Two
Alara
The days blur after we’re told Halen is preparing the Enclave for The Games.
Sometimes I can hear screams in the cell somewhere, other times, it’s just the trickle of water and Rohan’s breathing that wraps around me.
That is in between the times where Rohan tries to talk to me, asks me to go to him while he rattles the chains and makes himself bleed more, trying to remove them. I continue to face the damp wall, ignoring him even while my heart aches.
He goes crazy when anyone comes near me or opens my cell door to drop more sacks of what I assume is food and water, but at least it isn’t Declan that comes.
They don’t take the old sacks away though, leaving it to rot in here with us.
A rat comes at some point, nibbling a hole through one of them and takes off with something that looks like moldy bread. Good for him.
Sleep comes and goes when my body gives in, but it’s filled with nightmares. I dream of the fire, waking up with a scream lodged in my throat, images of Asseya and Sparks, of blood and more fire. Rohan calls out to me, his fake concern bleeding through his lying teeth.
I ignore him once again. I can’t let him trick me again, I can’t.
On the next day, however, something changes in the routine we have become accustomed to.
The guards come and give us water as usual, but this time, five of them open the cell to Rohan.
He bares his teeth at them, looking more barbaric than ever, his stance aggressive and imposing. A threat in human skin.
The first guard enters. He looks on the younger side, but he steps toward Rohan without hesitation, shackles in hand.
As soon as he gets close, Rohan’s hands move like lightning, snapping his neck without hesitation.
The crack was loud and clear, and I watch on, witnessing the brutality upon his face as the body drops to the floor.
Something tries to disturb the numbness at seeing him kill someone so easily, at seeing a dead body, but I’m accustomed to that from the underground, so I can keep the numbness tightly wrapped around me.
The guards eye Rohan warily after that, uncaring of the dead one as they push another in.
The second guard hesitantly enters, frowning.
“Hands out in front of you,” he orders.
Rohan doesn’t follow his instructions, so the guard takes some sort of club from his belt and hits him in the side.
Rohan doesn’t even try to dodge it, so when the guard comes closer to hit him again, Rohan grabs him and begins to punch him, the chains clinking with one hit after the other. The snarls coming from him sounding more beast than man.
The second body drops next to the other as Rohan stands there, blood splattered across his face.
The remaining guards retreat, fear leaking into their features, but they soon come back—only, they don’t go to Rohan’s cell this time.
They come to mine.
“No,” Rohan shouts, pulling the chains to get to them, but they only allow him to reach halfway to the cell door. “Come to me!” he roars, and when they ignore him, opening my door and entering, he lunges for the bars separating us.
That’s when I feel something other than the numbness again. A little fear trickles in as the guard’s cruel eyes turn to me.
“Leave her alone!” Rohan booms, and I allow myself to glance at him.
His eyes are darker than I have ever seen them, that purple ring bright. His nostrils flare when he catches my gaze, and I don’t know what he sees in mine, but the next thing I know, he has both hands on the bars, his muscles bulging as if he could pull them apart.
The guards laugh… until the sudden screech of metal bending has their eyes widening.
He’s actually bending the bars in the center.
The guards unsheathe their swords, pointing them in my direction. The move causes Rohan to still, his chest heaving, sweat beading down the side of his face as he snarls.
“Come with us, barbarian, and she won’t get hurt.”
Rohan doesn’t hesitate. “Done. Now get the fuck out of her cell.”
The guard pauses for a moment, and then he nods to the others, leaving.
“Lock it,” Rohan growls.
The guard does as he’s ordered.
Rohan stands in the center of the cell, arms loose at his side as he tilts his head at the guards, waiting.
“Come on, then.”
Three guards enter Rohan’s cell. One holds shackles in trembling hands, causing them to rattle, and the other holds a key. I eye the shackles, and then the bent bars.
There’s no way that will hold him.
An arrow notches, and I look up to see a guard pointing it at Rohan, a small green sphere attached to it as they all pull up masks to cover the bottom half of their face.
Nighturn.
“Move, and I’ll release,” the guard threatens.
Rohan eyes me, then nods.
The guard puts the shackles on his wrists as quickly as he can, and Rohan, he does… nothing.
Another shackle goes on his ankles, and lastly, one around his neck.
Another feeling hits me then.
I’m not sure if it’s anger… sadness, but something makes me gasp at the sight, causing Rohan’s head to snap my way.
His hand fists in the shackles, grunting when they tighten the one around his neck.
“It’s okay, Little Whisperer,” he reassures me. I swallow tightly. “Just one thing, remember?” I blink at him, and then they release his wrists from the chains in the cell.
“Don’t try anything,” a guard says, but Rohan doesn’t reply, he just keeps his eyes on me until they guide him out of the cell and out of sight. Leaving me on my own.
The silence is deafening as I look at Rohan’s chains, the blood coating them.
I look at the sack of food next.
There’s not another single sound.
No breathing, no growling. No sighing or grunting. No chains rattling.
Maybe I’ll die down here, maybe no one will remember I’m here.
Maybe Rohan won’t come back…
And despite it all, I don’t like that thought.