Chapter 31 Nyx
Nyx
Reyes sleeps beside me, with his arm under his head and his breathing steady. Rest does not come so easily for me. This place holds so many memories, and none of them are good. They clash in my head, each trying to come out the victor.
One memory in particular wins. With a sigh, I slip to my feet, making sure I didn’t disturb Reyes before I wander towards the edge of the forest.
“Don’t go too far,” Ronan calls, “and stay where I can see you.” I glance back at where he perches on top of the van and nod so he knows I heard.
My feet carry me forward, ducking between trees until I find the bush I’m looking for.
I kneel beside it, huffing a quiet laugh through my nose as I peek underneath. There’s nothing there.
I didn’t expect there to be.
My gaze drifts to a thick tree thirty feet to my right, remembering the scratch of the bark against my back and poke of twigs against my bare feet. Leaves crunch behind me in that cautious cadence I know by heart, and Reyes kneels beside me. “I didn’t mean to wake you,” I say.
“You didn’t. Not at first, at least.”
“Why are you awake, then?”
He takes my hand in his, weaving our fingers together as he brings my knuckles to his lips for a kiss. “I felt your pain.”
My eyes close as I fill my lungs with a deep inhale, and with the familiar forest surrounding me, I can almost believe that I’ve fallen back in time. “What’s special about this place?” Reyes asks, and I open my eyes and gesture at the bush.
“Not this place. Just this plant.”
“What happened here?” he asks, so, so gently. I'm quiet for a long time as I reach to my side, like I could feel the comfort of her fur between my fingers even now.
“After Ronan and Cameron freed me, I don't remember much. It was like a haze, leaving that tent. As awful as it was, it was home. It was all I knew. I did not know them, or if I was making the right choice. But then she saw me, and ran to me. Comforted me when I needed it, and told me they were safe. All those years later, she remembered me.”
“She?”
“Boomerang. She did not have a name when I met her. I did not even know what sort of creature she was, but she was my first friend.”
Four Years Prior
A trickle of blood slides down my arm, its path diverted by the raised scars on the inside of my elbow. My weakened body hasn’t healed from their rough needles. They plunge them into my veins without a care to how much it hurts.
I should be numb to the stabbing pain after all this time, but on days like today, when the hues of my skin are more blue and purple than green, I can’t ignore it.
Whatever they injected me with has made my vision fuzzy.
A white halo closes in, its light serving as a blinder.
It keeps me from seeing anything except what’s directly in front of me.
Hours we spent out there. The sun was too bright with the effects of this poison, and my limbs were too weak to hold myself up. Instead, I sprawled in the mud as I tried and tried to do what they asked of me.
There’s something special here. My body and mind recognize it, sensing the pulsing energy that comes from this place. But no matter what I do, nothing ever happens. No matter how much I concentrate, or how hard I dig into the traces of magic inside me, it’s always the same.
Disappointment and anger.
Punishment.
Whatever they’re doing here is awful, because they wouldn’t waste this determination on anything noble. It must be dangerous. Catastrophic.
And still, I want to give it to them.
I’ll grant them their evil if it means I could have a second to rest. A singular moment when this life isn’t filled with angry words and needles, or fiery medicine injected into burning veins. A reprieve from fists and shoes, bruises and broken bones because I’ve disappointed them all yet again.
I’m desperate for this relief, despite the consequences.
It makes me a coward, but I’ll gladly wear the title if I can just rest. At one point, I’d like to think I wasn’t one, but that was so long ago I’ve forgotten what it’s like to be brave.
To be anything but scared.
A guard enters the tent and slides a bowl of stew through the tiny opening in my cage.
Broth splashes across the dirt floor, but he’s unbothered by the mess.
I suppose I’m unbothered by it, too. My hands are caked in filth so thick it chips off my skin.
I reach for the bowl anyway, desperate for some food, but a glint of metal just outside my cage catches the evening sun. My food is forgotten.
A key.
I stare at it, even as hunger pangs slice through my gut.
I learned long ago to ignore the stabbing sensation, and my fixation on the object numbs it further.
It feels like a test—a way to determine if that long-lost bravery inside of me is only boxed and buried deep, or if my courage is truly dead.
Minutes tick by, enough of them to move the sun to a lower position outside the flap, but it’s irrelevant. Time means nothing anymore. Murmurs of voices barely reach me, floating on the wind from the soldiers eating dinner in their common area. I’m forgotten for the night.
My shaking hand slides through the small opening. It’s only big enough to pass a tray or bowl, half the width of the door and as tall as a drinking glass, but my frail body can almost squeeze through. I tried in the long-ago past, contorting arms and hips and shoulders until they bruised.
But that was when a glimmer of hope remained inside me, and as my fingers wrap around the warm metal, there’s nothing. No encouraging spark to spur me on, or quiet voice whispering that this is an opportunity that must be seized.
Hope doesn’t live here, not anymore.
The key is fitting against my palm. Weathered and worn and filthy. Gouged metal and warped edges that need to be bent back into place. Used, over and over again, and I glance at the scattershot of scars that cover the ditch of my elbow and know that I am used, too.
But the key still has a purpose, imperfect as it might be, and I wonder if I have anything left to give.
I move so slowly, so silently, I can’t be sure I’m actually moving at all. Afraid to make the tiniest noise, my hand creeps closer to the lock, and by the time I’ve inserted the key, dusk has fallen. Those cheerful rays of sunshine have faded and turned into washed-out, tired things.
My heart slams against its bone confinement, trying to escape as I try to swallow, but my tongue is too thick and sticks to the roof of my mouth. My hands shake in a rattle so intense it moves up my limbs, and my jaw quivers as the corrosive nerves attack the bottom of my stomach.
I glance at the cold bowl of food and know I should eat something. Whatever waits beyond these walls will require energy, but as bile climbs my throat and saliva pools inside my mouth, I know my body won’t tolerate it.
A decision.
A tipping point.
The click of a key inside a lock.
A whispered squeal of hinges as the cage door inches open.
Panic so brutal my body betrays me, and I fall to my knees and heave the caustic acid of an empty stomach into the dirt.
A choice.
A choice.
Something I’ve never had.
My foot hits the ground, then the other as I push myself to stand.
Broken. Bruised and damaged, but not dead yet.
One step forward, then another, and I wish the pounding of my heart would subside so I could listen.
But the foolish organ thuds its rebellion, circulating blood and adrenaline and whatever poison is left in my veins.
Silently, I tiptoe to the tent’s opening and peek outside. There’s always a small group of guards stationed with me as they move me between locations, but the faces change. Most are indifferent, some are gentler than others, and some thrive in the pain they cause me.
This company has more of the latter than usual.
Dinner must be finished, because the camp is quiet. My tent is positioned away from theirs. To avoid the smell, they say, always with the disgusted sneer aimed in my direction. What once would’ve been shame twists my stomach to hear it, as though I control my conditions.
A single soldier moves through their common area, patrolling in a lazy circle to search for rebels on the horizon. The rest of the guards have moved to their tents for the night, and no one pays me any mind.
We’ve been to this spot several times before, each time with new machines and experimental concoctions that violate my body and mind. They cloud my memories, though I can recall the layout of this place well enough. My eyes shift to the wooded area on my right.
My toes curl against the dirt as I force my lungs to work and summon that last kernel of courage.
Instinct screams at me to turn around and flee into the familiarity of my cage, but I fight it.
The patrolling guard reaches the edge of camp and turns, strolling towards the other end, and I know it’s now or never.
Make a decision, or the decision will be made for me.
A deep breath, eyes forced to stay ahead and not look behind, and I run.
A jolt charges through my legs as my feet hit the ground.
My body is unused to moving in this way, and I stumble, barely staying upright as I force myself to keep going.
It’s not far to the trees, but it feels like a lifetime until their shade surrounds me.
I run until my legs ache, then hide behind a trunk as I catch my breath. My fear almost brings me to my knees.
Rough bark claws against my back, but through it all, my lungs expand in the deepest breath I’ve taken in decades. Air rushes through my body in a tingling energy that feeds my soul. Hot tears flood my eyes as I screw them shut, taking a moment to relish the sensation.