Chapter 10 Kali
KALI
Six stitches.
Streaks of blue thread held my skin together.
The slash was gnarly, likely to scar, but smugness washed over me at the prospect of having a permanent reminder of how I’d hurt one of those two idiots for kidnapping me.
Zion was not innocent by my account. A gnawing suspicion told me he’d probably stalked me my entire walk home from work.
A key turned in the lock, and I tensed at the sound, mad at myself for getting lost in my thoughts and not hearing the approach.
My kidnapper marched into the room, surveying the space while I examined my palm under the open window. “Considering jumping out?”
“That does sound nice.” My voice dripped with sarcasm. “Want to go with me?”
“You need to keep it clean, or you will get an infection.” He jerked his chin toward my faintly throbbing hand. They must’ve given me some pain meds while I was out or I’d be crying right now.
I snorted at his concern. “Fuck off.” Like he wasn’t the one who’d made me do this to myself.
“Those are some filthy words coming from such a pretty mouth.” With his back to me, he placed his supplies on the bedside table and chose a brown glass bottle, a cotton pad, and a roll of white gauze.
“You won’t think it’s pretty when it bites your head off,” I sneered.
He chuckled. He freaking chuckled at me. Like he enjoyed the threat. The sound of it twisted the ignition key on my rage. I meant it. I was going to make sure he didn’t stay alive for long.
He prowled toward me, soaking the cotton pad with what I’d deducted was an antiseptic from the pungent smell. I instinctively stepped backward, and my upper thighs collided with the dresser.
Stopping a foot away, he trapped me in place. “Give me your hand.”
A scheme of sorts, a plan, swirled in his eyes, the shade of deep brown with black specks. As if he didn’t want to give fully in to the night and it’d left the marks of their war in his irises.
My arm raised of its own accord, and he gently brought my palm to his mouth. The first kisses landing on my stitches caused tingles to curl my toes.
I hissed, “I can take care of myself.”
The black streaks exploded in his eyes. He set the med supplies on the dresser, grabbed my waist, and hoisted me up on top. “Yet you are failing so far.”
Though his grip abandoned my body, the imprints of his hands refused to evaporate from my flesh. That and him standing a mere increment from me, between my legs, made my mouth dry out.
“Who says I want this to heal?” Cool air from the open window caressed my back, and I shivered in the loose dark purple t-shirt and matching pants someone had left on my bed while I was out.
The cotton clothing was comfortable, but the color…
I was a black-banded person, and only green-banded wore vivid colors.
Aversion to anything besides the basics—white, black, and gray—had rooted itself deep inside me.
“I do.” He disinfected my stitched-up wound with the cotton pad and wrapped a roll of fresh gauze around my palm. The sizzles traveling up my nerves increased to a sudden jolt of pain as he tied a knot. “All done. Unless you want to fight me some more?”
“Get the hell away from me.” I ripped my wrist out of his clutches and hurriedly leaned back to get away. Wavering, I lost my balance, and the white window frame flashed before my eyes as I fell backward.
I was going to fall out of the window at my back.
And crash into the street below.
I didn’t want to die.
Not yet.
Firm hands gripped my back and nape and pulled me back up. Without thinking, I clutched at his black shirt, panting despite the breeze tickling my back and the heavy air drawing sweat beads to form on my forehead.
He smirked. “That’s not the way out.”
“Get away from me.” I shoved at his chest. He didn’t budge. Grimacing, I pulled my legs on the dresser and hopped down the side of it. I had to get out. My heart was racing too fast. “I’m leaving.”
“Before you go, how about we enjoy a dinner? You must be hungry after all those dreams about me.”
“Fuck you.” Arrogant prick. As if I was having dinner with him after he’d drugged and kidnapped me. Especially when I still had no idea where I was. Or who he was. And the other candy-looking one, too.
He crouched down to collect the discarded shreds of old gauze from the pale wood floor. “I’m counting on it.”
My stomach betrayed me by twitching.
“Go drool over someone else,” I sneered and darted to the door—my escape. He had left it wide open and unmanned.
Bolting into an empty hallway, I risked taking a left turn and rushed toward the end.
A rough grasp on my upper arm jerked me back and twisted me so harshly I crashed into his chest.
His firm and muscled chest.
“Come on. Let’s go eat.” Spinning me around, he pushed me forward down the long and dimly lit hallway full of identical black wood doors on each side. His fingers tapped to a calming beat on my lower back, each idle stroke a fractal searing my skin, preventing me from running away.
Why wasn’t I running? I repeated the question a hundred times, but the answer evaded me, and so I ordered myself to run, yet my legs wouldn’t move faster.
Was it hunger? Yes, it had to be it—my stomach controlling the muscles in my feet. When was the last time I ate something? I licked my chapped lips. When was the last time I had something to drink?
We climbed down a properly maintained concrete stairwell in utter silence and navigated through a maze of dimly lit hallways full of silent doors. A rush of laughter stopped me dead in my tracks. My bones chilled to ice.
When was the last time I heard someone laugh? Genuinely laugh. Not the arrogant glee you’d hear in Ilasall before the people behind them lunged at you.
Not since childhood, when I’d run in the school’s inner yard with Alora, chasing light reflections leaping from the metal plates of a set of swings and pretending they were portals to the sun raining heat on our heads.
I couldn’t go in there. I couldn’t let them laugh at me. I couldn’t watch their faces contort with malicious smiles while their eyes methodically calculated the worst ways to use me, forcing me to fight, run, or get on my knees in exchange for information.
I could feel him peering at me, burning holes into the side of my head, and I prayed for them to burn deep enough to reach my brain, to get me out of here.
He raised my chin toward him. “They are not laughing at you.” A slight draw in his eyebrows, and his gaze locked onto mine. “Trust me. No one in their right mind would.”
For some reason, his belief melted the paralysis, and my bones unlocked, bending at the joints as he led me into the room. Another boisterous chortle rumbled across it, rolling over a large ebony table and enshrouding a group of people there.
A man only an inch taller than me, with half a golden pastry in his mouth, pushed past us. “That’s it, man. You owe me a favor.” He lifted a tray of baked goods he was carrying higher and a puff of white powder rained over us.
“Ryder.” My captor waved the sugar powder away and picked at the few white dots on his black shirt, like putting out stars in the night sky.
“Tell me you are a dessert-before-dinner kind of person,” Ryder said, heedless of my kidnapper’s displeasure. He wasn’t afraid of him. Good. Maybe he’d help me get out of this mess.
“Never had both at the same time,” I admitted.
Ryder’s smile dissipated. Yet a kind sparkle remained in his light sage eyes. I wanted to pluck it out and keep it in a locked box under my bed.
“First time for everything. There’s more than enough. Did he tell you that he forced me to ba—”
“No.” My abductor put a stop to whatever Ryder was about to reveal.
What was his problem? I liked the freckled man with a halo of tight caramel curls. He’d offered me both dinner and dessert without requesting a favor to repay them.
“Okay, okay. What I wanted to say was, we have freshly baked pastries.” Ryder strolled away and placed the tray full of sweets on the huge table in the center of the room.
I staggered.
Everyone was looking at me.
In complete silence.