Page 30

29

H ours roll by.

It feels like hours. Each one stretches painfully, like the elastic balloon of grief inside my chest. I stare at Jasper through the bars. He’s slumped sideways, his shoulder pressed to the right side of his cage as his chest slowly heaves in and out.

“What do you think they’ll do to us?” he asks as I aimlessly draw patterns on the dusty floor with my big toe. “Torture? Dismemberment?” He tilts his face toward me and frowns. “That man in the silver suit…he strikes me as the creative type. A satanic ritual, acid baths, Medieval torture methods. Something twisted like that.” Cringing, Jasper adds, “Scaphism. Do they still do scaphism?”

My nose scrunches. “I don’t think so.”

“Maybe they’ll sell us to the highest bidder, and we’ll become circus entertainers.”

I’ve spent the last hour filling him in on the details of my captivity.

The injections, the blackouts.

Roger.

Books, mementos, evil nurses, and the doctor with beady eyes and rat ears.

Screams. Terror. The other victims.

I dodge the subject of Isaac to the best of my ability, only giving him minor details. I don’t know why, but Isaac feels too personal, like a cherished secret. All I tell him is that he was the last prisoner on the other side of my wall.

I don’t tell him I never got to see his face.

And I don’t tell him his face is the one thing I wanted to see most over the past couple of months. More than I craved fresh air in my lungs and sunlight on my skin.

But I realize it’s for the best that I never got to memorize the color of his eyes, or the texture of his hair, or the angles of his jaw. If I had a face to put to the name, I’d be eaten alive. Gutted from the inside out.

And then there would be nothing left of me.

Jasper needs me right now. He needs me to be strong, capable, and vigilant. I’ve had practice with this kind of pain. Two harrowing years of it.

His words register as I lean back against the cage. The unknowns of my future play out in morbid color, but I can’t imagine a fate worse than this.

Worse than my own self-inflicted guilt.

“I don’t know,” I murmur. “I never thought about becoming circus entertainers.”

“Mm. Sounds like the most palatable option.”

I doubt that. “I never know what comes next. This place is unpredictable.”

He looks over at me, a mix of longing and despair dulling his green eyes. “How have you managed to cope? Mentally?”

A reasonable question.

The truth is, I just did. Human beings have no idea what they’re capable of until they’re thrown into the pits of hell with no armor, no reinforcements, and no way out. When your back is against the wall, you use that wall to stay standing. When your life flashes before your eyes, you turn those flickers into light—a light at the end of the tunnel. You take each day as it comes, knowing it’s another chance to make your way to the other side.

Nobody ever prepares for the worst-case scenario. But our survival instincts are our greatest weapon; a weapon that remains dormant until we’re faced with the unimaginable.

And then we fight.

My breathing steadies as I close my eyes and whisper, “I had no other choice.”

Time presses on.

Fifty-seven seconds.

Jasper’s voice sounds farther away with every second that ticks by, until, eventually, I doze. Exhaustion carries me into fire-drenched nightmares, and I hear Isaac calling my name as flames lick the walls and charred beams crumble from the ceiling.

I’m trapped.

My skin melts, my hair singes.

“Everly,” he calls out, a garbled jumble of syllables. He sings my name like the opening chords to a bleak overture. “You’re looking in the wrong place.”

I search for him, pushing through the wall of thick smoke. I’m moving in slow motion, fiery streaks blurring past me, everything ablaze.

I can’t find him. I can’t?—

There.

A shadow moves. It’s him. I can’t see his face…but I feel him.

Comfort. Reprieve.

Isaac.

An arm extends through the flickering heat. His hand reaching for mine. Our fingers finally about to touch. No more walls, no more barriers. I reach and reach and reach …

But his hand disintegrates.

Turns to ashes the moment we clasp.

I open my mouth to scream but nothing comes out. My words are ashes, too. Everything is dust and debris. It’s too late.

His voice is the last thing I hear before I’m startled awake, and reality punctures me.

But it’s not Isaac’s voice bellowing my name.

It’s Jasper’s.

And I don’t feel fire…I smell it.

My eyelids flutter as the scent of smoke wafts underneath my nose and everything comes whirling back to me in a cloud of fear.

“Everly, wake up.” Jasper is frantic. “Everly!”

I jolt upright, my eyes flaring all the way open. Jasper scrambles to his knees, both hands curled around the bars as he gapes at the doorway. Following his stare, I nearly choke when I see a chalky plume of gray filtering into the room.

Alarms go off, blaring and shrieking.

Oh, my God.

I crawl on my hands and knees and start yanking on the bars. “Help! Somebody help us!”

Nobody can hear us. No one is coming.

This is the worst-case scenario—one I never truly considered. A slow, painful demise as I burn alive with the echo of my husband’s screams haunting me as I take my last breath.

No, no, no.

Panic washes over me. I pull and tug on the bars to no avail. Reaching through the opening, I jerk the padlock until my fingers nearly bleed.

The Timekeeper.

He wouldn’t let me die in here like this. I’m his product . He still needs me.

“Help!” I shriek, heaving in a smoke-laced breath. “ Help us !”

“Christ…Jesus. Everly, what do we do?” Jasper mimics my movements, trying to get his padlock to release. It won’t. It’s useless. “ Fuck !”

There’s a small window shaped like a rectangle, giving me a narrow view of the hallway. Orange firelight flickers on the other side of it. The building is going up in flames, and we’re trapped.

Doomed to die in these cages.

Tears burst from my eyes. I turn to Jasper, crawling toward him, as close as I can get. “Jasper…”

“Everly.” His eyes glisten with terror and remorse. “I just got you back. I can’t lose you again. I refuse .”

“Jasper.” My voice trembles through a moan of despair. I clutch the bars in two tight fists as salt pours down my cheeks. “Tell me a story.”

He parts his lips, hesitating. A quick shake of his head tells me he’s all out of words.

Jasper glances at the doorway, expression steeped in shock.

“Please,” I beg, a fraught whisper. I bounce on my knees. “Talk to me.”

Heaving in a long breath, he presses his forehead to the bars and closes his eyes. “Once upon a time…there was a woman. Sitting in a wine bar with a stack of papers and notebooks strewn across the table, a pencil between her teeth. I noticed her right away. Her blue eyes, big hair, pretty face. I had to know her name.” He swallows a moan. “I had to know her.”

I nod, my eyes squeezing shut as more tears leak out. “Keep going.”

“She didn’t want to talk to me at first. She was busy working on an essay about beetles.”

“The bombardier beetle.” I force a tear-filled laugh as alarm bells explode throughout the hallways. “When threatened, it can eject a boiling, noxious chemical spray from its abdomen with startling accuracy.”

“That’s right.” Smoke fills the room in a thickening cloud. Jasper coughs before continuing. “I said, ‘A girl as pretty as yourself should be on billboards, not hiding away in a wine bar researching the defense mechanisms of bugs.’”

“I said I liked bugs.”

“I said I liked you.” He sends me a sad smile, his eyes watering with grief and fumes. “I gave you my business card. A month later, you gave me your heart.”

I cough through my tears, my lungs burning. “Jasper, I?—”

The door barrels open. Voices shout.

My heart bottoms out of me.

“Over here!”

I jump to my feet and hit my head on the top of the cage. Jasper calls out, waving his arms through the bars as men in fire-resistant suits barge into the room.

I can’t believe it.

I’m dreaming.

“Help us!” Jasper yells. “Get us the fuck out of here!”

Bolt cutters slice through the padlocks.

Mine. Jasper’s.

We’re free.

As I’m crawling out of the enclosure, I’m pulled to my feet.

I’m numb. Alive. Moving.

Coughing and choking, I run toward my husband as one of the men intercepts and scoops me up, carrying me out the open door. Jasper follows behind, leaning on a firefighter for support. Flames crackle throughout the hallways as my eyes sting with smoke and tears. There’s an exit up ahead. Freedom. It’s everything I’ve wanted, craved, yearned for…

“Wait!” I beg, scrambling from the man’s grip. “Isaac. We need to find Isaac!”

He holds me tighter, his voice muffled through a face shield. “We’re getting everybody out, ma’am. Stay calm.”

But I can’t stay calm. Isaac might still be inside this burning building. “No, please, we need to go back.” I’m wiggling, writhing, pleading. “Please! We must go back!”

He doesn’t respond and keeps stalking ahead.

I glance behind me, watching Jasper cover his mouth and nose with the front of his shirt. He’s stumbling forward, chin tucked to his chest. The alarms are deafening. My desperate calls are drowned out by the noise. “Isaac!”

Maybe he’s already made it out.

Maybe he’s free.

God, please…

As we breach the warm, musky air, I slam my eyes shut, the swirl of police lights too bright, too intense. Burrowing my face against the man’s shoulder, I drink in my first nature-doused breath in two years.

I swallow it. Savor it.

I do it again, lifting my face toward the night sky, my eyes sealed shut. A breeze dances across my skin. My hair takes flight. Sound carries on all around me, but I’m lost to this moment. Something so simple, so ordinary, so pure…something I’ll never take for granted again.

I’m set on my feet, still gripping the arm of the firefighter as I fight for balance. I squint one eye open through the flashing police lights, but it hurts. It’s too much. Intrusive. Rubbing the heels of my palms to my eye sockets, I take a few minutes to adjust to the new environment.

Then, slowly, my eyelids peel open. One at a time. A fog of people comes into focus: SWAT teams, police officers, firefighters, hoses, ambulances.

Where’s Isaac?

Jasper grabs me from behind.

I let out a hoarse cry as I’m pulled into his arms, and I inhale another scent I’ll never take for granted again—him. Remnants of oaky cologne and tea-tree shampoo assault my senses, mingling with smoke and sweat.

I break down, sobbing against his chest, my arms coiling around his neck and bringing him closer.

“Everly…my God.” He peppers kisses to my hair, stroking both hands along my spine. “I’ve got you, baby. I’ve got you.”

Squeezing him tighter, I press a kiss to the side of his neck, above his collar. He cups my shoulder with one hand and inches me backward, skimming his gaze across my soot-stained face. A look of pure awe spills across his features, furrowing his brow, parting his lips.

I stare back at him, dumbstruck.

He’s aged.

His eyes don’t look the same.

Cradling his face in both hands, I dust my thumbs over his lightly stubbled jaw. “I thought you were dead,” I croak out, more tears threatening. “I never thought I’d get to touch you again.”

Something passes through him, fills his eyes.

Anguish.

He swallows hard. “I thought you were dead.” Long fingers graze through my knotted hair. “I believed it. Everly, I?—”

His words are cut short when an officer approaches, gripping me by the elbow. “Miss, we need to get you both to a hospital. The ambulance is waiting.”

I’m pried away from Jasper as I glance around. The expansive stretch of grass and weeds is fenced by a lush tree line. No other buildings to be seen. We’re in the middle of nowhere.

My eyes search, desperate.

I’m looking for someone. A faceless man.

A voice.

There are two men in handcuffs being led to a police cruiser. Behind me, a woman is wailing in an officer’s arms, her nightgown in tatters, soot and blood coating her skin.

The officer pulls me away, guiding us to the ambulance. I keep looking around with urgency, hoping I spot a man with dark hair, wearing jeans and a navy T-shirt. But I don’t see him.

As my feet catch up to the officer, I peer up at the man in uniform. “Did you rescue a man named Isaac?” I try to pull away, but he holds on to my wrist. “He was a prisoner, like me. I can’t find him…”

“Everyone made it out, Miss.”

Lies.

Not everyone .

“Please, I can’t find him. I?—”

A second man approaches, who looks like a detective. Dark-blond hair and warm brown eyes come into view as he cuts in front of us, stopping me with an extended hand.

“Can I get your name?” he prompts.

“I…” My mind is in a daze, a dreamworld. “Everly. Everly Cross.”

Recognition lights up his gaze for a beat.

He knows me. From the news reports. The media.

But he doesn’t say anything else, only giving me a short nod before his attention is pulled away.

“Wait…wait, no, please. I’m looking for someone!” I call to his retreating back. “I need to find Isa?—”

“Right this way, please,” an officer interrupts.

The detective disappears into the chaos. Hopelessness slams into me as the ambulance doors open and a gurney is rolled out.

I don’t need a gurney. I just need to know he survived.

I can’t leave him behind.

I can’t.

Jasper takes my hand in his, twining our fingers together. “It’s okay.” He gives my palm a comforting squeeze, watching the agony splay across my face. “They’ll find your friend.”

“I…I can’t leave him. Jasper, you don’t understand, I?—”

“It’ll be okay. Your mother will meet us at the hospital. Everything’s okay now.” Our fingers unlink as I’m pulled away from him. “You’re going home.”

Home.

Tears moisten my cheeks as I look over Jasper’s shoulder at the flame-engulfed building. Smoke billows up to the sky, warping the star-studded canvas with graphite spirals. I feel the heat on my skin.

Fire. People. Jasper.

Warmth.

But a chill snakes down the back of my neck. My teeth chatter. I wrap both arms around my body as shivers encompass me from toes to top.

I’ve dreamt of this moment every day for years.

Years.

Every second counted, I manifested this very scene.

Freedom. Safety. Rescue.

The bad guys lose.

I win.

But as I’m placed into the ambulance with my husband at my side and my whole life ahead of me…

I can’t help but feel defeat.