The room is silent. My screams linger on the walls like ghosts that only I can hear. The pain in my body is gone—no, not gone. Numb. Painfully numb. My arms don’t move when I will them to, and my mind, it’s scattered. Gone.

I feel transported back to that day with my therapist, the scent of bleach not quite covered by the warm scented candles lit in the office, and just enough to force me from my body. Something else controls my body, keeps me paralyzed while I lay there, alone and bleeding on the concrete floor, mere inches away from the exit.

My eyes stretch over to the five tunnels across the landing. They taunt me, laugh at me. So close, yet I failed. I failed to escape, to kill the men, to find the files. I’m punished by my freedom dancing just out of my reach.

A tear slides down my cheek. I can’t give up. My dad wouldn’t. Bane wouldn’t. Even if I had only imagined Bane, he might still be looking for me. He may have received my message already.

My head raises for only a second before a bolt of pain spreads across my chest. I can’t move, but I can hear—soft angry echoes from the interior tunnels behind me.

“How do you expect her to talk if you put her into shock?!”

It’s Castor, or at least, it should be. His voice is deep, a rumble deep in his chest, slow and soft, carefully choosing each word in his head before voicing them.

“This wasn’t about making her talk!” Baron hisses. “It was about teaching her a fucking lesson and maybe it’ll break down her insufferable attitude in the process!”

“That doesn’t matter,” Castor says, quieter this time. He pauses, swallowing down whatever is choking his words. “You can’t treat her like that. You lost control.”

“The moment she involved children, she lost the right to my restraint. We tried asking nicely and clearly that was a mistake. Now she gets to deal with me.”

Castor shuffles along with the sound of a hand slapping leather.

“Do not touch her again,” Castor says lowly.

“Excuse me?” Baron scoffs.

“Give it a rest! Haven’t you done enough?”

Thick silence fills the air. If I could move, maybe I could understand the fear in Castor’s voice or the anger in Baron’s. Maybe I could understand why they seemed to think I murdered children while I was locked away in a concrete room thirty feet underground, but all I see are shadows dancing across the walls, growing larger and exaggerated in their movements as Baron’s shadow holds Castor’s in a death grip.

“I’m nowhere close to done,” Baron growls. “If you get in my way again, I’ll show you the same courtesy.”

Confusion settles in my chest, a stone on top of the excruciating pain. The files of the Codex were incomplete, my knowledge of the three leaders sparse at best, but there was never any indication of a hierarchy among the three. If I’d pegged one of them as a leader, I’d assumed it was Alastor. As subservient as he is to his brother, watching other people in power can make you hunger for it. The leader of a terrorist organization would be perfect for it.

Now I’m not so sure. Even when Castor tortured me before, he was deeply controlled. If anything, Baron seems to take orders from Castor. But his shadow shrinks and his hand falls to his side when Baron barks an inaudible order at him before disappearing.

His footsteps come closer—-large boots scraping along the dirty floor as he approaches my still body.

My eyes move back up to the ceiling, watching as the leaves drift along the glass dome overhead, mocking me with my own freedom. I study each pattern, each leaf of oak and maple that falls along the glass in an array of yellowing green and orange and red. I watch the wind push them out of sight, and I memorize that feeling. The feeling of the wind on me, the colors of leaves that I won’t be able to touch and the color of the overcast sky that I’ll probably never see again.

I allow a tear to fall when Castor picks me up. I don’t have the energy to cry, and if I did, it wouldn’t matter. I won’t allow them the satisfaction of hearing me beg for my life before they kill me.

He moves inside the office, setting me down on the bare desk. Dust kicks up and a burn settles in my lungs. I shut my eyes and hold my breath, willing myself not to cough. He knows I’m awake, that I’m certain of, so why I decide to play dead, I’m not sure. Maybe if I’m asleep, I’ll have a moment to rest, to prepare for the day where I shut my eyes and don’t wake up.

And for a moment, I don’t. My vision turns black and everything goes still for a moment. It’s peaceful, like I’m floating. There’s no pain, no fear. Then I wake up again, seconds later, and Castor is gone.

Twice more, I pass out from the pain. Those fleeting moments where death toys with me, teases me, beckons me almost as cruelly as them, but the pain floods back every time and reminds me that I’m not dead. There is no peace yet, and a part of me wants that, to sleep, to rest, but not even death wants me. Not yet.

My vision clears just as the door to the office shuts with a weighted slam. Castor moves silently, his back to me while he moves around the large space. He sets down a small case, the metal clunking on the ground.

“I know you’re awake,” he says.

I nearly black out when I see a small stiletto knife appear from his jacket. His eyes lock and my pulse quickens.

I should’ve kept my eyes shut. I should’ve stayed asleep. I should’ve walked out of here when I saw he was gone.

He leans down, and the cool metal taps against my side. I wait for it, the searing pain, the metal tearing through my skin, my life ending while I stare at his soulless eyes.

It never comes, and the sound of tearing isn’t my skin. It’s his own clothes being torn away, cut meticulously at the cuffs of his sleeves until they fall away.

He bundles the cloth in his hand, wrapping like a boxer would with bandages.

Adrenaline rises in my veins, pumping through them like a drug. Even as weak as I am, it doesn’t stop me from trying to throw a punch before he can throw his.

He catches my wrist before I’m anywhere near his body, and his eyes narrow. “Don’t start.”

He yanks my wrist off the edge of the desk and my head spins, the motion creates circles in my head and knocks my balance sideways.

“What are you doing?” I rasp.

Castor shoves his hand into his pocket, coming back with a small clear bottle. The contents inside are unmarked and when he drenches the fabric bunched in his hands and slides it over the few gashes on my arm, I have to fight back the scream that catches in my throat.

I wince when a sharp burn radiates up my arm. The poison. I yank back my arm, frantically wiping the residue of it on my clothes. The motion sends a bolt of pain through my side until Castor catches my wrist, pouring more of the liquid on the cloth and dabbing it on my chest.

The shock of the pain is almost as strong as the scent that finally resonates in my brain. Alcohol. It’s evident in the way my skin burns similarly to the poison, only my skin doesn’t corrode and curdle like the evidence of it on my legs.

I moan in pain when the liquid drips onto one of the deeper wounds.

“Stop,” I croak, pushing at his hand.

His eyes meet mine in an irritated glare.

“Don’t make me tie you down.” He throws my hand away and resumes cleaning the gashes on my chest, muttering to himself. “I’m not in the mood.”

It hurt. A lot. I want to excuse my immobility because of the pain or exhaustion, but a part of me is confused, if not curious about what the hell he’s doing. Why is he helping me? He was the reason I have most of my wounds to begin with. This is the same man who wordlessly threatened to bite off my clit for not giving away my CO, and now he’s cleaning my wounds, grumbling to himself like it’s an inconvenience.

Like I asked him to.

I let him work. I don’t have a choice. Even if the pain wasn’t blinding on its own, the blood loss will kill me faster than starvation will.

He moves slowly over each line, taking care in the places where the lines intersect—where the cuts are the deepest. I wince and jerk when the pressure is too deep and he backs off, moving swiftly but gently across my skin.

“You’d save yourself a lot of pain if you cooperated,” he says without looking up.

He switches directions, only glancing up at me once before he removes the cloth in a frustrated sigh.

“Fine. Don’t talk.” He gets up, discarding the empty alcohol bottle and his bandages in the small metal case.

The blood is gone and I can finally see the gross etch of the star. The lines were jagged and rough from my efforts to stop Baron, but the points are all evenly divided, carved into a perfect shape across the center of my chest. The pain is receding steadily, ebbing from an unbearable burn to a sharp sting.

Castor pats his hands dry before he takes a seat on the floor next to the desk. I don’t want to speak. I want to sleep, to rest and welcome that warm feeling again, but I open my mouth anyway.

“What did he mean about children?”

His head lifts, an eyebrow raising. “You didn’t know?”

I shake my head. “I don’t kill children.”

“Right,” Castor scoffs. “Wrong place, wrong time in a location you just happened to give us.”

My eyes narrow. I’ve done a lot of things, but I’ve never killed children. I’ve never put an innocent kid in harm’s way, even if it was at the expense of losing a target. That’s what separates us from people who think the Geneva Conventions are just a suggestion.

“I don’t kill children,” I say again.

Castor shrugs. “I doubt Baron will believe that.”

“Do you?”

He doesn’t answer.

The lights above us flicker, the harsh fluorescents humming softly in the dead air. Baron hasn’t come looking for us yet, or maybe Castor was supposed to kill me and cleaning my wounds is just a way to prepare my body to be sent back to Bane like a packaged gift with the star as a thank you letter to him.

I move my fingers and they flex slowly, painlessly. I place my palms on the table and shift myself, gasping when the sting comes back like a slap to my face.

Castor is on his feet instantly, pushing my shoulders back down.

“Stay still. You’re going to hurt yourself,” he orders.

“Why do you care?” I snap. “You’re terrorists. You don’t care if children die.”

His gaze hardens. “I think you’ll find that we care about a lot more than you want to believe. You still want to call us terrorists?”

“That’s what you are!”

“Don’t believe everything you’re told.”

“Told?” I scoff. “No one ‘told’ me anything. Your activities aren’t exactly a secret, and your opinion on the people you murdered won’t change history.”

Castor shakes his head and he drops the cloth back into the case.

“You’re right. It won’t change history.” He turns back to me, pushing the line of blonde curls out of his face. “But who do you think writes history, doll?”

He raises a brow, challenging me for an answer. “The winners.”

“Or the survivors,” I rasp.

Castor groans. “You’re unbearably stubborn.” He shrugs off his jacket and he presses a finger to his temple, massaging the spot in aggravation.

My eyes flick to his body as he leans against the wall. His black shirt clings to his chest, and a thick layer of muscle visible even underneath the fabric. A layer of sweat beads down his brow, flattening his curls to his head and disappearing underneath the burgundy scarf wrapped tightly around his neck.

When my eyes move back up, his eyes don’t find mine. They’re roving over me. Studying me. Burning into every inch of my body. His jaw clenches and his eyes move up to mine—the same brown eyes, dark like every inch of him where his soul would be but consumed by a black hole. But there’s a glimmer in them now. A tiny sliver of hunger that makes his eyes darker. Ravenous.

A look that wants to devour me, the way he’d done when he tortured me.

When he kneels next to me, he breathes out, temporarily allowing enough room for him to speak while I watch him frozen.

“You’re not the first woman I’ve tortured,” he says in a dangerous tone. His hand hovers above my marred skin, the wound almost as large as his hands splayed over my sternum. He hesitates, his eyes finding mine for a second before he rests it on top of the sensitive skin.

“We don’t see a lot of women in my line of work, but I like to think I treat all of my captives equally: electrocution, knives, poison, limbs removed, teeth extracted.” His hand raises just enough for the pads of his fingers to graze along each swollen cut on my chest. “This wasn’t supposed to happen. Baron acted out of anger. I never torture without a purpose, and this…this was too far.”

My breath quickens when his hand moves lower, sinking beneath the valley of my breasts and past my navel to the waistband of my fatigues. I shut my eyes, trying to stop the budding panic, the tremor of my legs. Even if I was strong enough to fight him off, it’s painfully clear that I can’t navigate these tunnels without help, especially not with them hot on my tail.

So when his fingers hook around the sides of my pants, I can’t stop the quiver in my lip or the burn in my throat from unshed tears.

“Don’t,” I whisper.

He parts my legs. “I have to.”

My voice quivers and tears blur my vision.

“What are you doing?”

His breath fans against the thick polyester and his simple words make me shiver.

“Apologizing.”

His muscles tense as he yanks them off my hips, forcing my fatigues and underwear down to my ankles in a single tug. My bare ass falls against the table seconds later and I shiver from the cool metal. He takes care in removing them from each leg, lifting my feet and pulling the fabric aside until it falls away to the ground. My shirt and jacket covers the expanse of my back, but it’s not the cold that terrifies me as Castor lifts my leg, planting soft kisses along my calf.

I find enough strength to push at his hands, pounding against them with a force I wish I’d used before now.

“Don’t do this,” I say between my quick panicked breaths. “I don’t know anything, I swear.”

He releases my ankle, the same hand coming up to my face, his thumb drawing against my lip. His other hand moves between my parted legs, spreading my lips and pressing a finger against my entrance as if asking for my permission.

A tear slides down my cheek.

Please…

“Remember the promise I made you.” He lets go of my face, sinking to his knees at my feet. “Not until you’re begging for it.”

He cuts off my protest when his finger slides inside of me. I gasp, the sudden intrusion forcing pleasure to ripple through my body, spidering out from my middle and settling in my throat where I bite down a moan.

Fuck, it’s good. Too good. It shouldn’t be. I want to break his hands for touching me, to beg him to stop. Those emotions swirl in my mind: anger, fear, anguish and—fucking hell—-pleasure.

My mind is screaming, begging for him to stop, but each time he slides out and curls into that spot, he effortlessly makes my body move in just the right ways that make me despise him. The kind that has my toes curling and my head thrown back in a silent moan.

He eases in another, and I almost lose myself. My fists clench and I force my jaw open so I don’t break my teeth.

“Castor…”

I glance down at him, my face heating up instantly. He’s watching me, gauging my reactions, my quickly dissolving restraint, my breaths turning into gasps and pants when he stretches me with a third finger.

“That’s it baby.” He slides them in again, a soft chuckle caught in his throat when my eyes roll back. “Say my name. Moan for me while I devour you.”

My mouth opens in question, but it comes out as a cry when his tongue flattens against my clit.

His free hand clamps over my mouth, muting my pleasured cries. His tongue circles my clit, evading the sensitive bud.

The pain from his interrogation is still there and the jolts of pain collide with the pleasure while his fingers move at a steady pace.

I whimper but force myself to stay quiet.

He stops, planting a kiss on one thigh, then the other, looking up at me while his hand slides from my mouth and down my middle.

“Be quiet now, baby,” he hums softly.

He takes my fist in his hands, massaging them until my palm relaxes Into his.

“Keep yourself quiet.” He places my hand over my mouth, giving me a lazy grin. “I’d hate for us to be interrupted.”

He dives into me, only now, he’s not attempting to be careful like before. His tongue moves over my clit, swirling around my swollen bud and each time his fingers thrust into me, I find myself climbing higher and higher along the edge.

I grip my face tightly, clamping hard over my mouth. I want to scream out, in protest, or to call out his name. Fuck, it’s too good to be silent.

Then it clicks in my brain. Baron. Baron doesnt know Castor is here. He could come in here any minute and see what Castor is doing to me, how close he’s pushing me towards the edge and—oh god I need it.

That thought pushes me over the edge. I’m falling, crashing against the waves of an orgasm I didn’t want with a man that wants to kill me. I clamp down on my hand to stop the screams from coming out, and I’m sure I draw blood even as Castor forces me to ride it out until he’s devoured every part of me.

He moans beneath me, the corners of his mouth turning up when I twitch and shake from the jolts of pleasure.

Peace. That’s the only word that can describe it. It comes in waves—those rare moments of lucidity after hell is rained down on someone. I felt it before, once, in my therapist’s office. The quietness of my mind. That serene feeling of being back at home with my family, before the military.

The euphoria of my orgasm drops instantly when his teeth graze along my thigh. My eyes widen, panic flooding my system.

“Wait.” My hands tangle his hair, pulling and pushing in desperation to pry him off. My clit throbs, the memory and anticipation of that same agonizing pain coming back.

“Stop, don’t do this. Castor.”

He leans in and I shut my eyes, trembling at the thought of being bitten, of my pleasure being used as a weapon against me, but he only plants a soft kiss on my thigh, dragging his lips along the soft skin.

“I told you before, Helena.” His voice crackles against my skin, and he gives my calf one last peck before pulling away. “This is an apology. Nothing more.”

I don’t believe him. It’s some fucked up game they’re playing, both of them. They want me vulnerable, to think that it’s over before they come back again with a worse kind of torment.

Still, I will my racing heart to calm and the tremor in my legs to stop while he watches me, his shoulder against the wall.

“Baron isn’t the type of man who likes to apologize,” Castor says. His eyes take me in but he looks away just as quickly. “Even if he did believe you, I wouldn’t want to piss him off any more than you already have.”

“I had nothing to do with whatever happened.”

He raises a brow. “He’s not very happy with being made a fool of either.”

I shake my head. He has no concept of what it’s like to be made a fool of. Torturing me was his own choice.

I brace myself on my hands, finally pushing myself up from the cold table. My skin is ice, goosebumps trickling at my skin when I stir the air. I stumble back on my hands but eventually manage to rotate myself until I can sit. The pain in my chest spikes with each movement but it’s tolerable—that same friend I’d grown accustomed to and eventually forgot.

I tuck my knees in, trying but not quite able to cover my bare body with the large open cover of my tactical jacket.

“What did he expect me to do?” I say after a moment. “If you were in my position, would you have given him up just to avoid pain?”

He doesn’t answer, but his eyes flicker, a gloss forming over them for no more than a second where he doesn’t look at me. He looks through me, into that void that I find every time i look in his eyes. They’re far off, not quite present until he blinks, and then it’s gone again.

“Bane isn’t looking for you, Helena. You know that.”

I frown, my eyes narrowing at the obvious lie.

The military is nothing if not the one place where people look out for each other. That includes recruits and commanders alike.

“He can’t protect you in here.” He pauses, taking a step closer. “I can.”

I scoff.

There it is, the little gamble to play. His manipulation coated in pleasure and presented as an offering of protection and apology.

What a sick bastard, preying on someone’s vulnerability. But this is the exact man I’d met in the forest. The wolf in sheep’s clothing. The Devil.

“Do you think I was born yesterday?” I spit. “Protect me? I’m not an idiot, Castor. You’d be guarding a corpse like a dog with a bone. Don’t act like that benefits me.”

Castor sighs, moving away from the wall. He bends down for just a moment to pick up the case, flashing the tanned muscles hidden under each his shirt, and I bite down on my cheek when I feel them heat up.

He opens the door quietly, the creaking metal almost making me cringe from the earlier dead silence. He pauses, his head turned back towards me. “We’re not bad men, Helena. One of us wants to help innocent people.”

The door clicks shut behind him. He doesn’t return with Baron and their shadows are no longer dancing under the fluorescent lights.

Was I wrong about them? About Castor? He had an opportunity to torture me again. He forced himself on me and I couldn’t defend myself. He could’ve done much worse things to my body, cut me, burned me, turned my body against me and given me that excruciating pain. But he didn’t.

My mind drifts back to their conversation earlier. He defended me. He’d kept Baron from hurting me, and his face got cut for trying to stop Baron from torturing me again.

Maybe Castor isn’t the one I should be worried about…

No. Fuck no. They did this. The Codex. Baron and Castor. Theyre fucking with my head, toying with me like they always do. That’s all this is to them. Pain and torture. They’re games, and I refuse to play them. They took everything from me and now they want to take the only man reminiscent of a father that I have left. The last connection I have.

They won’t fucking take that from me.