Chapter 16
FIONA
My eyes flutter open as though controlled by someone else.
Where am I?
Bright lights shine seemingly everywhere. Or maybe it’s not the lights. The walls are so white; they look luminescent.
“Good, you’re awake,” a voice says.
I look around and see strange equipment. One is making a beeping sound.
Am I in a hospital?
That’s impossible…
A woman in a white lab coat with a clipboard in hand approaches. She begins writing down numbers from a monitor I’m hooked up to.
“It was all a dream?”
She spikes a brow. “That depends on what you’re talking about. Did the apocalypse happen? Yes, it did.”
“Why am I here?”
“You were shot near the shoulder and could have very well bled out if you’d got to us even a minute later than you had. You’re damn lucky to be here right now.”
I try to look at my shoulder, but my muscles ache.
“In case you don’t know where you are, you’re at the Keep. It’s basically a big ass bunker beneath the ground. There’s food, water, and protection. You’re going to be okay.”
“How did I get here?” My throat burns when I talk.
“Hunter brought you.”
Hearing his name makes me frantic with worry. “Where is he? Is he okay?”
“He’s in the Keep’s holding.”
“When do I get to see him?”
“You don’t,” a new voice cuts in.
I look over to see a man in the doorway. He’s so large, he practically takes up the entire frame.
“Is he okay?”
“He is, but he won’t be.”
“Is he injured?”
“Leave my patient alone!” The woman tries to push the man from the room.
Despite the torn feeling in my throat, I bark out, “No, don’t—I want to know where Hunter is.”
The man walks past the woman and pulls a chair over to my bedside. He’s older than Hunter, though not old, with a dark beard that hides his age.
The woman’s face is red with anger. “She just woke up and needs time—”
The man looks up at her, completely calm. “I don’t give a fuck. Now you can either stay here or leave, but I don’t want to hear another fucking peep out of you.”
Dread washes over me because I know the kind of men that talk to women like that.
The man looks over at me. “It’s good to see you’re not dead.”
“Why? Because I won’t be worth as much?”
“Correct.”
“Well, fuck the hell off.”
“Tell me about the Vultures.”
“There’s nothing to tell.”
“Caspian shot you, so I’m sure there’s something.”
I think back, remembering pieces of what happened before I woke up here.
Did we really torture Brett? Or was that just a dream?
I walk through the chain of events, remembering what it felt like to grab his wounds as Hunter took me from behind.
It was magnificent.
But did I really do it? Or am I crazy?
“What’s going through your mind?” I’m asked.
“I…I hurt Brett,” I say without thinking.
The man chuckles. “I guess that’s not shocking considering you were with Hunter, but what I care more about is Caspian. He shot you, didn’t he?”
I nod, confused. “Yeah…I think he did.”
“And you knew him, didn’t you?”
“I fucked him a bunch. Him and some of his friends. But that was a while back.” I don’t know why I’m speaking so candidly. It’s like I need to tell the world my sins.
“So you were on good terms at one point?”
“If you call being a sex slave, good terms.”
“Huh…”
I look away. “Just leave me alone.”
“I’m afraid I can’t do that.”
“I swear to God, if you try to make me suck your dick, I’ll bite it off.”
“I get my dick sucked plenty, thank you very much.”
That’s not what I expected to hear.
“Fuck off!”
“I need to know what you know about the Vultures.”
“Next to nothing! Just that they were friends with Caspian.”
“Where is Caspian? Where’d he shoot you from?”
“Up high, in a building.”
“Where?”
“Near my old apartment. Across from Concord Park.”
“Do you know what he was doing there?”
“No. We’d just gotten done…never mind.”
“Gotten done doing what?”
“Nothing!”
“If we look around the area, I don’t suppose we’ll see any tortured bodies. That guy named Brett you mentioned, perhaps?”
I snap my eyes to his, my mouth gaping before I fully grasp the severity of the situation I’m in.
The look he gives me tells me he knows.
“Where’s Hunter?” I ask, desperate.
“Consider him gone.”
It feels like my entire world is crashing in on itself.
Gone. What does that even mean? The woman said he was in the holding.
But he’s the one with authority.
Tears well in my eyes, but I refuse to give in to the chaotic emotions roiling my insides.
I can’t go on. Not without Hunter.
But what choice do I have?
“I want to go.”
“Not gonna happen.”
“What are you going to do to me?”
“First, we’re going to fix you up.” His voice has the texture of coarse sandpaper. “Can’t say what will happen after that.”
“I hate you!”
“I’m used to that. My name is Cole, by the way. I run the place that saved your fucking life.”
“Well, maybe I’d rather be dead!”
“Christine will get you fixed up and fed.”
I look over at the angry woman in the lab coat. She must be Christine.
“We will talk again soon. And I expect you’ll tell me what I want to hear. The Vultures have been a pain in my ass for far too long, and it’s about time I take care of business.”
I turn away as he gets up and leaves, angry because I can’t make sense of anything.
Deep down, my heart aches in a way I hadn’t thought possible. Somehow, despite everything I’ve been through, despite men treating me like utter filth, I fell in love.
With a monster. Someone so dark, the ugliness inside him spread to me.
And it was beautiful.
I loved him.
And all of his flaws.
But he never loved me.
Or at least I’d thought he hadn’t. He brought me here, and he must have had a pretty good idea of what that meant for him.
Oh, God—could he have loved me too?
It seems so cruel to realize this only after I’ve lost him.
Christine takes the seat Cole left behind. “You’re lucky.”
“I don’t feel lucky,” I snicker.
“You should be dead.”
“What are they going to do to Hunter?”
She crosses one long leg over the other and cocks her head to the side. “Let’s not think about that.”
“He’s all I can think about!” Tears stream down my cheeks.
“Then it sounds like you belong here,” she scoffs.
“What is that supposed to mean?”
“Nothing, really.”
“I want to leave.”
“You’re not the only one.”
My brow pinches together. “Are you being held here against your will?”
“Not exactly, but it’s not like I have many options. The world took those from us.”
I think back to my conversations with Hunter. “This is where Hunter worked, isn’t it?”
“It is.”
“Why does everyone hate him?”
“Not everyone hates him, but he’s done some things I’m sure you're aware of that can’t go ignored.”
“Are they going to kill him?”
“If I were you, I’d stop thinking about him and start worrying about yourself.”
Cold fury rushes through my veins. “Only a heartless bitch would say that!”
“Ironically, that’s what I’m known as around here. I wear the title as a badge of honor.”
“Leave me alone.”
“Not until we go over your care.”
“I don’t give a fuck about that.”
“Tell me then: how many fucks do you give about revenge?”
I look over at her, wondering what she’s getting at.
“Caspian shot you, and from the sound of it, you have other beef with him as well.”
“Are they going to kill him?”
“They’d like to, but first, they need to find him.”
“I can’t help with that.”
“We’ll see what you can help with.”