“What did you tell that shrink, huh?”
Roman?
He was here because of Roman?
“He thinks you’re afraid of me. Did you tell him you’ve been afraid of me your whole life? Did you tell him what a fucking wimp you are?” He forced the heel of his palm against my windpipe, and I felt my eyelids droop. “If you want to use your voice, Sebastian, you can use it now. With me.”
He pressed our foreheads together. His breath was sticky as it coated my skin, and I felt my stomach curl. I squirmed beneath his weight, both of my hands locked around his wrist, clawing at the thin skin. “Tell me where it is, Sebastian. I know you know where it is!”
I felt his saliva on my eyelids and on the bridge of my nose. His voice reverberated against the base of my skull, sending signals of panic across the rest of my body. My mind raced to figure out what it was he wanted me to tell him but it couldn’t summon an answer.
My vision darkened, and then his weight just… disappeared. A flood of air stuffed itself down my throat, and I grasped at my neck, feeling for the skin as though checking to make sure he hadn’t ripped it off.
Exhaling hurt.
Blinkinghurt, but I lifted my chin to him anyway, glaring with all the strength I had left.
Arthur’s shadow was big enough to swallow me whole as he stood over my body, pointing an angry finger at my chest. He licked his lips as though he enjoyed the taste of barbarity.
“I don’t know what you think you know, or who you think you’re protecting, but you keep that voice in your fucking throat. Understand me? Any suspicions, any questions, and any fucking clues you find should be brought tome.”
I didn’t know what he thought I knew, or what he wanted me to bring him, but it didn’t matter… not in the grand scheme of things.
Each time he made me bleed, I worried I’d end up like my mother… dead and forever trapped under the heel of his boot. Tonight, the concern was thick enough to choke me, and I panicked at the thought of running out of time.
I had to find my wings.
Arthur stepped over my body, kicking me once in leg before palming the edge of my door. “It’s best if you don’t attend class until that lip is healed. We wouldn’t want anyone thinking you're violent, would we, Vicious?”
CHAPTERNINE
ROMAN
Rain fell from the sky in harsh slants, pelting the sides of my face like bullets. I tasted it on my bottom lip, felt it dripping off my eyelashes. My breath formed clouds in the air with every uneven pant that escaped my lips.
Thunder rattled the ground. Bits of unsteady cobblestone swayed beneath my boots as I ran.
“Run faster!”
The urgency was familiar, and in a lot of ways, it reminded me of being back in a war zone—running from a faceless enemy, desperately trying to make it back home.
The dead bodies were just puddles now, but I leapt over them without pause.
The rifle on my chest was now a handgun at my ankle, and it was practically burning a hole against my skin.
The home I felt so devoted to, the one I fought so desperately for, was him.
My baby bird.
In the field, we treated our guts like guardian angels—built-in bullshit detectors. When something was off, our guts knew first, and we acted without hesitancy. That faith often saved our lives—intuitionsaved our lives, and it was the kind of protector that never really left a man.
Instinctive nudges weren’t something I ignored, and I knew the moment I stepped foot inside my office this morning that something was… off.
The air was dense, suffocating and stiff…
The clock sounded too fast, and the walls were too quiet…
The hair on the back of my neck rose to attention, my gut nearly screaming at me. Bombs blew, alarms sounded, and when Sebastian never walked through my doorway… I knew.