Chapter 16
Scarletta
Blood.
There's blood on his chest. On his hands. On his—
Don't look at that. Don't look at that. Don't look at—
I look.
The thing on the platform doesn't look like a person anymore. It's pieces. Red pieces, and wet sounds, and the smell of copper and something worse, something organic and wrong, and my brain keeps trying to file it somewhere it can make sense.
He was a bad man. He hurt children. Five hundred and fifty-three children.
The number loops through my head like a broken record.
Five hundred and fifty-three.
Five hundred and fifty-three.
Five hundred and—
The unmasked man is coming toward me. His cock is soft now, blood-streaked, still visible, and I watched him—I watched him come while he—
He was protecting you. He saved you. The bad man was going to hurt you and he stopped him.
My brain scrambles for the narrative that makes this make sense. The one where the hero rescues the maiden, and the villain dies, and everything is justified, and clean, and right.
But there's nothing clean about what I just watched.
"Scarletta." His voice cuts through the static. "Scarletta, look at me. Are you hurt? Where did he cut you?"
Hands on my face. Warm. Gentle. The same hands that just—
Don't think about it.
"Your hip. There's blood. Let me see."
I can't speak. My mouth opens but nothing comes out except a sound that might be a sob or might be a scream that got stuck halfway up my throat.
"I need to get you out of here. Can you walk?"
I don't know. I don't know anything. The blonde attendant's head is still there, somewhere behind me in the mud, and the unmasked man is lifting me now, carrying me like I weigh nothing, and his skin is slick with—
Don't.
Don't think about it.
He saved you.
The jungle blurs past. Trees, and vines, and shadows. And I'm shaking so hard my teeth are chattering even though the air is warm and humid. The unmasked man is talking, asking questions I can't process, his voice tight with something that might be concern, or maybe fear.
He came while he was killing him.
The thought surfaces before I can stop it.
He was aroused. He was—
"Stay with me, Scarletta. We're almost there."
The staging pavilion appears through the trees, and there's screaming. More screaming. People in white running, crying, and bodies—
More bodies.
Two staff members on the ground near the entrance, blood pooling beneath them, and the unmasked man's arms tighten around me as he steps over them.
"Fucking hell," he breathes. "Geoffrey! For fuck's sake… status report!"
Someone answers. I don't hear what they say. The world has gone cottony and distant, like I'm watching everything through a screen, like this is footage I'm reviewing rather than something happening to my actual body.
He carries me past the chaos, through a door and into a room. An office. He sets me down on a couch that's too soft, too comfortable, and then he's pressing a glass of water into my hands.
"Drink."
I drink. The water tastes like nothing.
"You're in shock. That's normal. You're safe now."
Safe.
The word doesn't mean anything anymore.
He's pressing something against my hip—gauze, maybe, or a towel—and the sting of it makes me gasp, which is the first sound I've made since the maze.
"Superficial," he says. "Won't even need stitches."
His hands are still bloody. He's leaving red smears on my skin, on the white gauze, on everything he touches.
"Eat something." He pushes a bowl of fruit toward me. Strawberries. Grapes. Normal things that belong to a normal world that doesn't exist anymore.
I stare at them.
"Scarletta. I need you to eat. Your blood sugar—"
I put a grape in my mouth. Chew. Swallow. The motions are mechanical, disconnected from anything like hunger or taste.
He pulls me against his chest, and I should recoil, should fight, should run, but instead I just—
Drift.
His heartbeat is steady. Calm.
Like he didn't just torture a man to death.
Like his hands aren't still tacky with blood. Like everything is fine.
Maybe everything is fine.
Maybe this is what fine looks like now.
"I have to go manage this." His voice is soft against my hair. "There are protocols to follow. I'll be back as soon as I can."
He eases me down onto the couch, tucks a blanket around me like I'm something precious, something breakable.
"Stay here. Don't open the door for anyone except me."
The lock clicks behind him.
I stare at the ceiling and see nothing but dead bodies and floating heads…
Arms.
Arms around me and I'm screaming before I'm awake, thrashing against something solid and warm that won't let go.
"Hey. Hey. It's me. You're safe."
His voice. The unmasked man's voice.
I blink and the office swims into focus. The couch. The blanket tangled around my legs. The bowl of fruit untouched on the table.
When did I fall asleep?
"Everything's okay." He's lifting me, cradling me against his chest like I weigh nothing. "Everything's fine. I'm going to give you a bath."
Fine.
Fine.
The word bounces around my skull like a marble in a tin can, keeping perfect, metronomic rhythm with the constant, pulsing thump that now fills every available crevice of my brain. Pushing out everything else, leaving behind just that single syllable on endless repeat.
Fine fine fine fine fine.
We're moving. Hallway. Doors. His footsteps steady on tile, then wood, then tile again. He's talking, his voice a low murmur against the top of my head.
"—my private quarters. No one comes in here without permission. You're safe. I've got you."
Safe.
The bamboo walls rise around us.
No.
No.
That's not right. These are concrete walls. White. Clean. But I see the bamboo anyway, see the maze twisting ahead of me, hear Helix's voice in my earbuds telling me to run, little slut, run.
"Scarletta?"
The blonde attendant's head in the mud. Eyes open. Mouth slack.
That wasn't in the story. Lyra never found bodies. The monsters in my story didn't—
"You're dissociating. That's normal. Stay with me."
Steam. Warm air on my face. The sound of water running.
I blink and we're in a bathroom. Massive. Marble. A tub the size of a small pool filling with water that smells like lavender.
The bathing pavilion. The stirrups. The blond attendants hands between my—
No. Different room. Different water.
"I'm going to set you down now."
My feet touch cold tile. My knees buckle immediately and he catches me, holds me upright.
"Easy. I've got you."
Helix caught Lyra in the third corridor. Pinned her against the wall. His claws—
The stranger's claws cutting my hip. Real blood. My blood.
That wasn't supposed to happen. In my story, the monsters only made her feel good—
Good, Scarletta? They raped her.
But… she wanted it!
She wanted it?
Even my damaged mind hears myself. Understands what I'm saying. Comprehends just how fucking wrong this is.
"Scarletta. Look at me."
I look.
His face. Handsome. Concerned.
He came while he was killing him.
"You're safe," he says again.
I don't know what that word means anymore.
I don't know what any of this means anymore. I'm not safe. I thought I was. I walked that plank. But I saw the net. I jumped off the platform and did the zip line. But I was wearing the harness.
It was safe.
And then… it wasn't.
The water is warm.
That's the first thing that registers—warmth, seeping into muscles I didn't realize were clenched. He lowers me into the tub slowly and carefully.
I drift, detached, disconnected from myself. My thoughts scatter and reform, scatter and reform. Fragments of sensation that won't coalesce into coherent meaning.
The hot water.
His gentle hands.
Violence I can't quite reconcile with this tenderness.
My mind feels afloat. Drifting somewhere above my body, refusing to fully inhabit this moment. Like I'm watching myself from a great distance—a girl in a bathtub being washed by a man whose hands cut the fingers off a bad man.
The contradiction should mean something. Should provoke some response. But I can't hold onto thoughts long enough to examine them. They slip away before I can grasp their edges, leaving only this strange, cottony emptiness where my reactions should be.
He's washing me now. Gentle strokes with a soft cloth, starting at my shoulders, working down my arms.
His voice washes over me like the water. Meaningless sounds arranged in meaningless patterns. Small talk. He's making small talk while he cleans the blood off my skin.
The cloth moves across my collarbone. Down my sternum. Gentle circles on my stomach.
He sighs.
The sound cuts through the static in my head. Sharp. Real.
"Scarletta." His hands stop moving. "Are you OK?"
Am I… OK?
The laugh almost escapes. I feel it burbling inside my chest.
Something dark, and bitter, and completely inappropriate. A sardonic little huff that would say everything my mouth can't form into words.
But then—
He killed him with his bare hands.
He came while doing it.
He could do the same to you.
The laugh dies in my throat. Survival instinct floods through me, cold and clarifying. I know this feeling. I've written this feeling a hundred times—the moment when a character realizes they're in actual danger and their body takes over, does what needs to be done to stay alive.
"Please answer me. I'm worried."
I look at him.
Really look. For the first time since the maze.
His eyes are searching my face, and there's something in them that might be genuine concern. Or maybe just calculation. How big of a threat am I? How damaged? Beyond repair? Does he need to kill me too to keep himself safe?
These questions form and reform on repeat as I nod my head. "Yes," I say. My voice sounds distant. Mechanical. "I'm OK."
His shoulders relax slightly.
"Thank you," I add, because that's what you say, because that's what keeps you safe. "For saving me. He was going to—"
My voice catches.
He was going to do terrible things to you.
And then this man did terrible things to him.
"He hurt me," I finish. "You stopped him."