Lena grabbed a tilt truck, wheeling it through the door.
As the door started to shut, someone moved in the farthest cell against the wall, the same double secured type of lockup Warwick and I were in on the fae side.
I caught a flash of brown eyes, dry, tangled reddish-brown hair, and a boney figure huddled against the bars.
I blinked, and the door closed, but my chest heaved as if it understood something my brain hadn’t picked up on. Prickles danced down my vertebrae, my head dizzy, stumbling me to the side.
“Whoa...” Blondie grabbed for me. “Let’s get this one back to her cell before she passes out on me.”
Brown Curls tossed the girl’s body into the bin, brushing off his hands.
“Dump her and get to the lab,” he ordered Lena.
“Yes, sir.” She bowed her head.
I didn’t even glance at Lena as they pulled me away, heading back for the fae side, my mind still reeling.
You’re delirious.
I was exhausted. Weak. Traumatized. Hallucinating from blood loss and hunger.
There was no way I saw who I thought I saw.
Chapter 12
“Guess you missed chow time.” Blondie mocked in my ear while he hauled me down the row of fae cells. Numbly, I turned to peer in the string of cages. Some people were licking their tray, trying to get any morsel of food from it, while a few trays sat untouched on the floor next to them. Other prisoners were tucked in a ball in a corner, either too weak to move or no longer cared to preserve their lives.
My lungs squeezed when I looked into one cage. The man stared blankly back, empty of life. He was one I noticed on the extraction table in the main lab today. Even though he was skin and bones, he actually appeared to be wrinkling, his hair graying. It made sense, though. Ripping out fae essence took the magic which kept them young and eternal.
On the way back to my cell, seeing the starving, tortured, innocent children in the cages, reaching their boney arms out to me, pleading for help, snapped something in me. I was barely holding on anyway. The sound of the guard dumping the girl’s body in the trolley like a hunk of meat, the thump of human flesh and bones, echoed in my ears. Her bloody, terrified eyes staring at me on the gurney, begging me for help, replayed over and over in my mind. The children’s cries. The vision of Caden in the tank. Warwick being part of this. And only yesterday, we had lost Maddox.
I never had time to mourn one before more devastation rained down.
It all came at me like a tsunami, overwhelming and drowning me in grief, pain, and guilt. It was too much, stealing the air from my lungs and making me sag under the weight. All I could do was shut down. Switch everything off and compartmentalize, otherwise I would never get up again.
“Pick it up.” Blondie rammed his legs into mine, trying to speed me up. Movement caught my eye in the cage next to the one I called home. An enormous figure stepped up to the bars, wrapping his hands around the metal barriers. Warwick’s face peered through, his knuckles white, his eyes pinned on mine, his nostrils flaring when our eyes met.
My touchstone.
Relief burned the back of my lids, seeing him bulldozed into the walls I was trying to keep up, tearing at my foundation. But I couldn’t afford to let go because if I did, I might not come back from it.
Pinching my lips together, I slid my gaze away from his. I concentrated on the officers returning me to my pen, the vibration of the metal slamming, the locks clicking, their boots strolling away.
“Kovacs?” he rumbled. At the sound of his gravelly voice, my lids slammed together, squeezing back the tears I could feel trying to break through.
My mouth wouldn’t open. I leaned against the wall, sliding down until my butt hit the ground. Tucking my knees in tighter, I leaned my forehead on them, trying to breathe in and out.
Still in the prison outfit from Věrhăza, I stared vacantly at the dried blood dyeing my gray pants a murky brown. Mine. Maddox’s. The remains of his life were painted on my clothes like a tribute. Although he was no longer a lone tribute. Specks of fresh red from the young girl were also sprinkled over my entire frame. Soaking into my skin and fabric, marking both, though only one could be washed out. Another ghost that would haunt me.
“Kovacs?” he tried again. I felt the tug of our bond, but it was barely there, a whisper. They did this to us, unraveling our bond, separating us not just physically but mentally as well.
My nails cut through my clothes into my skin. The breath of his touch was too much, leaving me flayed open. Slamming against the link, I tucked in tighter into a ball.
“Az istenit!” he hissed, a touch of anger hinting in his timbre. He went silent for a long time, but I could feel his tension. Frustration. Worry.
He took a few breaths. A deep sigh, then the sound of him sliding down the same wall we shared. I swear I could feel the heat of him seeping through the stone and into my back. My spine flattened against the wall, craving his warmth and touch like a drug. I didn’t want words; I didn’t need platitudes. I just needed him. His arms around me, engulfing me, blanketing me, where I could no longer feel pain.
We sat in silence together for a while before I heard something slide over the ground, lifting my head to see a plate of food being pushed over to me. The tears I thought I had reined in threatened to appear, glazing my eyes.
He saved half his rations for me. Wiping my eyes with the heel of my hands, I felt my throat close even tighter.
“You have to eat, no matter what you feel. If we’re gonna get out of here...” His voice tapered off to the point it was barely a whisper, but I still heard him say. “I need you.”
A choked sob silently opened my mouth, a tear escaping.
He pushed the plate a little farther.
“Brex.” An order. A plea. So much packed into those four letters.
My stomach coiled and burned at the thought of food, but eventually I reached out, dragging the tray to me.
More than hearing it, I could feel his exhale slither over my skin. For a second, I could see him lean his head against the wall, his eyes closed, relief lowering his shoulders.
He had not lost me yet.
Whatever was on the plate tasted bland, dry, and old; my throat tried to gag it back up, but I forced down each swallow. I needed whatever fuel I could get to keep me physically going. I had so much blood drawn from me, I shouldn’t even be alive.
When I finished, I propped myself back up against the wall, shifting as close to the bars as I could, needing him to feel my gratitude. Not just for the food, but for being there... for always being there. Before I even knew him. Although, in some ways, I had known him my whole life.
Skating my hand through the bars, I reached as far as I could go. There was a beat, which seemed to last forever before his huge hand engulfed mine. It was warmth, comfort—home.
My entire body went lax from his touch. A whimper caught in my throat, my fingers wrapping hard around his like he was my only lifeline. It was the only thing keeping me from going under. From slipping into the complete darkness.
He kept me in the gray.
No words were necessary to explain what either of us had gone through. Although our link was depleted, I somehow still understood and sensed him, as I knew he could me. We just were. We had no doubts, no clarification, no fear of what was between us anymore. It was a safe place we could just be.
Threading his fingers through mine, another long exhale escaped my lungs as I slumped into the wall as if he were my own personal sedative and charging station at the same time.
“I love you.” I only said in my mind, not even trying to push through the bond. But I felt Warwick go still, his muscles locking up.
Fuck.
Did he hear me? Was it too soon? Did he not feel the same way? Hurt and rejection weeded through me as he yanked his hand away.
But it quickly flipped to alarm when he leaped to his feet, his energy throbbing with defensive energy.
With the padding of slipper shoes on the cement, a shadowy figure moved quickly down the corridor for us, causing me to scramble up as well, preparing for our visitor.
The figure of a woman came into view.
“Lena?” My brows wrinkled, not expecting to see her.
She put a finger to her mouth, peering over her shoulder nervously.
“I don’t have a lot of time.” Nerves rushed her voice, her tongue swiping over her lip. “I am taking a huge risk.”
“What are you doing here?” I moved closer to the bars.
“Better question. Who the fuck are you?” Warwick’s grumble could be felt under my feet, making her suck in a gulp of air, her eyes widening at his penetrating voice and massive frame. Even behind bars, he made men who could turn into monsters piss their pants. But Lena gulped down her fear, swiping it from her features, though I could see her hands trembling.