Forty-Two
Kallie
My neck aches from the unforgiving concrete floor. I wince from the pounding in my head as I try to rise. Digging the heel of my hand into my eye, I use all my strength to pry the other open.
“Hello?” My voice comes out gravelly, my throat burning from lack of water. It feels drier than the Sahara Desert. When nobody answers my plea, I remove my hand and study my surroundings.
Bars travel from the cracked, stained concrete all the way to the ceiling. A cage. I’m in a fucking cage. Panic seizes me, and I try to pull myself together.
I will not give up.
Callum. Where is Callum? I search the cells beyond mine, only to find them empty. Adjusting my feet to stand, my movements are halted and I’m tugged back by the chain wrapped around my ankle.
What the fuck happened? I search my mind for my last memories, only remembering a table of flames then nothing.
“Hello?!” I yell louder this time, ignoring the tinge of pain in my temple as I do. “Can anybody hear me?!” My words echo off the walls of the empty room.
I’m a badass, power-wielding bitch. I can do this. I can get out of here. Wrapping my hands around the chain, I try to ignite flames in my palms, but nothing comes.
I pinch my eyes together, concentrating, trying to find the well deep inside me to pull from.
“Come on!” I scream, and the tiniest spark appears before it’s gone. Everything is gone. The bond to Callum is closed off, the same with Voraxis, like they were never there to begin with.
Pulling my knees to my chest, I wrap my arms around them before slowly rocking back and forth. I don’t even try to keep the tears from escaping. They flow in rivers down my face as I stare at my bare feet.
He lied to me. Everything he told me, everything we did, was all a lie. He told me what I wanted to hear to get me to open up, and I so stupidly fell into his trap.
I hear a door fly open, hitting the wall before footsteps pad against the ground. My eyes swing up toward the noise, and the man standing on the other side of the bars is one I don’t recognize.
He looks just like Callum. My Callum. But something is off. Maybe he was never mine to begin with.
I scowl at him, pulling my legs tighter, not wanting him to see any of me.
“Get out.” But there’s no authority behind my words. Just betrayal.
A menacing laugh leaves him, and I have to close my eyes to keep from looking his way. He doesn’t deserve my tears. He doesn’t deserve to see my pain.
“Oh, little Kalliope. Quite a predicament you’ve found yourself in.” It’s so strange to hear him sound so cold. Even when I first met him, he didn’t sound like that.
“Fuck you.”
“You have. If you need a reminder, all you have to do is ask.”
My head whips in his direction. Big mistake. The soulless orbs that stare back at me don’t belong to the man I thought I knew. But maybe this is who he was all along. I was just too blind to see it. “You will never touch me again.”
“Funny, I remember you begging for the opposite.”
Scoffing, I shake my head. Unbelievable.
“Did you come here to gloat? Congratulations, you got me. And for what? What could you possibly want with me?” I stare at him in disbelief.
“You will find out in time, Princess.”
“Don’t,” I interject. “Don’t call me that.” His head tilts to the side as his eyes roam over my body.
I need to get out of here. There has to be a semblance of who he was with me somewhere in there. I have to believe that, or else all hope is lost.
I will not give up.
“Callum, please. It’s me. Just let me out of here, and we can figure this out together,” I plead. The bond that tethered us together is nonexistent. I plead for it to come back, but it’s lost in the war between the shadows in my mind.
“There isn’t anything to figure out. The plan is playing out beautifully.”
The tears continue to pour out in waves, but I make no effort to wipe them away. “You’re going to stand there and tell me everything we shared was fake? That it meant nothing? You’re forgetting, I know you. And this isn’t you.”
“Don’t flatter yourself. You don’t know me. You never knew me. If you did, well, you wouldn’t be inside that cage now, would you, Princess?”
I rush to my feet, striding as far as the chain will allow. “What about Donni? Benny? Your secret spot. The secrets. Flying with the stars. You’re going to stand there and tell me that meant nothing to you?!” my voice cracks.
“My secret spot?” He throws his head back in a laugh. “That’s where I take every desperate girl. I just wanted to get my dick sucked. Unfortunately, you were too much of a prude. Where do you think I was when you woke the next day?”
I jerk back like he struck me. Shattering glass penetrates my ears—the sound of my heart splintering and cracking in my chest.
“Oh, you thought you were special?” He slaps his hand over his chest, right where his heart should be, giving me a dramatic pouty face. “Don’t be ridiculous.”
“Then why am I here, Callum? Just fucking kill me already!” I spit, snot dripping from my nose.
“You’re still needed. For now, you’ll stay here like an obedient pet, and maybe if you ask nicely, I’ll fill that tight cunt to pass the time.” His crass words are like a knife in my chest, and he keeps pushing it farther and farther, twisting it down to the hilt.
“ Callum, please don’t do this!” I yell at him as tears well up in my eyes all over again. I can’t do this. I can’t go through that again.
His eyes are empty. His blank stare chills me to the bone. His pupils are so dilated all I can see is a never-ending abyss of obsidian. Everything is void. There’s no emotion, no spark of desire.
There’s no way he can look at me like that after everything we shared. With one final glance, he turns his back to me, leaving me standing in the middle of this fucking prison cell.
“After everything we’ve been through, everything you put me through, you’re just going to leave?!” I scream to his back as the tug on my heart pulls taut with every step he takes.
He slowly turns around, but the eyes that stare back at me do not belong to the man that I lost myself in. They don’t belong to the person that made me feel alive. No, what stares back at me is someone unrecognizable. Someone…cold. Every trace, every ember that ever shone when he looked at me isn’t there. His features are stone, his voice detached.
“You are so foolish and naive. You are a means to an end. A blip in a plan that is so much bigger than you. You thought I loved you? I could never love someone who is so fucking weak and useless.” He scoffs, crossing his arms over his chest, as if loving me is so unfathomable, and this entire conversation is a waste of his breath. Tears well up in my eyes as I hear the faint cracks in my heart breaking with every word he says.
“Unlike you, I am not stupid enough to let the feeling—no—liability of such to cloud my vision of what I have planned. I never loved you. You are a pawn in a very big game, Princess.” He lazily looks me up and down, and when his eyes meet mine again, he hammers the last nail in my coffin. “And it seems you have lost.” His voice echoes off the concrete walls, playing over and over again in my head.
He turns on his heels, and the tears escape and streak down my face.
“You’re going to stand there and tell me everything you said to me was bullshit?! I was there, Callum! I felt what you felt, and no matter how good you claim to be, nobody can fake it like that.” I shake my head, remembering all the memories we shared.
“You said you would always be here for me, always protect me!” My body wracks with sobs as I continue. “For the first time in my life, you made me feel wanted and worthy. But all you care about is yourself, and I swear to the fucking Goddess, if you walk out that door and throw away EVERYTHING, that’s it. I will never fucking forgive you for this Callum Bellmore, and that is a promise that I will keep. Unlike you , that is a promise that I will never break.” He stops mid-stride, and I think for a split second I’ve gotten through to him. But once again, he starts walking toward the door, the shadows consume him, and I’m left all alone.
Just like that, there are no more stars in the sky. Just a black hole swirling above me, threatening to swallow me forever.
To Be Continued...