Page 17 of Saving Sparrow (Slow Burns & Tragic Beginnings #2)

I didn’t dare drop my gaze to his hand or the keys. It would only make things worse if I acknowledged how closely I paid attention to him.

“Don’t you want to know what happened after that day?” The perfectly good day Amelia ruined.

Aside from the dark circles beneath his eyes, Sparrow’s physical beauty was flawless. He was similar to Elliott in that way, but so different in other aspects.

Elliott traveled through a barrage of expressions. Scared, embarrassed, shy… aroused. Sparrow was almost militant, his tells harder to spot.

“He used to blush a lot,” I said, noting one of the significant differences between them. “We got good at reading him by how intensely he flushed.” Rosy pinpricks along his cheeks betrayed his shyness.

Sparrow’s chin shifted to the left slightly. Not enough for him to glance over his shoulder at the open door, but enough to let me know where his thoughts were headed. He wanted to leave.

I was tempted to rush past him, to run as fast and as far as my frail limbs would take me if it meant not being left alone in here again.

But what then? I couldn’t get outside without the keys, and I wouldn’t leave anyway.

Not without Elliott. I’d remain Sparrow’s prisoner until he freed me. Until he freed us.

“The skin right below his eyes would redden when he was angry. He didn’t need to cry for it to happen.” I kept talking in the hope my words would tempt him to stay and listen. I’d taken another step forward, now within arm’s reach of him.

“Stop,” he warned, sending goose bumps racing along my skin. My fight-or-flight instincts activated, and I backed away.

Sparrow turned for the door, and in my panic, I abandoned all thoughts of self-preservation and ran after him. The door slammed closed before I got there. I banged against it, shouting to be let out.

“How much longer are you going to keep me in here?” I banged again. “Sparrow!” I rammed my shoulder against the wood, groaning as the pain reverberating through my torso knocked the wind out of me.

Panting, I rested my sweaty forehead against the door, unsure if he was even on the other side. “He wouldn’t want this. Please, he wouldn’t want this.” I sank to the floor, waiting for him to come back.

Sparrow didn’t return. Not with lunch or dinner and not to replenish the firewood. I crawled into bed, shivering when the embers died out, letting exhaustion take me.

Over the next few nights, the hallucinations worsened until hearing the sirens and my mother’s lullaby became a nightly thing. I knew things were really bad when on the eighth night of no heat, no food, or contact from Sparrow, I startled awake to the sound of a small child crying.

My heart beat rapidly against my ribcage, my breaths puffing harshly through numb lips. Disoriented, I put my glasses on to look around the cold room for the source of what jarred me from my sleep. The only sounds I heard were the howl of the wind and the light shuddering of the windowpane.

Falling back onto the pillows, I turned to the nightstand as I always did when waking up over the last several days. No food. No water.

My gut felt hollow, my insides eating themselves. The faucet water was the only reason I was still alive. It at least kept the dehydration at bay.

And if it weren’t for the numerous hot showers, followed by dozing on the steamy bathroom floor, I likely would’ve frozen to death.

I’d found a patchwork quilt folded on the closet shelf, but the room was too cold for it to have made a huge difference.

Not even stuffing a towel around the cracks of the window had helped. The cold was determined to get in.

I’d considered Sparrow’s clothing more than once, but imagining the consequences of being caught layered in his things stopped me every time.

The chronic cough I’d developed started up again. The attack on my lungs was fierce and unending. It didn’t stop until I’d curled onto my side, clutching my ribs and dry heaving.

I didn’t need a mirror to know the wetness at the corner of my mouth was blood, nor a doctor to tell me the burning in my chest was due to an infection. I would die here, and there’d be no one to save Elliott.

I couldn’t keep my eyes open, which was for the best anyway. My heart ached less when I was asleep.

The small cry sounded again, and my eyelids flew open. I held my breath, not wanting the sudden loud rattling in my chest to interfere with my hearing. The cry was louder when it came again.

I thought I might faint by the time I’d made it out of bed. My body felt too heavy to carry me over to the door. I somehow managed, gripping the doorknob, twisting and yanking as if expecting it to miraculously open. The cry rose in volume.

Where was Sparrow? Why wasn’t he helping? Why was a child even here?

“I-I’m coming,” I stammered. “I’m coming.” I dropped to my knees, wheezing through the pain as I peered through the keyhole. Like before, all I could see was the door across the wide hallway, which seemed miles away.

The cry was an urgent sob now, eating away at me. Coughing, I crawled on hands and knees over to the nightstand, tearing the drawers open for anything I could find to pick the lock. They were still empty, and now my fear came from not being able to save the child the way I hadn’t saved Elliott.

Swaying to my feet, I turned over the other nightstand’s drawers, then headed for the closet. I ripped every item of clothing off its hanger, searching every pocket for something I could use. My mind was on the edge of splintering when I turned up nothing useful.

I considered the hangers themselves, but they weren’t the cheap, wiry kind. The metal hook would be impossible for me to bend, making it impossible to shove into the bedroom door’s lock.

I banged my shoulder against the doorframe on my way out of the closet, too desperate and focused to acknowledge the pain.

The armoire. I hadn’t checked the armoire.

Neat stacks of books were lined up inside. I flipped through each one, hurling them over my shoulder as I went, until empty shelves stared back at me. I thought maybe something of use might have been tucked between the inked pages, but there’d been nothing. Not even a bookmark.

“There has to be something,” I gritted out, feeling feral.

The crying stopped abruptly, and somehow that frightened me more.

I got down on the floor, peering under the ancient piece of furniture, but the room was too dim for me to see anything.

Stretching out on my stomach, I slid my arm beneath it, feeling around until a small piece of cold metal met my fingertips.

I could’ve wept looking down at the paperclip I pulled free.

Hurrying over to the door, I unraveled the paperclip before snapping it in half. I had no clue what I was doing, but I poked and twisted until I found a lever, applying tension to it while I pushed it around with the other end of the clip.

My clammy fingers kept slipping on the clip, and I had to dry my hands on my sweats and start over several times. Twenty minutes later, the latch clicked, and fear consumed me as I thought about what Sparrow would do when he found out.

The child’s whimper sounded again, and I didn’t let myself think twice about jumping into action.

After peering down the long hallway and seeing no signs of Sparrow, I dragged myself across the hall and lowered in front of the door. All I could see through the skeleton keyhole was a wall on the other side of the room. I could hear the child’s distressed whine, though.

“I’m coming,” I whispered close to the keyhole, peering down the hall again before getting a good hold on the broken paperclip.

Please let this work , I thought, because what were the chances that lightning would strike twice in one night?

I worked, glancing down the dim hallway every time the flickering light made a buzzing sound. It felt like the walls were closing in on me, like any second Sparrow would reach the top of the stairs and spot me. Would he even bother with a beating this time? Or would he fire a round at my head?

“Help,” the child cried, and for the first time I considered that Sparrow might be in there with him. It didn’t matter. I pushed and twisted, swiping the sweat from my brow before pushing and twisting again. The lock wouldn’t budge.

My throat tickled, and I coughed as quietly as I could into my shoulder before attacking the lock again. I’d just made up my mind to go hunt down a hammer, or anything that would get me inside this room, when the latch clicked.

I shoved the door open, entering before fully getting to my feet. What I found sent me staggering back into the hall, bracing a hand on the wall.

“You gave me your room,” I’d said to Sparrow. “Why?”

“The other bedrooms are all spoken for.”

Swallowing, I turned my gaze from the many closed doors along the hallway, tentatively stepping back into the fire engine-themed nursery.

My shocked stare dropped to the childlike figure sitting on the floor in front of a crib. He smiled when he saw me, cheeks dry. I looked at the two action figures he held, locked in battle. He’d been playing pretend.

He abandoned them, reaching for the broken pieces of a toy fire truck. He held it out to me, his blue gaze begging me to fix it. He even wore a matching pajama set.

When I’d said Sparrow was their protector, I’d meant his own protector and Elliott’s. Never in my wildest dreams had I expected this. I should have, but I didn’t.

My heart fractured further for the man holding me captive, for the heavy burden he carried on his shoulders. I sat on the floor in front of Sparrow—if that was the name this alter went by—and vowed that I would fix things. That I would fulfill his silent request to make everything better.