Chapter 35
Chapter thirty-five
Robin: Coup de Grace
Iburst through Evander’s door with Marco right behind me, both of us breathing hard from the sprint here. The medical room feels suffocating, thick with the smell of antiseptic and something else—something sour and wrong.
Cas lies motionless on the operating table, his skin pale as moonlight except for the angry red flush across his cheeks. Sweat beads on his forehead.
“How is he?”
Evander doesn’t look up from adjusting the compress. “Worse since you left. I’m sorry, Robin. I thought I had the infection under control, but the fever won’t break.”
Marco steps closer to the table. “Surely you can help him. I’ve seen you reattach limbs, stitch men back together after they should’ve died.”
“I’m doing everything I can.” Evander’s voice carries a weight I’ve never heard before. Defeat.
I reach for Cas’s hand. His fingers burn against mine, but I squeeze them anyway.
His eyelids flutter but don’t open. The rise and fall of his chest looks too shallow, too quick.
His blanket hides his thigh. Hides what I saw earlier—flesh mottled purple and red, the wound weeping yellow.
Red streaks crawling up toward his hip like poison in his veins.
“You can’t die,” I whisper, leaning close to his ear. “You’ve come too far, survived too much. We need to be together next season, remember? We’re going to make it out of here. Together.”
The lies taste bitter on my tongue. There won’t be a next season for me. Tomorrow, Marco will end it all in the arena, and Cas will be alone here. If he survives.
It’s so unfair. Cas won his match. He earned his place. But infection doesn’t care about victory or courage or the dreams that keep us breathing in this place.
Evander moves around the table, checking Cas’s pulse, adjusting medicines I can’t name. His movements are tired, like he’s been fighting this battle for years.
“You look exhausted,” Marco says, studying Evander’s face.
“I am.” Evander sags against the counter. “I’ve been working around the clock trying to bring his fever down.”
Marco glances between me and the door. “Go take a break. We’ll watch him. Later, you can take over and we’ll get some sleep in Robin’s bed.”
He’ll stay with me tonight, in that awful cell. My heart swells. Yet the mention of sleep, of tomorrow, sends panic shooting through me. It’s all coming so fast.
Evander nods. “I’ll just be a short while,” he says, then slips out of the room.
I study my friend again. “At least Cas won’t have to watch me die tomorrow.”
Marco says nothing. His jaw works like he’s chewing glass.
I keep my eyes on Cas’s face, gazing at the curve of his nose, the way his curls stick to his damp forehead. “If he lives, will you tell him something?”
“Tell him what?”
“Tell him I said I’m haunting him as a ghost until he makes it out of here.
” My voice cracks. “And tell him—tell him what we did. Tell him as much as you can. I don’t want him thinking I gave up, or that I didn’t fight for what mattered.
Try and explain… try and explain what you meant to me. What we meant to each other.”
Marco’s hand lands on my shoulder, heavy and warm. “I don’t know if I can do this—”
“You can.” The words are firm, all the fight I have left in me.
His eyes dull, and his head dips. “Of course I’ll talk to him.”
The next few hours blur together in a haze of whispered prayers to gods I don’t believe in. Cas’s breathing stays ragged. His fever holds. No sign of breaking.
When Evander returns, he finds us slumped in chairs on either side of the table. He looks between Marco and me, and something passes across his features—an intense sadness.
“Go get some sleep, you two,” he says quietly. “I hear it’s a big day tomorrow.”
I squeeze Cas’s hand one more time. I don’t say goodbye to Evander on the way out, even though it could well be the last time I’ll see him.
I’m glad I’m granting myself the small mercy of not saying goodbyes. To Evander. To Cas, who might not even wake again. The words would stick in my throat anyway, meaningless sounds that change nothing.
Marco and I walk through the corridors in silence, our footsteps echoing off stone walls.
When we reach my cell, the door thankfully stands unlocked.
The cell feels smaller than usual with both of us inside.
Marco looks around at the cramped space, the single bunk bed that barely fits one person, let alone two.
I’d imagined our last night in his big bed at the villa, tangled in silk sheets, but actually, this is better.
No space between us. No room for doubt or distance.
We both collapse onto the tiny bottom bunk without discussion.
The mattress sags under our combined weight, and Marco’s arms come around me from behind, pulling me tight against his chest. His breath warms the back of my neck as he strokes my hair, long, slow movements that make my eyes flutter closed despite everything.
Our breathing syncs, rising and falling together. I try to absorb it all—the weight of his arm across my ribs, the way his fingers catch on the tangles in my hair, the steady thrum of his heartbeat against my spine. Every sensation feels heightened, precious.
I keep expecting him to say something. Some final declaration or promise or apology. But really, what else is there to say at this point? He’s already said it all, in the way he holds me, in the choice he’s making tomorrow, in the fact that he’s here instead of in his villa.
Eventually, the stroking becomes softer, slower, until it stops completely. His breathing deepens, evens out. Marco has managed to fall asleep, and I’m grateful. Tomorrow will be hard enough without him lying awake all night thinking about it.
But sleep won’t come for me. My mind churns, restless and sharp.
I think about Esme’s reaction tomorrow, when Marco walks through the door, drops to his knees, and tells her the bad news.
That moment saying goodbye to her earlier at the villa was the most painful thing.
It took everything in me to act natural, to laugh and ruffle her hair like always.
But there was no point in making her suffer through the night. Like I am right now.
Out of the pair of us, Marco’s job tomorrow will be harder. I’m not sure how I would possibly have been able to kill him. The thought of driving the Deathball into him, of watching the light fade from his eyes…
Fuck, I need to sleep. But my brain won’t shut off. This is stupid. I don’t want to be tired tomorrow. I want to have ten more minutes with him when he wakes up. Ten more minutes of him stroking my hair, of Marco whispering in our mother tongue in my ear, of pretending this isn’t ending.
The frustration builds until I can’t stand it anymore. Maybe a hot shower will reset something, wash away the restless energy buzzing under my skin. Then I can jump back in bed and hopefully sleep will finally come.
I slip carefully out of Marco’s arms, trying not to wake him. He murmurs something in his sleep and reaches for where I was, but doesn’t wake.
The corridor feels colder than usual as I pad barefoot toward the showers. It’s quiet. Too quiet. My neck prickles. A sound behind me? I stop. Turn around. Nothing. Just my nerves. I keep walking.
The shower room swallows me whole. No lights—just the corridor’s pale glow dying a few feet past the doorway. I take one step toward where the lamp should be—
Hands lock around me from behind. My face meets tile. The impact cracks through my skull, instant and complete. No time to brace. No time to think.
Metal bites my wrists. The handcuffs ratchet tight, wrenching my arms back until my shoulders scream.
“What the—”
Cloth punches into my mouth. Dirt. Sweat. I’ve been gagged.
“Turn the shower on.”
That voice. I know that voice. Jason.
Water roars to life. Steam billows. My head bounces off the wall again—harder this time. Something hot runs down my temple. The hands holding me upright are iron, unyielding. I catch a flash of a guard’s uniform in the dim light.
I try to scream. The sound dies in my throat, muffled. Useless.
The bat finds my ribs first.
Wet crack. My torso caves inward. I can’t breathe. Can’t expand my lungs. The hands keep me vertical as I try to fold.
A second swing catches my kidney. Fire tears up my spine. My knees try to buckle, but the guard’s grip won’t let me fall.
Jason knows anatomy. He’s a fighter—he knows exactly where the soft parts hide. My ribs again. Another crack, distinct this time. Then my shoulder. The meat of my stomach. Each strike precise. Deliberate. Destroying my ability to lift a weapon. To run. To fight.
The irony almost makes me laugh, or it would if I could breathe. He doesn’t need to do this. I was going to die anyway. He’s just wasted his time and ruined my last hours on this earth.
The bat crushes my thigh. Dead leg. Then the other kidney—my body convulses, trying to retch through the gag. The world blurs at the edges. Pain rolls through me in continuous waves now, no break between impacts.
Jason’s panting. “You think you’re so special. Marco’s little pet.”
Another whack to my ribs, on the other side. Copper floods my mouth, hot and thick around the cloth.
“Thought you could just waltz in here and take everything.”
Hip next. The bone screams. My legs are gone. The guard hauls me up by the cuffs, my shoulders threatening to dislocate.
The pain stops making sense. Too much. Too complete. Like it’s happening to a body that isn’t mine anymore. Something broken beyond recognition.
Then the light catches metal.
Not the bat.
A knife.
Jason steps closer. The blade is small—a utility knife, the kind used to cut rope and tape. My heart hammers against my broken ribs. He’s not weakening me for tomorrow after all. Not ensuring I die in the arena, so that I can’t steal his shot at being made captain.
He’s going to kill me. Right here. Right now.