Page 33 of The Hollowed
“Those dumb motherfuckers left me behind,” Myra whispered, her voice quiet and venomous as she dragged the back of her hand across her sweat slicked brow. “Of fucking course. I should’ve fucking known.” She spat the words out like broken glass, each one cutting deeper as she forced open the sewer gate with a grunt and lowered herself down the ladder.
The Academy had drilled it into them to have cold hearts and to make even colder decisions. Survival mattered more than sentiment, but still, some naive part of her had believed that they would come back for her. That if she just hid for long enough, they’d return. But even after the sun rose, no one had come looking.
Fine.
She didn’t need them. She’d been alone before, and she’d survive alone again. That thought was enough to carry her through the tunnels until she emerged back within the safety of the hospital. The anger, though, clung to her ribs like it was a part of her very being.
“Back so soon?” Cipher’s voice carried from the armory. He was cataloguing the day’s inventory and his glasses slipped down the bridge of his nose as he ticked off items.
Myra didn’t answer. Instead, she dropped her rifle onto thecounter with a sharp clatter, followed by both of her handguns and the last magazine from her vest.
Cipher looked up with an arched brow. “I’m guessing it didn’t go well?”
“Nope,” Myra said flatly as she peeled off her vest. She nearly groaned at the relief of the weight being lifted, but she knew her shoulders ached from carrying more than just the gear.
“And the others…?” Cipher asked.
Myra shook her head as a bitter laugh caught in her throat. “Who fucking knows.”
Cipher leaned back slightly, adjusting his glasses with a slow push of his finger. “Alrighty then.”
There was no judgment or pity in the way he spoke to her. His calmness pressed against the raw edges of her fury, irritating her, yet offering a strange kind of relief she didn’t want to admit she needed.
“Can you meet me back in my room in thirty minutes?” she asked, her lips pressed tight.
They had done this long enough for her to know there was no need for games or theatrics. When she asked, he came.
Cipher glanced at his watch, and the faintest crease formed between his brows. “I can make it in forty-five. Will that work?”
“That’s perfect,” she replied without hesitation.
She tugged her long dark hair free from its braid, letting it fall loose around her shoulders before she turned on her heel. She didn’t look back as she headed for the showers, but the thought of Cipher waiting for her was the one thing keeping her from unraveling completely.
“Mhmm…” Myra moaned as a wild, reckless grin tugged at her lips.
Maybe it was the adrenaline still coursing through her from the night before, or maybe it was just the raw, desperate need for release clawing at her nerves. Whatever the reason, she couldn’t bring herself to care.
Her gaze locked onto Cipher’s, his soft blue eyes gone dark. His glasses had been tossed somewhere earlier, and he somehow looked more innocent without them. She loved the way his head fell back against the pillow, the way his hands gripped her hips hard enough to bruise.
Sometimes in moments like this, she wondered how the hell she had ended up here. She was the soldier, the one bred for violence and survival, and he was their quiet tech expert who could lose himself in wires for hours. She shouldn’t have found herself so enthralled by the way he touched her like she was the most valuable thing in the world. Yet here she was, completely captivated by him and dangerously close to admitting that she didn’t just want him — she needed him.
That truth terrified her more than any infection ever could.
“Please, Myra,” Cipher begged, his voice rough as his eyes fluttered shut. His plea came out ragged and desperate as she moved against him.
“Please what?” Myra asked, teasing as she leaned forward and let her fingers weave through his messy blonde hair. She tugged just enough for his head to arch back and his hips to jerk upwards in a desperate search for the friction he craved.
He groaned, and his mouth fell slightly agape. “More. Faster.”
Her grin widened. “Yeah? Is that what you want?” she teased, pressing a kiss to the hollow of his throat before straightening and rolling her hips again with purpose. Her palms flattened against his chest, feeling the frantic rhythm of his heartbeat beneath. “You’re so good for me, you know that?” she whispered. “Don’t worry. I’ve got you.”
“I know you do. I know,” he said breathlessly. Nodding his head as he looked back up at her with an unguarded expression. His fingers loosened their grip on her hips and slid up her sides, tracing over her skin with something close to reverence.
Myra’s own heart skipped in time with his as she watched the man beneath her fall apart under her touch. His words felt like they were coming from a place between want and need. She shivered under his roaming hands, her head falling back as the long waves of her hair stuck to the sweat dripping down her back. Her fingers curled into his chest until her nails bit against his skin hard enough to leave her own marks there. Proof, solid and real, that she had been here. Just as the bruises on her hips showed he had been with her.
“Myra…” Her name was a prayer that tumbled from his lips between breathless pants that filled the air around them with heat. “I —”
She stopped him with a kiss, swallowing the rest of his sentence before he could say something that would turn this moment into something else. The heat of the adrenaline still clawing at her insides drove her hips down against his with a reckless need. But the way he held her now, the way his voice said her name, like he wanted her for something more than just a release, all of it felt like they were dancing far too close to something terrifyingly real.