Chapter Three
………………………….
Henri
FOR AN ENDLESS ETERNITY, I existed with one foot in this world and one in the next.
Some days, I woke with coherency. I’d stay awake long enough to follow the black roof of the dungeon, trace the walls dripping with icy dew, and focus on Ily and Peter shackled by their collars across the small cell.
I’d count the bars locking us from freedom.
I’d trace the scratchy woollen blanket I lay on and groan as every bone throbbed as if they’d splintered into pieces.
But then the thickness in my head would win.
The fog would return…and I’d slip away.
I’d rouse as something hot was ladled down my throat. I’d wake spluttering as someone fed me water, reminding me too much of drowning as the guards chucked a bucket of ocean on my face.
I winced as someone tended to my injuries and begged anyone and everyone to let Ily go and me to die.
I didn’t remember what I said, but I knew I’d entreated every entity I could think of. I prayed when I’d never prayed before. I tried to make my shattered mind find that oasis of calm and concentration.
But no matter how hard I clung to living, death was a fierce undertow.
I dreamed of running in the black.
Being chased.
Being hunted.
Being butchered and eaten and burned.
I’d wake screaming, only for Ily to speak softly in our prison, telling me things I couldn’t recall, sending me back to sleep with her unconditional love.
I didn’t deserve it.
Didn’t deserve her.
But I slipped again, and more time passed.
Days.
Then weeks.
No light.
No sun.
No way of truly knowing how many nights had passed.
We existed in a perpetual one.
Never-ending.
All consuming.
Nothing but pain and misery.
* * * * *
“Henri. Henri .”
The clanging of chains and the tinny whack of metal against metal echoed in my ears. It reached down, down, down into the abyss where I now lived.
No matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t seem to crawl out of it for long.
My eyes cracked open.
The pain swamped me.
But…it didn’t seem as debilitating as before.
The fiery ache from dislocating my shoulder had abated, the joint now stiff and seized from the endless cold and almost constant unconsciousness. The hundred contusions along my torso and legs slowly slipped through the sickly colours of healing. A cast covered my right ankle and foot. Another locked around my left forearm above my cuff. Heavy bandages wrapped around my torso, keeping me marginally warmer but not stopping the sharp pinch each time I breathed with broken ribs.
I’d never been so badly beaten before.
Hadn’t been prepared for how even my blood ached. How my tendons felt overstretched and my muscles nothing more than congealed meat. Lacerations cut the inside of my mouth from my teeth slicing into my cheeks when the guards walloped their fists into my face. The concussion that slithered around my thoughts—making them soupy and foggy—had improved, but it hadn’t fully gone.
Regardless how much time had passed, I didn’t fully heal.
And time did pass.
I wore the ticking hands of it on my own body.
Outwardly, my bruises faded and my bones throbbed with internal knitting. Each time I woke, I had a little more strength. But…while my body fixed itself outwardly. Inwardly? My soul died, piece by piece.
“Henri, please stay awake,” Ily’s plea cut through the vicious allure of sleep. I did my best to stay coherent even though being alive hurt worse than anything.
No, not anything.
What hurt the most was knowing I’d failed her.
Failed Peter.
Failed every jewel.
Everything I’d hoped to achieve was over now.
We lost.
I killed us all.
I just wanted death to claim me because I didn’t deserve to be here. I didn’t deserve to talk to her in the snatches of time between nightmares. Didn’t deserve to see her fading across the dungeon, her gorgeous skin going sickly from lack of sunlight, her curves vanishing thanks to starvation, the light in her golden eyes turning dull.
But…while she breathed, I had to breathe.
While she still fought, I would fight.
With a guttural groan, I shifted upright on the plywood cot that’d been my coffin for too long. No mattress beneath me. Only a scratchy woollen blanket to cover me. Every inch of me cracked with filth and dried blood, minus the areas of my body that had open wounds.
Those areas were neatly scrubbed and dressed, ensuring I didn’t die of infection.
I vaguely remembered having an IV line attached to me for a while in the beginning. I’d flinched as the needle poked into my vein. I’d found Dr Belford’s face looming over me before I’d drifted off on another river of sleep.
Rubbing my eyes, I gathered what strength I had and forced myself to focus on Ily and Peter a few metres away. They had their own wooden cots, blankets, water bucket, and enough chain so they could move to the toilet tucked behind a rock wall.
My gaze locked on their golden collars flickering in the lights glowing on the chilly dungeon walls. Such a regal, royal metal, yet it marked us as the lowest of the low.
My heart twisted as I glanced at the cuffs around my own wrists.
They lashed my arms with a never-warming cold, the small electricity nodes on the inside band scratchy against my already beaten skin.
I’d tried getting them off in one of my more energetic moments. I’d whacked my wrists against the dungeon walls over and over again, clanging, clanging, clanging.
The broken bone in my forearm did not appreciate that.
It’d ached with fire for days afterward.
And for what?
My attempt at removing the godawful cuffs hadn’t worked.
And I’d passed out from the effort.
Skipping more days, losing more time, more hope, more life.
I sighed heavily as the chain tinkled behind me, connecting to my collar, keeping me firmly locked on this side of the cell. I could reach the toilet too—with an age of shuffling and blackspots dancing on my vision—but I couldn’t reach them.
Couldn’t touch her.
Hug her.
We’d tried.
On the first day I’d had the strength to fall out of bed, I’d crawled toward her. My eyes stung with the need to feel her. My heart felt like it would explode if I didn’t kiss her.
She’d dashed toward me.
Peter had shook his head sadly.
And we’d both jerked to a stop, just centimetres from touching.
A few lousy millimetres.
That was all that blocked us from comforting one another. Caressing and loving, sharing body heat and love in a place so full of hate.
“Henri…”
I forced a smile and looked at the love of my life. “I’m okay, mon c?ur . I’m up.”
She let out a heavy sigh. “I was so worried. You wouldn’t wake, no matter how much noise I made.”
“I was asleep. Healing is exhausting work.” I attempted a smirk. “But I’m getting better. You don’t have to worry about me.”
She hugged herself, her body wracked with trembles. “You were speaking to us, but then your words grew all scrambled.” Flicking a look at Peter, she whispered, “You passed out and…”
“Ily.” I licked my dry, cracked lips. “I’m okay—”
“I’m terrified you’re dying right in front of me.”
“I’m fine.” I sat as tall as I could, ignoring the fiery agony cutting through me in every direction. “See? Nothing to fret about.”
Peter gave me a narrowed look as if he could see every single one of my lies.
I gave him a pointed one back.
I couldn’t be the one to comfort Ily while healing and shackled so far away.
For now, that was his job.
And he’s failing .
Ily shivered and rubbed her arms. The floaty white dress she’d worn for the Halloween masquerade—the same dress I’d flipped over her back when I’d taken her from behind before our night ended in the Temple of Facets—was now grey with grime.
Peter’s linen trousers matched the same dirty colour; his bare chest streaked with dirt. His blanket rested over his shoulders. His already lean body shadowed with the lines of his ribs the longer we were kept down here.
We all shivered constantly, but…it fucking hurt to see Ily trembling.
“Paavak.” My voice came out rusty and almost cold. “She’s shaking. Do something about it.”
Without a word, Peter left his cot and joined Ily on hers. Draping his blanket over her shoulders, he cradled her close and kissed her temple. She welcomed his body heat, but her eyes never left mine.
And I never looked away despite exhaustion tugging at my eyelashes.
Their two beds touched each other at the top, their thin pillows close enough that their matching black hair blended while sleeping.
Occasionally, I’d wake in the dead of night—or it could’ve been midday, considering we hadn’t seen the sky in weeks—and I’d watch them sleeping, thanks to the flickering light that was never turned off. I’d see Ily quaking in her dreams and Peter twitching in his nightmares. Their hands would inevitably find each other’s, sending a vicious jolt through me. A yearning made of jealousy, gratefulness, and overwhelming loneliness.
A clang in the distance made all of us flinch.
Heavy boots clomped over flagstones.
My skin prickled as I looked toward the bars of our cell, and a burly, muscular guard appeared. Carrying a tray, he placed it on the cold rock, fumbled in his pocket for a key, and unlocked our cage.
If I wasn’t a heartbeat away from passing out, and if Peter wasn’t starved to the point of cadaverous, and Ily wasn’t so fearlessly brave, and we weren’t chained up like vermin, we might’ve been able to swarm the deliverer of our once-daily meal.
But…Victor had always been too smart. Too cunning. Too sly.
He gave us just enough food and water to keep us alive but not enough for us to fight back. He gave me just enough medical care to stay in one piece but not enough for me to heal quickly.
“What time is it?” Ily asked quietly as the guard scooped the tray back into his hands and marched into the middle of our dungeon. Placing our food in reaching distance of our chains, he gave her a sneer. “It’s seven p.m. There’s a porno about to begin, and then Victor has a new game for everyone to play.” He laughed, giving us information, not because he wanted to help but because it was yet another form of torture. “Victor hasn’t finished punishing the jewels for their part in your little uprising. I believe a few have been earmarked for an archery lesson tonight.” He chuckled cruelly as he headed toward the exit. “Anyone who manages to get an arrow in a jewel’s heart gets to do whatever he wants with it.”
The guard slammed the bars shut—the metal twang set my teeth aching.
Locking us in, the guard reached through and rested his arms over the cross beams of our prison. “You never know. Maybe tomorrow night the meat on your plate won’t be beef but jewel.”
Ily cringed into a ball.
Peter cuddled her closer.
And the horrors in my head pounced too swift and savage to fight them.
I tipped sideways.
All strength in my limbs bled free.
I passed out.
* * * * *
Today was a better day.
I’d been able to stay awake longer than usual, and the agony in my bones had faded just enough for me to be tortured by the endless icy damp instead of the fiery throb inside me.
Ily scratched yet another line on the rock wall behind her, keeping track of how long we’d been trapped down here. Her pen was a jagged pebble she’d found beneath her bed. The endless rubbing of stone against stone was almost as torturous as the constant dew dripping from the ceiling.
“How many?” I asked, itching the beard on my bruise-filthy face and twisting my forearm, testing to see if the broken bone beneath my cast had knitted.
“Twenty-seven,” Peter said, his voice mostly dead. “Twenty-seven nights since that bastard threw us in here and forgot about us.”
“Oh, he hasn’t forgotten.” I flinched as I forced myself to sit upright. I needed to piss, but the thought of shuffling to the toilet, even as close as it was, drenched me in cold sweat. Yesterday, I’d gone to use the facilities and came to as cold as a corpse on the ground.
Ily’s face had been streaked with tears as she kneeled on frigid rock, her fingers reaching for me, her neck bleeding from where the collar cut into her as she fought the chains to get to me.
I never wanted to do that again.
Not because it’d taken me twenty-four hours to feel somewhat alive again but because I didn’t want to scare or hurt her any more than I already had.
What must it be like for her, seeing me this way? Filthy and broken? Fighting to stay alive, all while being far too weak to save her.
Don’t answer that.
Dropping my gaze, I gathered my scratchy blanket tighter.
My black shirt and trousers had been sliced in places for the doctor to apply the cast to my arm and ankle. A few buttons had been torn off in the fight, and the stench of unwashed sweat and pain added to my never-leaving headache.
Christ, stop it.
Get yourself together.
You’re alive.
Focus on that and only that.
Lifting my chin, I didn’t say a word as Ily carefully tucked her calendar-marking pebble under her thin pillow and lay down. Huddling into her blanket, she looked across at me. Her lips tipped into a lovely smile. Her golden eyes a little brighter as if we’d all decided to be a little better and pretend to be a little stronger.
Peter stood and stretched. Working out the kinks in his thin body, he padded toward the toilet and vanished behind the wall.
We might not be able to see each other, but we could hear. While he emptied his bladder, I did my best to speak over the splash by repeating the phrase Ily had told me yesterday. “Let everything happen to you. Beauty and terror. Just keep going. No feeling is final. Rainer Maria Rilke.”
She reached for me. Her hand so far away.
I reached for her. My fingers tingling with the need to touch.
She’d started forcing me to remember poetry and affirmations, making me promise to play along so she could be sure my concussion wasn’t killing me.
“And the day before yesterday?” she whispered, tucking her untouched hand beneath her cheek and sighing.
I struggled. Without the sun, it was so fucking hard to follow time. The lingering concussion didn’t help. Fighting back the last dregs of confusion, I whispered, “Love consists of this: two lonely people who meet, protect, and adore each other. Rainer Maria Rilke.”
She shook her head softly. “Love consists of this: two solitudes who meet, protect, and greet each other.”
“Oh.” I shrugged. “Well, I prefer my version.”
“Me too.” She nodded with a soft smile. “I’m so glad your mind seems to be healing as well as your body.”
“I’m sorry for making you so worried.”
She winced. Tears glimmered. “I’m just glad I haven’t lost you.”
Glancing around the dungeon, I couldn’t hide my fury. “I wish I could get you out of this place.”
“Same.” She gave a sad little shrug.
“Why do you know so many of Rilke’s poems?” Peter asked as he returned from behind the wall. Gathering his and Ily’s meal, he placed a tray by her feet and the other on his pillow.
“My father.” Ily flinched as if the memory caused her pain. “He’s a massive poetry buff. He says Buddha lives in sonnets and songs, not just scripture. That the truth of love and life are often found in the proverbs of pretty words.”
“Your father would get along with my mother and aunt.” Peter bent over Ily and kissed her cheek before climbing back onto his bed. The chain stopped jingling as he settled. “My mum even writes poetry herself.”
None of us reached for our food. Enjoying the anticipation of filling our empty bellies rather than the agonising wait for more once it was gone.
“Does she live in Leeds too?” Ily flipped onto her stomach, cupping her chin so she could study Peter. “Can you remember any of her work?”
“Nah.” Grabbing his blanket, Peter whipped it around his shoulders like a cape and sat cross-legged. “I’m not much of a reader myself.”
Fuck.
I wasn’t prepared for such a simple sentence to gut me.
What I wouldn’t give for a book.
A single page from a manuscript.
A paragraph of words that could allow me to escape this place, if only for a moment.
“Henri…” Ily’s soft voice lifted my eyes to hers.
“Yeah?” I smiled softly, falling yet again with how much I fucking loved her. Even filthy and imprisoned, I found her the most beautiful creature alive. Her tears no longer made me want to drink down her grief but bundle her in my arms and cherish her forever.
“Are you okay?”
I nodded. “Fine.”
Peter narrowed his eyes in my direction. I stared back, not quite sure what his problem was. With a grunt, he threw off his newly wrapped blanket and stood again. Moving toward me, he stopped when his collar jerked him back, preventing him from coming any closer.
“Come here.” He snapped his fingers.
I glowered. “Why? What do you want?”
“It’s not what I want but what you want. Or you will soon. Not that I’m really keeping track, but…after what happened yesterday…”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“Just get up, Master H . Obey me like I used to have to obey you. After all, you’re wearing the same collar as me. Technically, I’m your boss now. So get.”
Ily scowled. “I know you’re joking, Paavak, but…too soon.”
He snickered. “Sorry. I’m just…if we let this place get to us, we’re done. We won’t be getting out. So if a little snark and sarcasm is what it takes to keep the blood flowing, then so be it.” He winked and waggled his fingers. “Come on, Henri. Be a good boy.”
Flipping him the bird, I rose very slowly, very carefully to my feet. Black spots popped immediately as my body flushed with agony. All the kicks, punches, and contusions made me breathless.
I hid that awful weakness and shuffled toward him.
Ily and I couldn’t touch.
Her arms weren’t long enough to stretch across the last few millimetres to reach, but Peter and me…we could skim fingertips.
He didn’t drop his arm, waiting for me.
With gritted teeth, I reached the end of my chain’s length and stretched my arm until my previously dislocated shoulder popped.
He sucked in a breath as our fingers kissed, both icy, both dry, both shaking.
“Needed another man’s touch, Paavak?” I returned his wink.
He rolled his eyes. “No, you idiot, I’m going to help you go to the loo.”
“What?” I dropped my arm. “I don’t need—”
“If you fall on your face again and I have to listen to Ily sobbing your name for hours while you die in front of us, I’ll smother you myself.” Dropping his arm, he shrugged. “If you need to go, then go. Stay as close to me as possible and hold onto the wall when you get there. If you fall, fall toward me, and I’ll do my best to—”
“What? Catch me?” I laughed with a wet cough. Yet another affliction that’d found us down here. We didn’t have the flu, but all of us had a chesty cough courtesy of mould and mildew. “We can barely press our fingers together.”
“But doesn’t it feel better knowing I’m here? That you’re not alone?” He said it with an almost mocking grin, but…no truer words had been spoken.
It did make me feel better.
Trapped in the belly of Victor’s island, I suffered obscene gratefulness to the man who’d put us here. He could’ve separated us. Could’ve kept me in solitary.
But he hadn’t.
He’d prevented me from touching, but he’d granted me the company of two of the best people.
I didn’t want to know why Victor had done that. What cost his generosity would demand when he finally came for us, but for now…my heart clenched as I studied this jewel who’d pushed so many of my buttons and dragged so many shades of jealousy and rage out of me.
And somehow, through all of it, he’d become a treasured friend.
“I still don’t like you,” I whispered with a smirk.
“God, what a relief.” He chuckled. “I wouldn’t know what to do with myself if you suddenly professed your undying love for me.”
Ily giggled.
Both Peter and I practically fucking swooned as we looked at her.
Such a wonderful sound.
Such a pure, innocent response while we shared absolute hell together.
“I love both of you,” she murmured. Her eyes warmed on Peter’s, but they ignited with fire on mine. I waited for a trace of possession. Of petty jealousy that I had to share her heart with another man.
But I only felt relief.
Peter might be well on his way to being skeletal with his black eye fading and green-tinged bruises lingering, but…I trusted him.
I trusted that he would try to catch me if I fell, even if it was impossible.
Just like he would catch Ily if I wasn’t there to do it myself.
Fuck, I trusted him enough that if the time came when I had a chance to end Victor—even if it meant forfeiting my life to take his—I’d do it.
I’d do it because Ily wouldn’t be alone. She’d have him. And Peter loved her just as much as I did and would do whatever it took to protect her.
I love you. I tipped my chin at Ily. So much.
She sucked in a breath, hearing me, thanks to the magic of our silent connection.
I know. She hugged her pillow as if it were me she embraced. Don’t fall over.
I chuckled under my breath, reached for Peter’s outstretched fingers, and stepped behind the wall as carefully as I could.