Chapter 12
Karia
This time, we aren’t fleeing alone.
“Don’t stop. Don’t turn around.” Sanford Rule’s low but clear voice comes at my back as we leave the fray. I have to fight down the savage desire to do exactly what he just ordered us not to.
I want to know if he’s real.
If this is all inside my head.
I want to stop for my friends. Save them from Stein’s twisted cruelty.
But I know Isadora. I know Von.
They won’t be bested, and although they took my side for unknown reasons moments ago, I don’t want them to have a single second to regret their choice and tack their loyalty to Writhe once more.
Sullen pulls me through a doorway, my shoulder jamming into the side before I angle my body and we both slip between it. The scent of rust, like wet cemetery gates, fills my nose.
A heavy clang sounds behind us like a door closing, and I’m terrified of the sheer amount of darkness pressing in on all sides until I see something glowing, up ahead.
Then fear of a different sort fills me instead.
The lighting is lime green, like uncanny, one-color Christmas lights.
As Sullen’s fingers tighten on my wrist and we draw closer, I note the small, bullet-shaped bulbs entwined along what looks like an iron grate all along the ceiling.
I don’t know what it’s for, but it throws an eerie, otherworldly glow over Sullen’s dark hair, tinting it a deep emerald.
Then a gasp leaves my lips.
My feet falter.
He tugs me along and I stumble forward, but when he realizes I’ve stopped, he does, too.
Sanford is behind me. I can feel his presence.
Or… I can feel a presence.
But it doesn’t matter.
The shiver ghosting across my throat has nothing to do with the reality or delusion of Sanford Rule.
My gaze is captured by Sullen’s back.
Six piercings along the top of his spine.
Jagged, pearly wounds of white ringed around them, as if someone twisted the metal, widening the circumference.
But there are worse things, too. A long, wide gash lower, as if over his kidneys.
Burn marks like the frayed edges of paper.
And there are words carved into the middle of his spine that I can’t quite read and—
He realizes what I am doing.
He jerks me closer.
I slide forward, my Vans shuffling over cement filled with sand and dirt.
I brace myself with my palms, his bare chest beneath my fingertips for the very first time. His skin is cool, firm with muscle, but rough from horrors.
And the scent of pennies is stronger.
Stabbed, Stein said.
He was stabbed.
Worry makes my stomach swoop and I drop my gaze from his dark eyes, wanting to inspect every inch of him for his own safety, but he lifts his hand to my face, and I think of Stein, and I… wince.
He doesn’t hit me.
Of course he doesn’t.
For all of his snuff threats, he doesn’t follow through.
But I remember the dead guard, Sullen’s hands wrapped around his throat.
Well, I amend inside my head, he doesn’t follow through with me.
His palm cradles my jaw, my cheek, his fingers spanning over half of my face as he finally fully touches me, like he was afraid to as I flinched.
I lift my gaze to his in the glow of green, a shower of verdant above us.
His complexion is sickly, and I don’t know if it’s the lighting, or what his father did to him. His full lips are parted, a sheen of sweat is between his dark brows, and my bones ache, wanting to heal him despite the fact I do not know how.
My wrist is in the unyielding grip of his other hand, and I am immobilized as he stares at me.
“You think I would hurt you?” he asks quietly, his voice hoarse and faint. There is a far-away quality to it that frightens me.
My heart notices, slamming brutally against my ribcage. If I wasn’t so concerned for his health, I might point out the fact that he has threatened to hurt me many times. Instead, all I can manage is, “Where did he stab you? We need to get you help. You need—”
“You.” He finishes for me, circling his fingers tighter around my bones, skimming his thumb across my lips.
I need you.
I shiver involuntarily, loving the sensation of his unguarded hands on me.
If this was a different place, another time, I could get lost in it. In him.
I shake my head once, as if I can focus better that way. As if I don’t lose all semblance of rationality when he cradles me in this manner. “Sullen.” I swallow thickly.
There is a scuffling noise behind me, and I jump, but don’t look away or pull from him. I don’t ask him to repeat what he just said, even though I want to hear it a thousand times. Maybe while he fucks me. Maybe while he breathes the words into my mouth.
“Where are we going?” I ask instead. Where could we possibly go? How can we get out of their reach?
He angles his head and I find myself struck once more at the beauty of his face. The lines and slopes of bone beneath his skin. I don’t allow myself to look too closely at the cut across his cheekbone, oozing blood from Stein’s weapon.
But in my mind, I see him looming behind his father, a satisfactory smirk on his lips as he choked Stein Rule.
Heat flares in my low belly. I curve my fingertips into his chest, stepping closer as if compelled.
“Is there somewhere else?” he asks quietly, never looking away from me. “For her?”
Confusion threads through my thoughts but before I can ask him to clarify, Sanford speaks at my back. “Don’t make a hero’s mistake, Sullen Bram. Leaving her behind will agonize you both.”
His dark gaze cuts to Sanford. A small line forms between his brows. “You wanted me to give her up,” he says, a dangerous edge lining his words. “You tried to separate us, remember?” He doesn’t speak a threat, but his tone conveys the same thing.
“That was before.” Sanford sighs, a rattly sound in his chest. “It is far too late for that now. You will get through this, or you will die together. I can see it, in the both of you.”
Sullen’s jaw jumps but his deep brown eyes lower to mine.
He doesn’t disagree.
Neither do I.