Chapter 83 Gedeon #2
“I don’t know what they did to her, but…” Damia swallowed. “We had to forcefully remove her from the guard. Kali didn’t react well, and since then”—she twisted the door handle, the sound of a lock giving way similar to the safety of a rifle disengaging—“she’s been like this.”
Huddled in the corner of an examination room, Kali stared at the floor, the emergency lights enshrouding her in a bubble of color. With her knees drawn to her chest, she clutched a shard of porcelain in her injured hand, the healthy one curled in a loose fist, precisely how we had taught her.
I dropped to the floor, my knees banging against the slippery tiles, my bones demonstrating their displeasure by sending twinges up my thighs.
I ignored it all, my focus falling fully on Kali, on how she didn’t react.
On her vacant look. On how oblivious she was to her surroundings, despite sitting completely naked in a room full of strangers.
“We tried to get her to talk.” Damia gestured to the five men and women she had stationed as guards for Kali, and then at the pile of medical clothing thrown on the examination table.
“And dress, but she lashes out at anyone who dares to approach her. Which doesn’t seem to apply to you,” she finished with a mutter, indicating her team to turn around, away from Kali.
Smart woman.
Warily, I brushed my bloody knuckles down Kali’s cheek. “Little death.”
She didn’t so much as twitch. Her stare continued to drill a hole in the floor, a couple of clumped strands of her hair hanging over her eyes.
Disregarding the thunder pounding beneath my ribs, I repeated the caress, murmuring her nickname again and again, a thousand times over.
Damia and her people melted from my peripherals as everything but the woman in front of me fell away.
Like a cornered animal, her hackles rose as she jerked, muttering syllables of nonsense.
But it was something. A start.
Inching closer, I lifted Kali’s chin, urging her to look at me. It took everything in me to calmly whisper the nickname I had bestowed upon her a hundred more times. But the two words had helped to bring her back before, and I hoped it would work now too.
After an eternity of blinks, of heartbeats, her panting eased, and finally, recognition shone in her forest-green eyes. “Gedeon.”
I cupped her face, her skin cold and clammy. “There you are.”
Frowning, she lifted the shard she must have grabbed after the lights went out.
In a deliberate motion, she placed it aside, the few navy lines forming a pattern on the porcelain.
“I didn’t cut myself this time.” Wiggling her three remaining fingers, she gave me a weak smile.
The gauze wrapped around her palm had protected her flesh from being sliced open.
Careful not to aggravate the stumps and accidentally cause her more pain, I took her hand and brought it to my mouth. “You did well, Kali.” Peppering the uncovered area with kisses, from her wrist to her fingertips, I praised her, “I’m so proud of you.”
She flushed so adorably, it numbed the soreness in my lower ribs.
“How are you here?” she quietly asked. “I saw you drop to your knees beside Ezra.”
“He brought me here to meet the Head of Ardaton. Did—”
Her jaw dropped. Gazing past my shoulder, she stared at the group of Damia’s people looking everywhere but at us. And then immediately nestled closer to me, clutching her knees to her chest to cover up as much as possible.
I cursed internally. I had forgotten she wore not a scrap in a space filled with trained fighters.
“It’s okay. They’re here to protect us,” I reassured her, grabbing the pile of clothing off the examination table.
Lifting the long-sleeved tunic up, I rasped, “I have to ask, Kali. I was there when Adder instructed the doctor to bring you to the other Heads. I watched them bend you over the table, but then the lights went out. Did Ardaton’s government…
succeed?” I couldn’t force myself to say the words describing the higher-ups’ intentions.
Stuffing her arms in the sleeves, she bit out, “No.” Flakes of crusted blood rained in a shower as she pulled on the medical tunic. “When everything went dark, they just dragged me out of the room.”
Although the revelation didn’t assuage my wrath, it reduced the tension enough for my hands not to shake as I guided her legs into a pair of white, loose pants. She didn’t question my actions, allowing me to dress her, and I breathed easier once the strings around her waist were tied.
Even with the power out, it was nowhere near cold enough for a person to feel discomfort, yet I pulled Kali in, pressing her front to mine, sharing my body heat and rubbing her back, relishing her quiet sigh.
But any time I touched certain spots on her body, she muffled her whimpers by biting my shoulder, the pinpricks her bites elicited stoking my need to dismember those at fault.
“Who did this to you?” I asked, softly and controlled, though my knuckles itched to graze the faces of those who had tortured her.
She didn’t respond, and I cradled her head, silently coaxing her to admit the name.
“I don’t know.” Kali licked her split lips. “She was wearing a medical mask.”
Someone from the prison’s medical staff, then.
“Was she—”
A loud bang announced an intruder. The door handle bounced off the wall right as a tumble of shoulder-length caramel curls popped out in the doorway. Covered in grime, Ryder trudged in with—
“Zion,” Kali and I said simultaneously as he emerged, shirtless. His front boasted a new set of cuts too shallow to cause any internal damage, but the quantity and placement of them ensured each movement would stretch the wounds.
While Adder had taken me to what he called an observation room, someone had been sent to deal with Zion.
“Pretty birdie.” Zion sauntered toward us like all was good and his arm hadn’t been pulverized or secured in a makeshift splint—a piece of rod and strips of colorful fabric. “My strawberry.”
The weight lifted off my chest at his stupid nickname for me. At him being able to walk.
At him being alive.
Pausing ten feet from Kali and I, he surveyed us. His gaze lingered on my form, trailing from my injuries to the layers of caked fluids and filth. My clothing had been soaked through and through.
“The blood on you both…” He bit his fist, sniffling. “It’s so hot I want to cry.”
Kali snorted, rushing to cover her mouth and stifle the noise. But the move made her two stumps collide with her cheek, and she winced, her face contorting with pain, her hand trembling.
“They should have some pain meds here.” Ryder headed straight for the shelves brimming with med supplies.
“Sorry for the delay, by the way. Zion forced me to make him look…nice. Said something about needing to be a pretty boy.” He waved at the gauze wrapped around Zion’s face, the cotton concealing the gash in his cheek, the ends of the fabric tied in a small bow atop his head.
In all his glory, Zion twirled around, showing off. Hundreds of lacerations distorted the smooth planes of his back, crimson cascading from his shoulders down to his hips and seeping into his pants.
Kali blanched. “Your back.”
I leaped at Zion to pull him closer—
And stopped with my hands an inch from him. If I touched him anywhere, it would only hurt him more. Ants crawled under my skin as I studied the damage done to his flesh.
I pushed through clenched teeth, “You need medical attention.”
“Eh, I’ll be fine.” He shrugged, and then flinched.
The movement had disturbed his tenderized arm.
“But they took my favorite knife from me.” As he rested his forehead against mine, his exhales rained moisture on my lips.
“Ryder caught me up on things. Is she…” He glanced at Kali.
“I saw how they tortured her for information about us.” A shudder rocked him.
“She told them nothing. It was the only reason they left her alone and came to me.”
“Them?” I cupped his nape. Finding no injuries there, I stroked up to his hairline, savoring how he loosened. “Who hurt you, Zion?”
He graced me with a lopsided smile. “A woman. I think she might’ve been pregnant. But she never introduced herself.”
“So Kali said.” My nails abraded his scalp, and I drowned in Zion’s contented hum. “But she didn’t work alone, did she?”
“There was another one. Tall, slender, also dressed like a doctor.” His good hand came to rest on my lower back. “Lenus.”
My nostrils flared. Withdrawing, I dipped my chin in acknowledgment. I didn’t trust myself not to tighten my hold on him due to my spiking adrenaline levels.
“Damia.” Grabbing the handgun she had given me off the floor, I caught her attention. “I trust you to take care of them.”
As she nodded, Ryder dropped a box full of meds on the examination table. “What do you plan to do?” he asked, wiping off the grime concealing the freckles around his nose.
I disengaged the safety. “Find Lenus.”