CHAPTER 37
I wake as familiar arms lift me, and pain flares in my entire torso as the movement stretches the wounds and my torn body is pressed against a hard chest. The pain robs me of breath, and a few weak whimpers and squirms are all the protest I manage. After a minute, I lose the strength to do even that, and I go still in the arms, trying to find some modicum of peace as I listen to Janos’s steady heartbeat against my ear.
He carries me longer than usual, and when the movements become bumpy, I vaguely realize that we’ve left the apartment and are descending the stairs. When a cold gush of air flutters across my cheek, I open my eyes to find that we’re outside—I haven’t been outside for God knows how long, and the fresh air is a welcome relief.
Darkness has settled over the city, and the streetlights lead the way as Janos walks at a brisk pace down the street. But light is not our friend, I realize as he keeps looking over his shoulder and veers down a dark alley. I want to ask where we’re going, but I can’t get the words out, and I’m not sure I really want to know. Ignorance is my friend, and I want to keep it until the very end. This just might be the point where Janos takes me to the woods to end me. I almost hope it is.
Letting my eyes drift shut, I spend what little energy I can muster on pressing myself a bit closer to him, soaking up the feeling of his warm body as I try to ignore the flaring pain.
At the sound of hushed voices, I open my eyes again and see two men and the gaping hole of the back of a van.
“Wha— Ho—” I try without getting a full word out as Janos steps into the van and places me on a mattress on the floor. But it’s not the dark van that has worry churning in my stomach. It’s the two men. Is he leaving me? Letting someone else discard me?
The idea sends a sharp spear of pain, worse than any my broken body can conjure, through my chest.
“Please don’t go,” I beg, somehow mustering the strength to clutch the leather of his jacket.
“Shh,” he soothes, pulling a thick blanket over my body, followed by a comforter. “Everything will be okay. You’re safe now.”
I have no idea what he’s saying. His nonsensical words attempt to soothe me, and I almost hate him for lying to me for the first time when he’s about to leave me.
But I can’t muster the will to hate him—not when I’m about to lose him—so I just stare up at him, wishing I could make out the color of his eyes, knowing it’s the last time I’ll see them.
“Don’t leave me,” I croak. I want him with me at the end. I can’t bear to lose him before I go.
“You’re free now,” he says, leaning down to press his lips to my forehead. “You’re free,” he repeats in a whisper.
I shake my head. All I know is I don’t want to be free, because that means I won’t be with him anymore. Suddenly, I don’t want to die anymore. I just want to stay with him, even if it means enduring more of this agony. “Please,” I whimper as he wraps his hands around my face.
“You’re going home,” he says and snuffs out my next plea with an achingly soft kiss on my lips. And that’s when I realize what he’s saying.
He’s not sending me away to a hole in the ground in the woods. He’s sending me home. Giving me what I’ve been desperately hoping for since I ended up in this nightmare. The one thing I no longer want.
I shake my head furiously and try to find the words to explain. But all that comes out is a weak, “Don’t leave me.”
He doesn’t listen. He gives me one last kiss before pulling away. Then there’s a tiny prick in my neck, and everything goes black.