Page 20 of Not Her Day to Die (Star-Crossed #2)

“ W ave goodbye.” Sterling bites into my ear as he tugs me into the back of an SUV.

I do as requested and plaster a smile across my face. Even as the movement causes my shoulder to ache.

“You said I would see him today,” I murmur once the door shuts.

Sterling sits across from me, his arms crossed over his chest, his glasses perfectly straight.

For all intents and purposes, he appears a prefect part of society, but I know better.

He unfolds his arms, leaning forward he places his hands on my bare knees and I flinch.

Since he kissed me when I first woke up, he hasn’t crossed any other lines, but I am on edge. Never knowing what to expect next.

“You will. I was just waiting for the bids to come in.”

Anxiety expands in my lungs. “Bids?”

Sterling’s eyes swirl, his fingers stroking my bare skin. Disgusting tendrils.

Before, I likened Maxwell to the devil, but I realize that isn’t true.

This is a devil. Pure evil.

Maxwell is a shell of this man.

I want more than anything to slap Sterling away, to spit on his face, to cut off his hands, to end him once and for all. To not have this man touch me, or anyone else, ever again, but I refrain. He is the one that holds all of the power.

Currently.

“Yes.” His lips curl cruelly. “Darius will find you this evening. You are to go with him.”

He offers no other explanation as we drive back to his home. To my prison.

I have been locked away in a room upstairs, mostly left alone.

When we arrive, my head shifts to the right, further into the woods.

Axel and Grayson’s purple strands are overlapped, appearing as a single thread, and pointing in the opposite direction, back on the road from which we came. But this one is Darius’s.

He isn’t in the house, but somewhere nearby.

I just hope he’s okay. That I will in fact see him tonight.

***

Alone in the bedroom, with just my thoughts, the hours pass endlessly. A million scenarios running through my head.

What the bid could possibly be.

If Darius will actually come.

If this entire plan was pointless.

If Axel was right and I am just a stupid girl.

My mind wanders to them, to what Grayson and Axel are up to. It has been four days apart. Three more until the next part comes into play.

But will that even be enough?

Hopelessness grinds its dull teeth into my gut .

My eyes cast a glance around the room I am in. I was shocked when I first was shoved into it. When I realized it was the exact same room I was in when Maxwell tried to feed me drugs months ago.

The room Axel rescued me from.

So caught up in my thoughts, I don’t hear the footsteps until the door swings open.

And there he is.

“Darius!” I shoot to my feet.

The air in the room expands as I rush towards him. It propels me further and faster.

We are two atoms that have been held apart for too long. Bound together by fate and love and chaos.

And one hundred lifetimes.

“Sunday,” Darius gasps. He was frozen, but now he is eating up the space between us. We meet halfway into the room. Coming together in a way that heals us both.

“Darius,” I sob. My arms wrap around his neck, tug him down to me. He bends, scooping me up and I wrap my legs around him.

“I missed you, Wildflower.” He buries himself into my neck, his nose nuzzling my sensitive skin there.

For a few minutes we just stay like that, reestablishing our connection, soaking up each other’s warmth.

I do my best to ignore the bags under his eyes, the bruise marring his jaw, the new scar across his cheek.

It’s worth it. No matter what happens, if I can rescue Darius, it will all be worth it.

“How sweet,” Sterling says.

Tensing, Darius drops me carefully to the ground. Before spinning around, he puts himself between Sterling and me .

“What is this?” Darius demands.

I can’t see him, but I hear Sterling snap his fingers. “Sorry to break up this heartfelt reunion, but you two have a curtain call.”

“What’s going on?” Darius hardens his shoulders, clenching his fists.

“Surely you can make a guess. You know the girl lost me money. It’s time she earns some of it back.”

I hear heavy footsteps on the stairs outside the room.

Darius curses, spinning to me. His eyes are wild, worry etched into the set of his jaw, the thinning of his lips. “Sunday, I’m so sorry. Why did you come here?” His voice breaks.

“Darius?” My happiness from seeing him is churning into a different emotion entirely.

Curdled.

He doesn’t have a chance to answer before large sweaty hands wrench him from me, another pair landing on my shoulders. I don’t have time to take in their appearances before a hood is thrown over my head.

“Lead them to The Play House.”

“The Play House ?” There is pure fear in Darius’s words. “You can’t do this. The FBI is already on your case,” Darius argues, his voice is fainter now, the thick black bag over my head muffling it.

Sterling laughs but doesn’t respond.

“Come on.” The man who is holding me applies painful pressure, shoving me forward.

I can’t see anything.

Not my feet. Not Darius. Not the purple strand that connects us.

But I can hear as we all make our retreat, feel as I’m pushed down the stairs, and I do my best not to trip .

We continue marching until we are outside. The muggy air is still hot even in the beginning of October, but I ignore it. I try to focus on the sounds, on the direction we are going.

But it is impossible to tell; I am discombobulated.

“Sunday, when they take the hoods off, I need you to promise me not to look. Focus on my back, you need to block the rest of it out.”

“Shut up!” one of the men holding us barks, followed by a thud and a soft groan.

I want to reach out, to take hold of Darius, to use him for comfort.

But I refrain.

And so we continue our march through the woods, the crunch of leaves under my socks, the twigs occasionally poking up, piercing me.

Eventually, we slow, and a loud creaking metal door is tugged open. And then we are going down. And down. And down. The temperature decreasing with every step until I am nearly shivering.

A loud whirring overtakes my ears, painful and continuous.

But worse than that is the smell.

Copper and decay.

Feces and vomit.

Bleach and ammonia.

It is that and more, an assault to my nose. It takes everything for me not to gag. I want to breathe through my mouth and I try to, but then I am tasting it.

Bile.

When we finally come to a stop at the bottom, my hood is tugged off.

The sight isn’t worse than the smell, but it tells a horrible story.

This is a prison.

There is a long hallway that leads to a door in front of us. Above us are grates that cover huge fans .

Air flow.

But on each side there has to be more than fifty doors. Over one hundred total. Cells . I can’t see inside of them, but over the steady whirring, I can hear the wailing. The screaming. The sobbing. This is where they keep the victims.

The realization hits in two waves.

I can find Luna, but she’s down here.

I am down here, how will I ever escape?

“Don’t look around, focus on my back,” Darius says and this time the men holding us don’t stop him.

I stare at his back. The purple thread is now visible again, a comfort. It comes from my chest to near the top of his back. Connecting us by the hearts.

But there are two others.

One that wraps up and behind me, assumingly towards Grayson and Axel. And another…

My attention shifts to it. To where it leads. It doesn’t go up at all. The thread is leading to something down here. Or someone .

“Move along.” My captor’s hold on my shoulders propels me forward, and I refocus my attention on Darius’s back.

We continue our trek down the hallway, it is at the very end door on the left that the thread leads.

I want to investigate, to break free and throw the door open, but then what?

My captor shoves us through the door at the end of the hallway. I attempt to not let my curiosity take hold, but I can’t help myself.

It’s a mistake.

This area is different. It is shaped similarly to a horseshoe, on the outskirts are different rooms, but unlike where we came from, some of these I can see into. The rooms are either made up of clear or foggy glass. There are over twenty areas.

Some of them are occupied.

The clear glass leaves the inside’s activities on full display.

This time I cannot swallow down the bile. I bend over, hands on my knees and empty the contents of my stomach. It lands on my socks, and my captors shoes.

He grunts in annoyance. “Disgusting.” He shoves me away from him as I continue to fall apart.

“Let me help her,” Darius states. “My father won’t be happy if she isn’t ready in time.”

A few beats later his familiar hand is on my back.

He bends over. “Sunday,” he whispers into my ear. “If they threaten my life, I don’t care. Whatever happens if you want it to stop you just tell me and I will do whatever I can.”

I don’t understand what he means, but I don’t have time to ask.

“Let’s go.” My goon tugs me up by the back of my shirt, nearly choking me.

Doing anything to not look into the rooms around us, I focus on the center of the horseshoe.

It isn’t a room but an empty area, there is glass that goes straight across, but through that and down below is a large space. Almost similar to a theatre stage, complete with rows of seats on all sides.

“This is my favorite view of The Play House.” My captor sneers. “Let’s go.”