56. Benson
Benson
In Sickness and in Hostage Situations
Pain.
All-encompassing.
My blood burns.
Thea sleeps against my side. I lean over and inhale her scent. I have no idea what she smells like. Goblins aren’t exactly florists. But she smells like safety. That smell you get when you first walk in your house that you can never hold onto.
My mind clears for a minute, the pain no longer hijacking every thought.
She’s cradling her arm in her sleep. Whimpering.
When she was awake, she’d barely shown any side of the pain. I’d thought that it was not even affecting her.
I should’ve known better. I saw the tick of her lips. The way she was holding her arm away. She knows what she’s doing.
How she baited Grunt. She knew how to get information while being held captive. How does one learn that information?
Someone has kidnapped her before.
That’s the only answer to it. The reason she’s able to ignore the pain is because she knows it will fade if she stops focusing on it.
Thea having been kidnapped before would explain why she’s so different now. How she entered our lives like a mine collapse. Leaving half the school scrambling to survive while the other half finally sees the light.
Footsteps echo down the corridor and I quickly rouse Thea. She blinks at me a few times as the lock clicks. She scoots away and my side is chilled. The cuff seeming to tighten at the loss of her beside me.
“Come,” the short goblin barks. Thea climbs quickly to her feet before helping me to mine. I feel like I should object but am not entirely sure I could make it to my feet.
Awake, all trace of the pain has left her as she stares down the goblin.
We shuffle down the hall. Each step more painful than the last. I hide it as best I can. We’re shown to a room with a couch and a big mirror across from it. Grunt sits with his legs spread on a stool. Some men think that they have to telegraph how big their balls are. They aren’t.
Thea sits daintily on the couch; I try my hardest but it still makes a crack when I sit down. This isn’t a goblin-made couch, we’re too heavy.
“The boys and I have a bet going,” Grunt says as a greeting. “That this is fake.”
“Like you think we’re living in a simulation? Would that make you an NPC?” Thea asks brightly and I’m unable to hide the smirk.
“No hexdoll,” he growls out the slur. “That you two aren’t in love.”
“We—” I start but Thea cuts me off.
“I’m not sure if I’d call it love yet. It has barely been two weeks.” She turns and looks at me in a way that makes my stomach tighten. Adoringly. That’s the only word for it. I can’t look away.
“Bullshit.”
Thea turns to look back at Grunt and I feel my face falling in her absence. It’s embarrassing that I’m not even acting.
“Grub,” Grunt says and I turn and look at him. “You can’t seriously be willing to kiss a witch. The people who enslaved us. The monsters who cursed our women.”
Thea looks at me. I hold her eyes.
Yes. I would.
I lean in, a breath away. She closes the distance and the world is set on fire all over again.
My hand cups her face involuntarily as she deepens the kiss. Time seems to stop mattering. The pain vanishes. There’s only us.
“Fine, I get it,” Grunt screams and we break apart. Holding eye contact for a second before she turns to him.
“Satisfied?” she asks him.
No. I’m not.
“Get them out of my sight,” he orders. Thea stands and offers me her hand. We walk that way back to the storage room.
The door slides shut and she drops my hand. The moment she does the pain returns and I nearly collapse to the floor again. She grabs my elbow and helps me down before sitting next to me.
Her fingers fidget in her lap for a second before she grabs the nail.
“May I?” I tilt my head in confusion and pass her my wrist.
“I’m sorry,” she whispers.
“For?”
“Kissing you.”
I’d thought the pain from the cuffs was the worst thing I could feel. I didn’t realize my heart could still break. I look away, attempting to school my features.
“I know you hate witches and I should’ve come up with another plan—”
I spin around and look at her in confusion.
“I’m not upset you kissed me.”
“Why?”
“You’re probably the best person I’ve ever met,” I admit. She looks at me and then quirks her lips.
“You are pretty sheltered,” she jokes. I laugh like that’s the truth.
She goes back to the cuff sucking the life out of me.
“What do you think that was about?” Thea asks me.
“Not a clue. Probably not to watch us kiss.”
She giggles.
“No, probably took a few decades off his life with that one.”
“What’s your theory?” I ask, knowing she probably has one and is testing him as much as he’s testing her.
“Still working on it.”
The next time they call for us, I can’t even stand on my own. How am I supposed to protect her when I am so weak?