Nova
I can’t feel my toes.
I’m leaning against the wall next to the door because it’s the only spot that feels less cold. Or maybe it doesn’t. Maybe I just need to believe there’s a difference.
Water drips off my hair onto the floor. The shivering won’t stop. My teeth keep chattering and I can’t make them stop no matter how hard I clench my jaw.
They said it was “time for cleansing” and took me back to that godforsaken shower again. The pain in my shoulder is almost more than I can take. I don’t know how to get it back into the socket.
The cold is my only distraction and it’s not a good one.
Lena’s gone. They took her again. I don’t know when. Could’ve been an hour ago. Could’ve been five minutes. The silence is worse than her rambling. At least when she was talking I wasn’t alone.
Now there’s nothing. Just pain and the sound of water hitting stone. My own breathing and the cold seeping into my bones.
I close my eyes and try to stay here. Try to breathe through it.
Footsteps echo in the hallway.
I don’t move. Don’t open my eyes. Just another guard. Another tray. Another rotation of the same nightmare.
The footsteps stop right outside the door.
Then I hear someone crouch down. Close. So close I can hear them breathing through the bars.
I open my eyes but I don’t move. I refuse.
“Still think silence is helping you?”
I know that voice.
Harrick.
My whole body goes rigid.
“You should’ve talked.” His voice is almost pitying. Like he’s disappointed in me. “I told them this would happen. That you’d make it worse for yourself.”
I don’t say anything. Can’t. My throat is too dry and I’m shaking too hard.
I don’t have the energy to fight him.
“Laith wanted answers before the next phase,” Harrick continues. “But you just kept sitting there. Stubborn. Stupid.”
The next phase.
My stomach clenches.
“You know what Laith told me?”
I still don’t answer.
He leans closer. I can feel it. Feel his breath against my shoulder.
The disgust, the intimacy of it make my body shudder before I can stop it.
“Your parents weren’t even your fucking parents.”
The words hit like ice water.
No.
No.
He laughs. Sharp and cold. The sound echoes off the walls as he stands. As he walks away.
The door opens. Closes.
Silence.
I’m alone again.
Dripping wet. Freezing. Starving.
And now I can’t breathe for a different reason.
Your parents weren’t even your fucking parents.
No.
Celeste and Hunter. They were mine. They loved me. They were real.
They were.
…weren’t they?