Chapter 40 I am not Skylenna Ambrose
Niklaus
I’m up before the door can click shut. Quickly surveying the IV bag, her arm, the shackles around her wrist.
“I’m going to leave the IV in, okay? It’s giving you fluids you need,” I tell her.
But as Sapphire nods, I’m frozen in place by her features. The dark shadows under her cheekbones. The bruised-look around her eyes. Skin dry and ashen.
With one finger, I lift her chin to get a better look.
There are still tiny drops of tears clinging to her eyelashes. And that look she’s giving me. Fuck, that look. It’s a crucifixion within my chest. An inexorable ache that spills through me like a slow bleed. She’s so sad, so hopeless, so disappointed in herself.
“What’d they do to you, Spitfire?” My voice breaks.
Sapphire
Niklaus is kneeling in front of me again, holding my chin up, and surveying the hideous aftermath of my correctional treatments over the last two weeks.
Genuine concern is a rare sight for him.
I must be dying.
But it’s his question that rips something vital out of me. What’d they do to you? Because in this moment, as I try to recall everything that’s happened, the memory gaps cloud my thoughts. It’s a biblical fog that cloaks my suffering.
My bottom lip trembles. “I—I can’t remember.”
My forehead drops to Niklaus’s shoulder, and I sob against his white shirt.
To my surprise, he loops his hands over my head as he is restricted by the shackles.
His arms wrap around my shivering body, pulling me as tight to his body as his restraints will allow.
The warmth from his embrace surrounds me, it settles under my cold skin and spreads to the tip of my icy nose.
This hug is so fucking comforting, it shatters me quietly.
“Come on, Spitfire, you’re breaking my heart.”
“I’m so scared!” I sob into his neck, words muffled. “I am so weak. I can’t feel the Nightlung anymore. I’m having trouble remembering anything. I don’t even know how long we’ve been in this place!”
It’s been an eternity!
“Two weeks, I think.” His big hand strokes my hair.
I shake my head. “I’m fucked up, Niklaus.”
“You’ve always been fucked up. It’s part of your charm,” he murmurs with a smile.
“This is all my fault. I don’t know how to get us home. My dad would have been able to figure this out. I’m just a damaged result of my parents.” A thought populates in my head. “If you manage to break out of here, just leave. Don’t risk your freedom to get me out!”
Niklaus pulls me an inch away by my shoulders. “If I leave, we leave. And I don’t want to hear you suggest that bullshit alternative again.”
With a shaky hand, I attempt to wipe my face clear of the tears.
“Besides, we haven’t been using our greatest weapon in a place like this.
” Carefully, Niklaus massages my wrists under the shackles.
“Your father manipulated the entire staff with what he knew about them. Spitfire, we are decades ahead of these people. We’re at a huge advantage here.
It’s time we stop tippy toeing around trying not to make detrimental changes to the future. ”
I nod, but even that movement sends shooting pains through my spine.
“My head is so cloudy all the time, though. I can’t think.”
Niklaus slides his warm hand to the back of my neck, kneading his fingers along the places it aches. “Leave it to me, then. I swear to God I’m going to get you out of here, okay?”
The curling of his fingers sends both of our eyes locking again. Remembering what they made us do. Remembering what we had to do to save me from that hell.
“Sapphire…” He looks ashamed. Niklaus Demechnef looks ashamed.
“Don’t.”
“No, listen—”
“If you didn’t do it, she was going to kill me.
I know, I know that sounds dramatic—but Niklaus, I don’t have any nutrition in my body.
I am dying from what she’s been putting me through.
That woman is a psychopath. She would have pumped me with that shit until I dropped dead!
” I grab the spaces on his wrist that are not covered by shackles.
“You did nothing wrong. You saved me. You had my consent.”
My words only slightly ease the tension in his furrowed brow. But not by much. I can see it in his eyes… He’s going to hate himself for this for a long time. There isn’t enough reassurance in the world I could give him to change that.
“Can we pick a corner of the room to lie down? I’m so tired,” I say. I’m always so tired.
I try to stand, nodding my head in the direction of the left corner of the room.
“No. Not that one.”
I pause. “What? Why?”
He shakes his head.
“Tell me,” I push.
“Apple May was masturbating in that corner,” he says, staring up at the ceiling.
I choke on a gasp. “I’m sorry?”
“Don’t make me say it again.”
I fixate on the corner and make a sour face. How did I not notice that was going on? I mean, thank God I missed that disgusting detail.
“Are you sure that’s what she was doing?” I ask. His annoyed and repulsed expression is bringing back a little bit of joy to my soul.
He glares down at me. “Yep.”
“Because she could have been adjusting in her seat…”
“No, she was masturbating,” he says again confidently.
I laugh, draining myself of energy from the small sound. But it’s worth it. Nothing beats seeing Niklaus feeling uncomfortable by a woman publicly touching herself. Especially someone’s mother.
“Laugh it up.”
I can’t help my grin as he drags our chairs, connected to our restraints to the corner of the room. We lie on the floor and look up at the ceiling.
“It’s not adrenaline,” I say in a volume barely above a whisper.
Niklaus listens patiently.
“I don’t know what it is… Pain? No. Fear?
No. Does it happen at random? I don’t know!
I’ve been trying so hard to remember what was going on in my head before each occurrence since we’ve been in here.
But it’s all disappearing. I can’t even recall the first time we traveled.
” I’m out of breath, and my hands shake from the exertion. But Niklaus keeps listening.
“All my life people have spoken so highly of my parents. They’ve told stories of their greatness.
My mother ended a war with her mind. And look at me?
” I ignore the tears. “I am not Skylenna Ambrose. I cannot go into the void and rewire a person’s brain.
I cannot drag their psyche to hell. I can fall through time and get stuck! ”
I’m lightheaded, hungry, and angry with myself. My hands cover face as I shake uncontrollably. It’s all so bad. It’s all too much. I’m never going home. I’m never—
“What’re you doing?” I ask.
Niklaus removes his white shirt and opens his arms to me.
“Come here.”
“What?” I turn my head to get a better look at him.
“You’re freezing.”
I glance down at his bare chest. The symbols of tattoos. The scattering of black hair on his pecks. And he’s staring down at me with that furrowed brow, not out of anger, but another complicated emotion that’s laboring his breathing.
“Yes, and you’re going to freeze with your shirt off,” I object.
Niklaus sighs. “No, I won’t. The sedatives make my skin hot.”
I study his invitation cautiously, while trembling like my body is made of a block of ice. He stays perfectly still, waiting while I decide if I should lower my mental guard to accept his kindness.
“I promise not to insult you if you get over here and fall asleep on me, Spitfire.”
I prop myself up on an elbow, watching my long hair drape over his arm.
“Then say my name, Niklaus,” I say.
His eyebrows raise briefly. Jaw tightens. He exhales.
“Let me hold you, Sapphire.”
This one sentence…it unlaces me. It leaves my lungs in a stutter.
I must have been heavily armored against him this entire time.
But the emotion creasing his forehead and stiffening his muscles—it makes my bones go slack, like the very frame of me could collapse in his arms. My hatred, normally so robust and volatile, is paper-thin and hollow.
I should remind him of the vicious things he’s said to me.
The many occasions he’s made me sob to my brother.
But all I can manage is a silence so vast, so fragile, it trembles between us.
“Okay,” I reply.
And I tell myself it’s because I am far too weak to fight with him.
I’m far too beaten down to remain stubborn and sleep on the cold hard floor without a blanket.
But right now, I can admit to myself that Niklaus is more than just physical warmth in this intimate dwelling of hell on earth.
He’s a piece of home I’ve brought with me.
He’s a bit of comfort in this nightmare.
I curl against the man I once hated more than anything.
I fall asleep in the arms of the man who is now my refuge in this asylum.