Chapter 42 Katana
Katana
Days blur together in this basement. We measure time by the scrape of the lock and the tray Corinne brings twice a day. Morning. Evening. Morning. Evening.
Today feels different.
The first thing I notice is the silence. Not the hum of the lightbulb, not the distant groan of the house—a different, wrong silence, like the world stopped turning.
The second thing is Micah. He’s slumped against the wall, his head tipped forward. His breath comes out slow and uneven. I tug at the chains, panic tearing through me, and yank until the metal bites.
“Micah,” I rasp, my voice paper-thin.
He doesn’t move. His skin is too pale under the bulb.
Panic fills me, and my voice comes out high-pitched with an edge of hysteria. “Micah! Wake up!”
Nothing.
The scrape of the lock jerks me upright. Vale comes down the stairs alone, slow and smooth like someone showboating. There’s a calmness to him now—not the clipped cruelty of the last time he was here, but something colder. He looks at Micah and then at me, his smile an unreadable curve.
“Poor thing,” he says, his voice dipped in sugar. “You look worried. Your monster not waking?”
Heat spikes behind my eyes. “What did you do to him?” The words come out sharper than I expect.
Vale leans against the wall, as if we are having a casual meeting instead of this torture in a concrete cell.
“Just a little something to take the edge off,” he says. The phrase is clinical, casual, and it swirls in my bloodstream like poison. “Makes him... easier to manage.”
I stagger forward on my chains until I’m all teeth, my body shaking. “He’ll wake up,” I say, because I need it to be true. I can’t fathom anything else.
Vale spreads his hands, indulgent. “You say that like he matters.” He tilts his head, considering me the way you examine a specimen.
“But tell me, Katana—has he actually protected you? He’s chained, isn’t he?
He jerks, he bleeds, he suffers, and you scream louder than he does. What kind of protector is that?”
Something inside me—a slippery doubt I thought I’d swallowed—hitches. It’s the barest thing, only a whisper. What if he can’t protect me? What if I’m alone? My throat clamps shut before the rest can rise.
The footsteps above creak. Corinne appears a moment later, her scrubs neat, a mug in her hand. “Here,” she murmurs, offering the chipped mug. “Drink. Hydration will help the muscles.”
Her smile is honey, but her eyes are flat. I yank my head away. “Get away from me.”
“Just a sip,” she coaxes, and the mug presses to my lips. I hate it, but I need water like I need air in my lungs. The coolness calms my shaking fingers, if only a little.
Vale leans in until his breath ghosts my ear. “You’re starting to understand. He can’t save you. He never could.” His eyes glimmer. “Say you’re better off alone.”
My bound hands close around the mug. It’s a stupid little thing to hang on to, but I hold it like armor. “You want me to believe he won’t protect me? That I don’t need him?” I snap.
He chuckles, delighted by the crack he thinks he’s seeing. “Admit you’re done with him. That he can’t save you.”
For a second—a single, poisonous beat—the doubt curls in the back of my skull. Micah isn’t perfect. He hasn’t been able to get free. He gave them what they wanted, and still they shocked me. He hasn’t been able to protect me.
I feel my resolve slipping like water through a fist.
Then a voice breaks the fog, low and ragged. “Don’t listen to him.”
My heart pounds frantically. It’s Micah. He’s awake.
He looks like hell—pupils blown wide, black swallowing the color—but he’s here. He drags himself forward a fraction, eyes locking on Vale with a fury that burns.
My breath hitches when his eyes swing to me. His voice is shredded, but every word is a blade. “Everything he says is a lie, little murderess. I’ll protect you until the day I stop breathing.”
The panic that’d been trying to eat me ebbs like a tide. I latch onto his voice like a rope. Now that he’s awake, I can breathe again.
Vale’s smile stutters and rolls off his face like water. For a split second, I see something else—annoyance, maybe fear—and then his mask slips back on.
“How touching,” he says, his tone sarcastic. “We’ll see how long her faith in you lasts.”
Corinne moves as if responding to a different cue—professional and practiced. She checks Micah’s pulse, then touches his forehead with one cold finger. “He’s coherent,” she notes. “Fragile, but coherent.” Her eyes flick to Vale, then to me, blank and unreadable.
Micah shifts, a thin sound tearing out of him. He moves as far as the chain allows, and his bare foot finds mine. The brief press sends heat through me, a small, feral comfort.
“You’ll never be alone. I won’t leave you.” It’s not a speech. It’s a jagged promise.
Vale laughs it off, but the sound is too high. He steps back to the stairs like a man who’s been told the curtain will rise later. “We’ll see,” he says, and then he’s gone.
Corinne leaves the mug in the middle of the floor and drifts back up the stairs. I watch her go, memorizing the swing of her hips, the way she tucks a curl behind her ear.
The room feels smaller—not because there’s less air, but because there’s a new thing holding us together.
Micah’s breathing is shallow, the pressure of his foot still on mine. It’s enough. It steadies me. For now, his voice is the truth I trust.
“Stay with me,” he whispers.
“Always,” I whisper back.