Chapter 21 Ethan
TWENTY-ONE
ETHAN
Iwoke with a groan, every muscle in my body on fire. I felt like I was coming off the worst trip ever.
My eyes burned as I blinked around the dingy room, the fluorescent lighting overhead pure garbage. The incessant humming made me want to reach out and snap the fucking lights into a hundred pieces before I stomped on them.
Through the flickering light, I could make out a body slumped on the floor.
“Fox?” I choked out, crawling to him.
I reached out and gave him a shake, my head spinning. Whatever the fucking hell they’d doped me up with was fucked.
“Fox. Hey,” I rasped. “Fox. Wake up.”
Fox groaned, his lashes fluttering as he tried to open his eyes. His shirt was gone, and he had a bandage on his shoulder, blood seeping through.
I frowned and looked around again, my fear building.
Please, God, no…
The underground.
Fuck. Fuck. FUCK.
“Fox, man. Wake up. I-I need you. Please. Wake up. Fox. Fox!” I shook him again, making his lashes flutter once more. “Wake up! Please…”
“E?” he mumbled.
I scooted closer to him until I was lying beside him on the cold, hard tiles, my arm around his waist as I clung to him.
“I’m scared,” I whispered. “Fox. I’m scared.”
“Where are we?” he rumbled out.
“Underground,” I replied in a garbled whisper.
“Rosalie was shot,” Fox said, his voice trembling.
I froze at his words for a moment before I went up on my elbow and stared at him.
“W-What?”
“She was shot. She was dying. She-she might be dead,” his voice cracked. “There was so much blood.”
“No,” I wept, something breaking apart inside me. “She’s not. She wouldn’t.”
“She has to be. I couldn’t save her,” he said through his soft sobs. “I should have left. I should have fucking run away with her. Now she’s gone. My baby is gone.”
“She’s not, Fox. She’s not. I know she’s not.” I clung to him harder, making him gasp. I knew he was in pain, but I was going to fucking lose it in here. We had to get out. We had to get to her.
“How do you know?” He rested his forehead against mine.
“Because. My heart tells me she’s alive. That she wouldn’t leave us. My heart knows.”
His jaw quivered as he tried to hold back a sob.
“OK. I believe you. I believe you, E.”
“Don’t forget. Please. We need to get out of here and go to her. To Cole and Enzo.”
He nodded. “We do. We will.”
I sobbed softly with him, both of us clinging to one another. I had no idea how long we’d been in here, but judging by the fact they’d taken the time to dig the bullet out of Fox’s shoulder, I’d say at least a day or two.
That was not a good thing.
The concept of time left me. I couldn’t even tell when it left, since time didn’t exist in the windowless cell we were kept in.
It had to be days. Water and food were slipped through a slot in the door, but we both knew better than to eat the meat that was served to us.
We drank the water, though. I knew we were being drugged. I had a fuzzy head after every gulp of the liquid, but without hydration, we’d die unless we wanted to drink out of the toilet in the corner of the room.
And fuck, I wanted to end this shit before it began because I knew Everett’s games. This was the psychological warfare he waged before the actual battle.
Fox had stopped talking. He just cried with me and held me. We were both losing our minds. I’d had three major panic attacks he’d held me through.
And I’d held him through his.
“What day do you think it is?” I whispered through the flickering light as someone screamed down the hallway.
They did that like clockwork. Sometimes it would set the others off.
It always made me curl into a tight ball against Fox.
He’d hold me and sing songs to me to drown out the screams. Pretty songs.
Songs I was sure he’d written with Rosalie.
“I don’t know,” he rasped weakly. “Maybe Monday. Tuesday.”
I nodded. That was my estimate, too. We’d been here over a week, locked in hell.
I slid closer to him, and he wrapped his good arm around me. I felt like that scared little boy again.
“We’re OK, E,” he whispered. “We’re going to be OK. Someone will come.”
“I-I believe you, but I’m so scared. I-I can’t do this. I’m going to lose my mind.” I cried softly.
“Shh. It’s OK.” He kissed the top of my head fiercely. “We’ll go home to Cole. He’ll have a cake waiting for us. We’ll make love to Rosalie. Enzo will be with us. It’ll be the best night of our lives.”
“P-Promise?”
“Swear it, brother. I will do whatever it takes to make it happen. You’re going to make it home, E.”
The creaking of the door opening had me scooting practically onto Fox’s lap. That door hadn’t opened since we got here. I was weak and shaky, and Fox was worse, having had no food and a gunshot wound to his shoulder.
I didn’t even want to think about how it was his throwing arm, and he couldn’t even lift the damn thing. The saving grace was that at least it appeared they’d dug the bullet out of him and dressed it.
I shrank deeper against Fox’s trembling body as a man dressed in black stomped into the room with another man.
They went for Fox, putting a black bag over his head while I fought against them, trying to keep him in the room with me.
“Don’t fucking touch him! You don’t touch him!” I screamed, my fist colliding with the man’s face weakly.
One of the men struck me in the ribs with a device that sent an electric shock through my body, rendering me useless as I quivered on the floor, choking on Fox’s name.
“Ethan,” Fox called out hoarsely as he was dragged from the room, the door slamming closed behind him.
Fuck. FUCK.
I crawled to the door and pounded on it, sobbing. When my voice finally broke from screaming his name, I lay on the floor.
“F-Fox,” I managed to rasp as I curled into myself, the light still humming and blinking above me.
“Please, God, protect him. Please. Keep him safe. Take me instead. Please. Take me instead,” I repeated the prayer until sleep took me, my body shivering from the cold as I lay in a tight ball on the cold tiles.