Chapter 55 The Endless Night
Sapphire
At least half of the prisoners remain on the shower floor.
Unresponsive.
Skin bright red with a faint steam permeating off their bodies.
The sight turns my stomach as I remain holding on to Niklaus’s deadweight as he falls in andout of consciousness, slumping over me. My body aches and quivers as I find it challenging to hold up his upper body. With his skin still wet, I fumble to get a stable grasp on him.
“You’re okay, big guy. I’m not letting you go.”
The room, the halls, the prison is a cathedral of moans and guttural cries for help.
But I force myself to tune out the noise. Niklaus is my only focus right now. The raw, blistering skin on his back causes me to slightly dissociate from the shock of it all.
“Sapphire!” Sophia shouts from the shower entrance. “Follow me. Hurry!”
Sophia is dry and unharmed. She slings Jack’s arm over her shoulder and moves diligently to get him away from the shower area.
“He’s too heavy!” I gasp, widening my stance to get a better hold on him.
Niklaus is easily over two hundred and twenty pounds. And I’m the weakest I’ve ever been in my life. There’s no way I can carry him back to our cages. At least, not without dragging him across the floor and further tearing up his skin.
“You have to! The sentinels will be here any minute to start jabbing the remaining inmates with hot pokers!”
Shit!
I whine, losing my slippery grip on his waist. But looking down at his singed back—the boiled skin, hot to the touch and still making a terrible sizzling sound…
It’s his scream that still bellows in the well of my mind.
That scream was gutting.
That scream won’t quiet in my thoughts.
I look down at his spine again. My eyes watering at the pain he must be in. Why would he do that for me? After everything that was just said? He didn’t have to cover my body with his.
The screams in my mind echo, bouncing off like an orchestra of anguish, an amphitheater terrorizing me from the inside out. I swallow down the doubts that keep creeping forward.
Of course I will carry him the rest of the way.
He just used his body has a human shield for me.
It could have meant my death.
I grunt, turning around and slinging his arms over my shoulders.
“Okay…I’m going to get us back to the cages, Niklaus. I promise. Just hang in there.”
Out of sheer will, I begin my walk across the damp floor. Because of Niklaus’s height, his feet drag across the floor. But I hunch over enough to ensure my back is a stable platform for him to rest against.
“I swear to God, Niklaus, I’m going to get us home. I’ll get us home, and you’ll never have to see my face again. Just please hang in there!”
The trudge down the hallway is dark, pitiful, and tragic. I pass other prisoners who somehow made it out and curl up in their cages—howling as they attempt to get some sleep.
“I’m so sorry…” I whisper to Niklaus again, though I believe he passed out from the pain. I should hope so. At least it’s a bit of relief.
Every muscle vibrates and screams in distress, stretching and swelling from the overexertion of carrying his soaking wet weight. I trip, crashing to my knees, and gritting my teeth as the sharply textured brimstone floors cut into the skin of my knees.
“Almost there,” I say to him and myself.
Droplets of sweat run over my brows and into the corners of my eyes as I nearly pop every vein bearing down to stand up again.
I manage to get one foot on the ground.
Good, Sapphire.
Each breath is a match struck and snuffed—hot, quick, shallow. I put all my weight into my left thigh to lift myself, just enough to get the other foot planted again.
One, two, three!
My spine is a rope pulled taut, and it nearly snaps as I fold forward again. It takes everything I have not to yelp, fighting now to let his mass collapse on top of me. The muscles in my core turn molten, burning and pinching my ribs.
I blow the wet hair out of my face and try again.
This time, the task feels impossible. I grate my molars back and forth, building a balloon of pressure behind my eyes as I slump forward again.
“Fuck!” I hiss.
I’m another failed attempt from falling to the ground and sobbing until I pass out.
Niklaus might as well be a mountain on my back.
He went through hell shielding me from that shower. And I can’t even carry him back to our cage so he can suffer in private.
Krimson could do this without question. My dad? Absolutely. Even my mom could probably carry Niklaus back.
I am a fucking colossal disappointment to everyone! Fuck!
Dad! Oh, please! Wherever you are, please lend me your strength. Help me carry Niklaus a little longer.
No one responds in my head the way Dellilian would.
But there’s a rush, like a supercharged river power-housing through my chest, stampeding through my nervous system.
It’s a familiar glow of warmth. The same sensation I get when I hug my mom.
When I’m angry and Krimson finds me sitting alone outside.
Or when Uncle Warrose places a reassuring hand on my shoulder.
It’s all of that, and an implosion of confidence.
I know I can lift him. I know I can make it back.
Clamping down my teeth and every muscle, I force myself up to both feet and continue marching forward. There’s blood coming from my heels and knees. I’m drenched in sweat. And my legs are numb to the touch.
But I keep going.
“How is he?!” Sophia asks as I limp into Niklaus’s cage.
She helps balance his weight as I slip out from under his chest, quivering as I lower him to the ground. Before his upper body lies flat, I wedge myself under him. His face is cradled in my lap. His arms draping around my hips.
“It’s a temporary acid. They call it Jester Mist. He should heal up by tomorrow night,” Sophia whispers, patting me on the shoulder. “You did so good, carrying your husband so far and on your back…”
Tears well in my eyes, but I don’t let them fall.
I didn’t do it alone.
She scampers back to her cage, then returns with a finger to her mouth.
“Hide this in the corner when you wake up. It’s contraband, but I’ve managed to keep it from the sentinels.” Sophia hands me a ratty, torn up blanket and a tiny metal jar.
“What’s this?”
“Rub it on his back. There’s not much in there, but it should help him sleep.”
I peek around my bars to Jack huddled in his cage, taking deep breaths.
“What about Jack? He was hit with the acid too.”
Sophia shrugs. “We’re used to it. I promise, we’ve been through much worse and for longer too. Take it. Your husband needs it.”
That’s…that’s my grandmother.
I can’t even begin to comprehend her kindness. Especially after being locked in the prison for God knows how long.
“Jack?” I call out.
“Take it, Sapphire. Please.” His boyish voice is a thin, exhausted rasp. He continues shuddering in his cage. “I’ll be okay.”
“Thank you so much,” I barely mutter through my tight throat.
I apply a thin layer of a silver jelly as Niklaus stirs and groans, waking slowly from his pain-induced sleep.
My fingers work quickly, applying small amounts to sections of his flesh that bear the brightest scarlet color.
Then, I cover us both with the large heavy blanket that smells like rust and an old attic.
Niklaus shivers against my lap, curling his arms around my hips a little tighter.
“Tell me—we made it home, Spitfire.”
I sigh, dropping my head against the bars.
Disappointment.
Disappointment.
Disappointment.
I have failed us again.
“No.” My voice breaks, accompanied by a trembling chin. “Not yet.”
He doesn’t seem all that surprised. The agony of the chemical burns strikes again, convolsing his body tightly together as it racks through his core. He growls into my lap, grinding his fingers into my back.
“It’ll pass,” I whisper, stroking the spots on his sides that were saved. “It’s temporary acid. It’ll go away soon.”
I don’t tell him that he’ll have to endure this for another twenty-four hours most likely.
“Tell me something,” he grunts against my thigh.
I hold my breath as he moans again, louder this time—though it blends in with the orchestra of inmates bellowing at the top of their lungs from the horror they’re experiencing too.
I quickly dig through thoughts, memories, or stories I can tell him. Peering over at Sophia holding Jack’s hand and humming a song close to his ear, I find that something I can tell him.
“My middle name. The S doesn’t just stand for one name. It stands for two.” I lean down to his ear, stroking his hair away from the side of his face. “My mom couldn’t decide when she named me. It stands for Scarlett…and Sophia.”
I check to make sure Sophia didn’t hear me, then watch Niklaus’s eyebrows raise while his eyes remain closed.
“Scarlett was your mother’s sister who died,” he murmurs.
“Her twin.”
“And Sophia…”
“And Sophia,” I repeat warmly.
“Hmm. That’s—so much more special now.”
“It is.”
Niklaus grasps at my back as he squirms and grunts against me again. I run a finger along his clammy, chilled skin and pull the wool blanket up higher to trap my heat inside and keep him as comfortable as possible.
I frantically reach for Niklaus’s hands. Like pressing a button in routine placements, I find the special pinpoints that help relieve pain.
Niklaus’s exhale is loud and deliberate. “That—helps.”
“One night during those winter campfires, Krimson and I begged your mom to let some secrets of the prophecy slip. Instead, she told us about a time in prison when Uncle Niles was moaning in his sleep from the burns on his back…” I say, reminiscing about that night under the stars in the Emerald Lake Forest. “She showed us how she hit pressure points on his feet to take away his pain. Showed us how to do it on someone’s hands too. ”
Niklaus hums as I continue massaging him.
“I was so disappointed when she was finished. We told her that was a lousy way of distracting us from our original question. And you know what she said to me?”
An epiphany stitches into my thoughts, as if it was there all along.
“Hmm?”