my ankle with almost insulting gentleness. He slides his palm upward in no hurry at all, over my shin, past my knee, until he reaches the raw ache high on my leg. Then his fingers clamp down.
Pain detonates through me so violently it tears a scream straight from my throat, hot tears burning into my eyes before I can stop them.
He keeps his eyes locked on mine the entire time, watching every second of it, and when he finally lets go, a satisfied grin curves across his face.
He draws his hand back slowly, studying the blood smeared across his skin like he’s admiring something valuable, then he lifts it to his mouth, drags his tongue across the crimson staining his palm, and exhales a dark, pleased sound.
“Fuck, kitten,” he rasps, eyes locked on mine. “Your blood tastes way better than your pussy did back in the forest.”
His words sink into me far deeper than the pain in my leg, and this time what rises isn’t anger, but something colder, something that spreads so quickly it drains every trace of warmth from my body.
For a moment, I stop functioning entirely, my mind scrambling against the truth as it forces itself into place.
The message telling me where to meet him.
The deserted road.
The forest swallowing every sound.
The motorcycles appearing out of nowhere.
The masked men closing in.
The hands on me.
The voice in the dark that felt familiar even then.
A violent wave of nausea twists through my stomach. My pulse starts hammering so hard it hurts, every beat feeding the terror building inside me until I can barely feel where the room ends and panic begins.
I shake my head instinctively, over and over, as if denial alone can undo what I’m starting to understand. My breathing turns ragged, each inhale sharp and useless, my chest tightening until it feels impossible to draw enough air.
Cain says nothing, and he doesn’t need to. The look in his eyes is calm, certain, almost patient, and that silence terrifies me more than any confession could have.
I can only lie there, feeling like something about him has shifted into something monstrous—except deep down, I know it didn’t shift at all. I just failed to see it sooner.
“You were there,” I whisper, the words shaking so badly they barely sound human. “In the forest… that was you.”
“Finally! Jesus, I thought I’d have to spell it out for you.” he says, sounding almost disappointed by how slowly I got there.
I keep looking at him, my thoughts spiraling as horror and confusion blur into one unbearable feeling.
“But why?” The words tear out of me, thin and shaking. “Why would you do that?” My throat tightens painfully as I fight for another breath. “What did I ever do to you?”
Cain’s mouth parts like he’s about to answer, but the masked man steps in first and shoves a hand against his chest, stopping him before a word can come out.
“Too early,” he says, his voice muffled by the balaclava as he keeps his attention on Cain for a moment before finally turning it toward me.
The way he watches me feels wrong in a way I can’t explain. There’s no anger in it, no urgency, no trace of emotion I can understand—only the dark focus of someone studying what already belongs to him.
“Who are you?” I ask, my voice betraying far more than I want it to.
He doesn’t so much as glance my way at first, and when he finally does, it’s only to drag a slow look over me, his eyes darkening behind the balaclava before he turns back to Cain.
“We’re not done with her yet.” He pauses briefly. “I want to enjoy this a little longer.”
He moves toward the bed and crouches beside me, and every muscle in my body locks with panic.
I try to push myself farther away, even though there’s nowhere to go.
The restraints bite deeper as he reaches out and brushes the backs of his gloved fingers over my cheek with a softness so wrong it makes nausea rise in my throat.
“Who am I?” he asks softly, his expression unreadable while tension coils tight in my stomach. A low chuckle slips from him as he dips his head nearer. “I’m the nightmare your past sent back for you.”
Without breaking eye contact, he slides a hand into his pocket, pulls out a small remote, and presses a button as if it’s the most ordinary thing in the world.
Somewhere inside the wall, a click sounds, and a second later the clear liquid begins moving through the tubing above my head, sliding steadily toward the cannula taped into my hand.
Dread crashes through me hard enough to leave my entire body rigid, my pulse spiraling out of control as I helplessly watch the liquid slowly making its way through the tube above my head.
“No… please, no. Not again.” The plea shatters halfway through, tears burning down into my hair while panic claws violently through my chest. “Please,” I whisper brokenly. “I’m begging you.”
“You should’ve begged like this in the forest, kitten.” His voice drops lower. “Better late than never, I guess.” He adds, amused.
The liquid keeps coming in a slow, steady line, unaffected by anything I do.
It reaches the line and disappears into my vein.
The change is immediate and wrong, like something inside me has been switched off one piece at a time.
Strength drains without warning, my limbs losing all urgency while my body sinks heavily into the mattress beneath me.
The room begins to sway around me while my mind still fights long after the rest of my body has stopped obeying. Cain blurs first, then the walls, then even the hard edges of the bed start melting out of focus.
The masked man is the last thing I can still see clearly, standing over me while the rest of the world melts into a blur of white, and right before even his outline disappears completely, a warm, amused sound reaches me through the haze.
“Close your eyes, kitten. The nightmare starts when you wake up.”