12
Two hours earlier.
Despite his threat, Valentine didn’t lay a finger on me. I was shoved back into the room minutes after Kingston and his men left and I’ve been here ever since. Rory is doing better, her wounds now healing but her mind still needs to be fixed. It’s too often I find her staring at the wall, her eyes filled with horror as she remembers all that she’s endured since she’s been here.
She wakes often, screaming and lashing out and those nightmares trickle into her waking hours. I don’t know if she’ll ever be the same again.
“What did he do?” She asked an hour after I was put back.
I shake my head, not wanting to tell her I’ll be leaving. I didn’t want to think about what they would do with her when I was gone, and I was trying to think of ways of either negotiating her release or convincing Kingston to take her with us. It was obvious he wouldn’t allow it, this wasn’t a package deal, whatever he was trading with my father made him as bad as everyone else. He came here because he wanted me. No-one could be trusted.
The door opens a crack and two sealed bottles of water are rolled in before the door slams shut once more. I grab them and throw one over to my best friend, breaking the seal on mine and taking a sip.
“How did you end up here?” I ask instead.
She looks down at her hands, “I don’t really know. It was a few weeks ago I guess, I’m not actually sure how long it’s been but I was coming out of school, it was quite late because I was grading, when someone hit me. When I woke up, I was in that room down the hall.”
She sniffles.
“Don’t tell me the rest, Rory, I don’t need to know that.”
“They hurt me,” she whispers. “Real bad.”
“I know,” I cross the room to sit next to her, “I’m going to get us out of here.”
It’s amusing comparing this experience to the one with Lex, I’m determined to get out of here, but where was that determination when I was strapped to Lex’s bed.
I lift my water bottle to my lips, but a sudden boom causes me to flinch, making me drop the open bottle onto the floor. The walls shake and the ceiling above me vibrates, dislodging dust and dirt that rains down onto us. Another boom has all the lights going out and with the fact that we’re underground and there’s no windows the room plunges into a darkness so deep I can’t see my hand in front of my face.
Rory screams next to me, snatching out to wrap her dainty fingers around my arm painfully, her nails digging into my skin.
There are a few beats of silence before the sound of gunfire comes. The loud pops make my ears ring and the shouts and hollers coming from above leaves my brain scrambling to keep up. Feet pound against the floorboards above us, frantic, panicked and the gun fire continues.
I pry Rory’s fingers from my arm as I climb from the bed, my bare feet scuffing across the floor. A door slams close by and then footsteps are drawing closer quickly. Before I can react the door to the room swings open, letting in a tiny amount of light from the emergency lighting I hadn’t realized had been installed into the ceilings of this underground prison. Marcus’s face is shrouded in menacing shadows and the gleam of a knife catches in the dim light. He lunges forward, slicing the knife into my flesh. I manage to dodge but it still cuts through my skin, just below my ribs, deep enough for a well of blood to pour down my side and hip, staining the white dress crimson. I cry out as he grabs my throat having dropped the knife in our scuffle.
“No one gets you!” He growls. “No one fucking gets you!”
I try to frantically suck in air as his palms crush my windpipe, all the while Rory screams, her fists slamming into Marcus’s back but it’s useless. She’s too weak to fight him off and me, I’m losing too much blood too quickly.
Fuck.
“Get off!” Rory cries. “Get off!”
A door slamming has Valentine’s hands loosening and then they come away entirely as he spins and runs.
Runs.
The fucking coward.
I collapse onto my knees, sucking in breaths as my blurring vision follows his dark shape out the door. I blink once, twice, staring at my freedom. The door is open. We can get out.
I clutch Rory’s hand, pushing onto shaky legs as I clutch my side, trying to stem the bleeding.
I should be dead. I will be if I can’t stop myself from bleeding out.
If I die though, I will be out of this house. Even if that death happens on the front porch, I’ll be free and so will Rory.
I make a step towards the door and that sense of freedom dies as a body fills the doorframe.