Twenty-Three
A light appears about a football field away from me. The entire time I have been in here, it has been pitch-black in all directions. I’ve been huddling in the middle of the cage, my legs up, my arms wrapped around my knees so none of the monsters can get me.
Now I lurch to my feet, my heart racing.
“Varius!”
I shout, stumbling forward even though I can’t see anything but that blare of light, getting dimmer by the second.
“Varius! Varius, I’m here!”
I wave an arm, then scream as a tentacle wraps around my wrist, its poisonous suckers stinging fire through my flesh. It drags me towards the edge of the cage, a low growl sounding from somewhere in the dark.
Throwing myself backwards, I scramble to dig my heels into the metal floor. I reach for my magic, knowing it’s the only chance I have of stopping it from eating me once I get to the edge of the cage. If I can just burn –
I cry out as I slam into a solid wall before I even make it to the bars. Pain flares through my broken arm, and I slide down the barrier with a gasp. The monster releases me with a yelp of pain, shocked by magic, and then I tumble forward as the wall disappears.
Maddox, you little shit…
I wondered how he stopped the monsters from eating us through the bars, but I didn’t want to get close enough to find out in case there wasn’t a fail safe and he just relied on Zita not wanting to test it either.
As I drag myself back to the middle of the cage, I can’t help but understand why she betrayed us. She was trapped in here for months. I have only been in here for a couple of hours, and I already want to kill him.
I can’t move more than a foot without being attacked.
I can’t see anything at all, the darkness making me mad.
I can only hear the scrape of claws and the gnashing of teeth across the bars, setting my ears on edge. I’m flinching at every noise, always wondering if this time they’ll be able to get through the spell. If I’m a second away from being dragged out of here and eaten alive.
Struggling to my feet, I look towards the direction where I saw the light. Nothing but darkness greets me now.
My pulse hammers inside my skull, I turn my head left and right, looking.
Searching.
Waiting...
Why didn’t the idiot bring a fucking flashlight?
“Varius!”
I scream as I catch a flicker of light.
My pulse beats so fucking hard as I wait for a response. Any response as I stare into the darkness.
There’s no light anymore.
The minutes tick by.
Come on.
Please.
I didn’t imagine it.
Fuck. Did I imagine it?
Fuck!
I imagined it.
I scream, letting out all my helpless pain. A high-pitched wail I’m too exhausted to be ashamed of.
A monster roars not far from the cage, and I jump out of my fucking skin. I am on edge, my heart racing like mad. I want so godsdamn badly to be hopeful. But at the same time I’m terrified of it.
I was so fucking hopeful when Khalid talked to me and again when Maddox arrived.
I can’t take another disappointment.
Can’t take –
There!
I take a step towards the light before I force myself to stop. I shuffle back. “Varius!”
I wait a beat. “Varius, I swear to the fucking gods if you don’t get your ass over here, I’m going to drown you in your own piss after I beat it out of you!”
My arm is throbbing in pain. The bone is still sticking out of my skin from when Eduardo broke it, and the fall just made it worse. I’m tired. I’m hungry. I’m in so much agony, I would’ve been sick a dozen times over if I had anything in my stomach. Antonio didn’t give me any food or water.
“Don’t give up hope, Micha,”
I hear in my head as I close my eyes. Maddox’s voice keeps me standing when all I want to do is sag to the ground and cry. “We’ll always come for you.”
I swallow hard, shoving the rising sobs back down my throat.
Wetting my cracked lips with a dried tongue, I scream again, “Varius! I’m here!”
A light darts sideways through the terrain, and I realize he went back for a flashlight.
He knows I’m here.
He can feel me through our bond.
Closing my eyes, I drop to my knees, my chest shaking so hard, I’m struggling to breathe.
“Oh gods…”
In the back of my mind, when seemingly everyone else came to rescue me but Varius, I thought…
I thought he might’ve died.
I have been refusing to think of it, refusing to let even a single thought fully form in my brain, but it’s been there.
A subconscious fear niggling at the back of my mind.
A terror too great to face.
But he’s okay.
He can feel me.
He hasn’t lost too much blood like I did.
Tears stream down my cheeks as I fall forward, pressing my palms on the ground. My shoulders shake. My breaths come out hard and raspy.
“Micha!”
At the sound of his voice, my head snaps up. I struggle to my feet.
“Varius!”
“Micha!”
His voice cracks, and I might not be able to feel him through our bond, but I can hear his desperation, his pain, his happiness at finding me through that single call of my name.
He lights up my cage with his flashlight, and I raise my hand to shield my eyes. I blink rapidly, trying to see as fast as I can.
He’s close.
So godsdamn close.
I lower my arm.
My chest swells with hope and happiness as I watch him near the cage. The monsters have gone, scared off by this mad neanderthal, but there’s a massive anaconda wrapped around his upper body. I stumble forward, blindly trusting that he wouldn’t have brought a giant snake to eat me, and I reach my good better arm through the bars, waiting for the last few seconds it’ll take him to cover the rocky, barren terrain to get to me.
My eyes widen as he screams in agony.
“Varius!”
I shout, so godsdamn terrified that a monster’s managed to grab him despite the protection of his blood.
But then I notice that the light filling my cage has just got brighter.
Because there’s another lightsource.
One coming from above.
“Noooo!”
I scream, my body shaking with utter terror, with the death of hope.
Varius peels the snake off him. He’s still thirty feet away.
He launches the anaconda at me, and I watch as it sails through the air.
But it’s too late.
Rudy pulls me out of his shadows.