Page 12

I’ve spent plenty of time alone, avoiding critical eyes and hiding in narrow alleys and closets from bullies and deprived men in the houses I stayed in, but I usually had a book. And clothes. And a way out. Here, there’s nothing but solid black stone—no electrical outlets, no heating ducts, no lights. Either they don’t use them here, or they want to keep me in the dark and cold.

My mind stays on Kelter as the hours pass, visions taking me every so often. The gray of daylight peaks and dims again as the rain showers come and go, and twilight finds the late afternoon.

Is Kelt in a room like this? Cold and clothesless? Thinking of me? This is the first day in nearly a year that I haven’t spent time with him, haven’t seen his awkward smile or heard his warmvoice coaxing me with its confidence. As much as he gives in to what I want, I often do the same. I have to. I can’t lose him—he’s all I have.

I spent years alone before he showed up, either hiding in my room above the coffee shop or hiking through my forest with a map in hand. It was only me and my visions every night, me and my tears. But Kelter forced his way into my little world. And between the deaths in my head, I found myself smiling, even laughing.

He brought me food from all over the city, getting me hooked, then persuaded me to leave home just to eat it again. I’d return, shaking from the crowds and cursing as I crawled into bed, and he’d hand me a book, a silent request to read to him. And he listened, sitting on the edge of the floor mattress until my breathing slowed and the pages no longer fluttered in my trembling hands, as if he had nothing better to do.

Though pain still lingers with every movement, at least the caffeine withdrawal is letting up, my headache finally waning. I stopped feeling hungry some time this morning even though I last ate two days ago. Maybe Kelt was right to be thinking of our last meals. But the thirst—it’s consuming now, scratching at my sanity as though I were fighting the instinct to blink.

The door grinds open. I flee to a corner, crouching in the graying underclothes. Elivander enters, waves of unseen darkness sweeping in with him, cold fingers wisping down my spine. I didn’t imagine the feelings last night—I’m just losing it, going mad like they want. He closes the door and waves asmall stone over the handle. Metal clunks and clicks into place. Locked. It must be magnetic.

I’m going to need that.

He turns, stowing the stone in one of the many pockets down the legs of his blue jumpsuit, then sets his eyes on me, all glinty and shifty.

“Miss me?”

I tuck my feet closer, trying to make myself smaller, invisible. “What are you doing here?”

“My job. We went over this. Maybe you were underwater a little too long yesterday.” He slowly closes in on me.

“I’m fine. The other guard never showed up, and look—I’m still here, still a prisoner.”

He stands in front of me, locking me in the corner and looking down. The taste of metal hugs my tongue. “The day shift guard was outside the door since this morning.”

Seriously?“What the fuck? Then how comeyou’reinside?”

He huffs, a lopsided grin forming as he backs away. “Why would I sit outside in the hallway where there’s nothing to entertain me all night?”

Dread fills my lungs with lead. I clamp my knees together and hide my perpetually frozen nipples poking through the camisole. “There won’t be any entertainment inside here either.”

He smirks and leans against the door. “So you don’t want your dinner?”

Food. Maybe he has water. I roll my cracked lips together. I’d do anything for a sip.

“I do,” I sneer, but even as the words come out, my face screws up, the cold and thirst and black walls closing in on me,realityclosing in.

I’m struck with every emotion I’ve staved off since the sack went over my head, and maybe years before that. I’m locked in a room, trapped in a realm I didn’t know existed and stuck withpeople who want to kill me. I only want to find my parents, but I’m further from answers than ever before, taken from the shelter of my forest and separated from the one person who would notice if I disappeared.

I cry dry tears, my lips trembling and my chest crushing the last of my composure. I focus on the intensifying rain outside and hug my naked legs.

Elivander fidgets at my display of misery, then lifts the flap of a side pocket and pulls out a canteen, then a food bar from the other side. He takes two steps forward and sets them on the stone floor, not far from the smushed bar that was to be my dinner last night. “Eat. Drink.” He arches a single brow at me. “It’d be inconvenient for me if you died.”

I ignore his cold words, the inconvenience I threaten him with if I deny the drink he offers and let myself dry out and rot. My despair vanishes, adamance taking its place.

“That better be coffee.”

His rugged demeanor slips, surprise stealing his smirk. “The medicine?”

What?No coffee?

Holding the camisole flat against my chest, I crawl across the floor one-handed to the canteen. It’s soft-bodied and green, as if made from leaves. I twist open the top and pour the liquid down my throat, the very same substance that nearly drowned me yesterday now giving me life and thrumming through me as I gulp down the final drop and toss the canteen aside.

I steal a glance at Elivander, at his features framed in darkness, his chiseled jaw and the curve of his broad shoulders. He watches me, masking the tiniest hint of a smile framed by a shadow of stubble as I kneel on the floor and scarf down the bar, not bothering to pick off the bits of blue pocket lint. It’s bland, the texture disturbing, but worse is the flavor of blood that the nutty morsels take on as I swallow bite after bite. I curl up onmy side as the last chunk goes down, groaning and clutching my middle, my gut like a rock.

“You ass,” is all I find the grit to say.