Chapter 1 #5
“No,” I said quickly, moving to her side. “Not now. You’re almost there.”
She swayed, legs trembling violently. I slipped an arm around her waist, feeling how thin she was beneath the softness, how fragile her strength truly was.
“Just a little more,” I murmured into her ear. “Just one step. Then another.”
She leaned into me, trusting me with her weight, her survival. Together we moved—half guiding, half dragging—toward the opening.
Her shin scraped against the jagged stone as she squeezed through. Blood welled instantly, dark against pale skin.
She hissed in pain—but she didn’t stop.
She made it through.
Gone.
For half a heartbeat, the shed was silent.
Then screams tore through the night.
I spun around.
The elder Kompania brother had Bianca pinned against the far wall. One massive hand was locked around her throat, lifting her just enough that her feet barely brushed the ground. Her body bucked uselessly, arms clawing at him, eyes wide with terror and fury.
Our master barreled toward me from the yard, face twisted beyond recognition, rage pouring off him in waves. His boots pounded the earth like war drums.
I looked at the hole.
I could leave right now.
Slip through. Disappear into the forest. Join the others. Save myself.
The thought tasted like ash.
Bianca.
The one who had been here longest. The one whose body carried the map of every cruelty this place knew how to inflict. The one who held us together when despair nearly crushed us. The one the younger Kompania brother had already claimed as his property.
If I left her—
“You bitch!” our master roared, closing the distance with terrifying speed.
My chest caved in on itself.
“I’m sorry,” I whispered, my voice shaking as I met Bianca’s gaze across the shed. “I’m so sorry.”
Her eyes found mine. Even now, even like this, there was no accusation in them. Just understanding. And something like forgiveness.
“Stay alive,” I breathed. “I swear on my life—I’ll come back for you.”
Then I turned and dove.
The cool night air slammed into me as I tumbled through the opening, the shock stealing my breath. I hit the rocky ground hard, pain flaring through my palms and knees. I barely felt it. Adrenaline drowned everything.
I scrambled to my feet, heart hammering wildly, spinning in place as I scanned the darkness.
Trees. Dense and towering. Shadows layered upon shadows. Somewhere ahead—freedom.
Somewhere behind—screams.
Then I spotted Carina.
She had collapsed against a boulder a few yards away, arms wrapped around herself, chest heaving as she dragged air into her lungs. Her eyes were too wide, whites stark in the moonlight, shock locking her body in place. She was alive. She was free. That was all that mattered.
The others were gone.
Good.
They’d scattered into the dark exactly as planned—splintering into different paths, smart enough to know that staying together would get them hunted down one by one.
The night had swallowed them whole. I prayed the forest would be kinder to them than men ever had.
Our master came through the hole like a demon dragged up from hell, landing heavily on the rocky ground. Dust puffed around his boots.
His face was twisted into something barely human, eyes lit with pure bloodlust.
“You bitch!”
He charged without hesitation.
There was nowhere to hide. Nowhere to run cleanly.
Every step was a gamble.
I scanned wildly, heart slamming against my ribs, fingers scrabbling over cold stone until I found something—anything—I could use. My hand closed around a rock, rough-edged and heavy. Not big enough to stop him.
Big enough to try.
I hurled it with everything I had left.
Luck—cruel, fickle, rare—finally tilted my way.
The stone struck him square in the forehead with a sickening crack. He roared, stumbling back, blood pouring down into his eyes, staining his beard and collar. For a split second, he looked stunned.
I screamed into the night, voice shredding itself raw. “Help!”
The sound echoed uselessly off stone.
Too far. Too isolated. This land didn’t answer cries for mercy.
He shook himself and came at me again, faster now, rage fueling every step. I barely had time to brace before he slammed into me, driving me hard into the ground. Pain exploded through my back as the air was knocked from my lungs.
His weight crushed me.
Knees pinned my arms. Stone bit into my spine. I struggled, but it was like fighting a mountain.
“You planned this,” he snarled, face inches from mine, blood dripping down his brow. “All of it.”
His hand tore at the thin fabric covering me, ripping it away with a violent jerk. Cold air burned my skin. I thrashed, breath coming in panicked gasps.
Then steel flashed.
A knife—short, sharp, unmistakably real.
He pressed it against my chest, not hard enough to kill me, just enough to make the threat undeniable.
A line of pain followed as the blade dragged downward, shallow but deliberate. Warmth spread where it passed.
I screamed.
“You know what they’ll do to me?” he hissed. “For letting them go?”
His hand struck my face, snapping my head sideways. Stars burst behind my eyes. Blood flooded my mouth.
“If I’m going to die,” he went on, voice low and shaking with fury, “I’ll make sure you pay first.”
I spat the blood straight into his eyes.
For a heartbeat, time froze.
He wiped his face slowly, methodically, like a man savoring what came next. The knife lowered again, hovering just above my skin.
“You’ll bleed slow,” he promised.
No.
Something inside me hardened—not fear, not pain, but resolve.
I would not die like this.
Not begging.
Not screaming.
Not broken.
A deafening crack split the night.
For a fraction of a second, nothing made sense.
His body jerked violently, muscles locking as if some invisible hand had seized his spine. The knife slipped from his fingers, clattering uselessly against stone. His eyes bulged, shock blowing them wide, whites stark around the dark pupils. Confusion flickered there—brief, almost childlike.
Then blood bubbled from his mouth.
At first it was just a thin, wet trickle sliding down his chin. Then his lips parted, and a thick, choking gush poured out, splattering across my face, my chest, the torn fabric clinging to me. It was hot. Metallic. Alive.
He convulsed once.
Twice.
A wet, broken sound tore from his throat—and then his weight collapsed sideways, crushing into the stone with a dull finality.
I screamed and shoved with everything I had left.
His body rolled off me, heavy and wrong, landing in an awkward heap that didn’t move again.
I scrambled backward on my elbows and heels, lungs dragging in air like I’d been drowned and dragged back to shore. My chest burned—no, seared—like someone had poured fire straight into the open wound.
The slash throbbed with every heartbeat. Deep. Pulsing.
Blood soaked the front of my body, slick and warm, running in steady rivulets down my stomach, dripping onto the pale stone beneath me in fat, obscene drops.
I looked up.
Carina stood a few paces away, frozen in place.
She clutched a boulder in both hands, its surface smeared dark with blood. Her arms trembled so violently the stone slipped from her fingers and hit the ground with a hollow thud.
She stared at the body—at what she’d done—with horror carved into every line of her face.
“Carina,” I rasped, dragging myself upright. My legs wobbled, barely holding me. I pressed torn fabric to my chest, the gesture useless, instinctive. “We have to go. They’ll send reinforcements. Any second.”
She didn’t move.
Shock had wrapped her tight, locked her inside herself.
I staggered to her and grabbed her wrist. My hand was slick with sweat and blood—mine and his. “Carina,” I said again, firmer this time, forcing her to look at me. “You saved my life. But if we stay, we die.”
Her eyes finally focused.
She swallowed hard. Nodded once. Small. Shaky.
We ran.
Or tried to.
It was more stumbling than running—two broken women pushing bodies that were already failing them.
The land fought us every step of the way. Loose stones skittered underfoot, forcing us to slow or risk going down hard.
Sharp ridges sliced into our soles, pain flaring with each step. Shallow gullies opened beneath us without warning, forcing careful descents that stole precious seconds.
My vision tunneled.
Black crept in from the edges, pulsing in time with my heartbeat. Blood loss made my limbs heavy, numb, like they didn’t fully belong to me anymore.
Every breath dragged fire across my chest, sparks of agony radiating through my ribs.
Sirens wailed faintly in the distance.
Still far. Still hopeless.
But a direction.
We aimed for the sound, weaving between boulders, using moonlight and instinct to navigate the maze of stone. I clung to Carina’s hand like it was the only thing anchoring me to the world.
Somehow—miraculously—we reached a narrow dirt track.
Calling it a road felt generous. It was barely more than a scar cutting through the rock, gravel crunching under our feet.
I let go of Carina’s hand, swaying as the effort caught up to me all at once. The fabric around my waist hung in tatters, soaked through with blood. Drops fell steadily, marking the road behind me like a trail.
My knees buckled.
I caught myself just in time, gasping, vision swimming.
Please, I begged silently. Let someone pass. Let this road not be forgotten.
A pale shape appeared far down the track.
Headlights.
White. Real.
For a heartbeat, I thought I was hallucinating.
Hope surged through me so sharply it hurt worse than the wound.
“Carina—” I turned, breath hitching. “Carina, look—”
She wasn’t there.
“Carina?” Panic clawed up my throat. I spun clumsily, scanning the rocks, the shadows spilling away from the road. “Carina!”
Nothing answered.
No movement. No voice.
I couldn’t search.
I couldn’t call louder.
Every second bled strength from me. If I went back into the rocks, if I stopped moving forward, I wouldn’t get up again. I knew it with cold certainty.