Page 14 of The Last One Standing (Rogue X Ara #4)

ARA

T he sun was warm on my skin, the thin dress clinging to the sweat along my spine.

I wiggled my toes in the grass, the breeze faint, and squeezed my fingers around a smaller hand.

My belly was heavier today, more uncomfortable, the weight settling in my pelvis. Waddling had become my only mode of transportation these days.

The little hand at my side tugged me forward, faster than my poor legs could go, and a laugh bubbled from my lips.

“Woah now, slow down,” a man said from behind us. The scent of pine forests and smoke enveloped me, and a smile curved my lips at the familiarity. “Your mama can hardly walk as it is.”

He wrapped an arm around my belly from behind, his palm flattening over the bump, his thumb running over it lovingly. He kissed my hair, and I closed my eyes with a hum, leaning back into his chest.

“Go on ahead,” he murmured to our little girl.

I released her hand, and she took off. I called out, “Stay where we can see you.”

He chuckled as she bounded through the grass, but it grew taller, thicker. My brows furrowed when she disappeared into it, the weeds too tall to see her brown curls.

“W-wait.” I staggered forward a step after her. “Wait! Come back, honey. I can’t?—”

“She’ll be fine.” He tugged my hand, swiveling me into his chest, but I couldn’t stop looking over my shoulder.

The grass didn’t sway.

No clumsy footfall or snapping sticks or giggling.

The silence had grown eerie in the absence of her noise.

My heart raced, pounding against my sternum as I tried to pull away and go after her, but his grip grew harsh. I sucked in a sharp breath when fingers wrapped around my bicep to hold me in place, too tight, too angry, threatening to snap it in two.

When I finally looked at him, the blood drained from my face. My hands shook, and I ripped them from his hold, his skin pale and freckled. Red hair tussled in the wind, a smile curving his lips when I stiffened.

“See.” Finley cocked his head to the side, his eyes falling to my belly. His hand cupped my stomach again, and bile rose in my throat. “I told you I’d have you.”

I jerked away from him, my chest tightening, chin trembling. “No.”

“No?” he asked, his smile falling.

When I staggered back a step, he matched it, his expression turning to one of malice.

I could feel the hatred in his eyes, the ownership he felt over me, the entitlement.

He stalked forward faster, and I turned, gasping, sucking in breath after useless breath.

Lifting my skirts, I ran and ran and ran , through the tall grass, the trees, the village, but no matter how far or fast I went, I couldn’t escape him.

Not him. Not my fate.

None of it.

When my legs finally gave out, I fell to my knees. They cracked on stone as a sob wracked me, and my face fell to my hands, soaked and cold, unfeeling. His hand ran over my back, down my spine, and I arched away from his touch, crying harder.

“There’s no escaping me,” he whispered, but it wasn’t Finley. He was dead.

Adonis stood over me, rubbing my back while he smiled down at me like I was a wounded animal he planned to flay alive for amusement.

I closed my eyes again, pressing my palms into the sockets with another throat-shredding scream, a stone of helplessness heavy in my gut.

My body ached, my joints stiff. Every inch of my body felt bruised, but none more so than my mind.

My head felt destroyed, then crudely put back together, leaving my skull cracked and bleeding.

A groan slipped past my lips when a voice kept talking—whispering but he might as well have been screaming in my broken eardrums. I tried to shove him away, but my arms were held up by their usual shackles, forced to stay in the same position, day in and day out.

“Please,” I mumbled, barely audible. “Please, just…go.”

A hand shook my shoulder, and the pain in that joint was indescribable, my nerves shot.

“ Stop ,” I bit out, then licked my lips. “Hurts.”

“Open your eyes,” he hissed.

I slowly peeled them open, blinking rapidly when all I saw was darkness, my vision unfocused and blurry. Using my sight, though, was another sharp stab to my mind, and I scrunched them closed again, but it didn’t matter. The blade had already lodged into my skull.

“Do you know me?” he asked, his tone urgent, nearly scared.

I cracked my eyes open again, bracing for the pain, and focused on the face before me. His hair was white, his skin white, his eyes white. He was a living ghost.

But one I’d known very well once upon a time.

Licking my lips again, I swallowed hard. “Yes.”

He stumbled back a step, his eyes falling to the floor, confusion furrowing between his brows.

Staring at him, the darkness of the dungeon was almost comforting, the fuzziness in my mind beckoning me to return as my eyelids grew heavier. My head slumped, my body falling slack against the chains.

His gaze snapped back to me, and he bent his knees to lower himself into my line of sight. “Stay with me.” He gently tapped my cheek, three faint slaps, and I inhaled sharply, opening my eyes again. “How? How do you know me?”

I stared at him, remembering his death, him fighting in a war, laughing with his sister, leading me to a horse, offering me a friendly hand when no one else had, but that was where it stopped. Anything before or beyond that was a dense fog I couldn’t wade through.

“I don’t…know.”

He averted his gaze for a moment, cursing under his breath, before whispering, “Neither do I.” He inhaled a deep breath, glancing left and right. “Just hold on a little bit longer, all right? I’ll figure this out.”

Just a little bit longer.

A little more waterboarding.

A little more of Adonis digging through my mind and warping my reality.

A little more blood. A little more sobbing. A little more pain and suffering. A little more death.

I couldn’t respond, not in the affirmative or denial. My head had become too heavy to lift, my mouth unwilling to move. Instead, the steady rhythm of his retreating footsteps carried me back to the only solitude I was granted: my own unconscious mind.

A loud clank snapped me from sleep.

I gasped, rubbing my chest to ease my racing heart.

My shoulders ached with the movement, and I rolled them a few times in an attempt to ease the stiffness. My elbows hurt, too, used to being pulled?—

My eyes snapped open to my hand. On my chest.

My wrist, while disgustingly scabbed and raw, was free.

My heart beat harder, but I fought the rising hope, crushed it while I stared at the opposite wall. Ringing in my ears grew louder, unbearable, until I forced my eyes down, one inch at a time.

The bones were still scattered at the base of the wall, some broken, some stained from the sinew it used to hold.

I wiggled my toes and swallowed hard as my gaze skated over the floor to my feet, my ankles.

The shackles had fallen to either side, unlocked.

A single heartbeat, and my entire body launched into motion, my bare feet silently pounding on the stone, my heart thrumming in my chest, my arms pumping, my head on a swivel.

Hallways passed by in a blur, the fragmented light from torches my only guide. My lungs burned, my legs ached, but my mind… My mind roared. With each step I added between me and those infernal shackles, it grew more alive, more awake.

A door appeared at the end of the hall, not properly sealed. A sliver of light peeked around the edge.

Bright, white daylight.

I’m escaping.

The thought was fleeting but all-consuming.

My lungs somehow filled with new air, thick with determination and… and hope.

My arms and legs moved faster, faster, faster.

I sprinted with every ounce of life I had left, eating the distance between me and my salvation.

I could feel the icy breeze snaking past the crack in the door, could hear the wind’s whistle.

Tears pricked my eyes as I ascended the steps two at a time.

The doorknob was frozen metal, easily ripped open.

Blinding white light flooded my senses, and it was over as quickly as it began.

My eyes opened to pitch black, flashes of hot, burning pain in my wrists and ankles, sweat covering my skin.

Not sweat…or not just sweat.

It was too thick, too warm.

“Why?” I asked, my throat dry, laden with the emotion I didn’t want to share. I wanted to wipe my cheeks and remove the evidence of the tears I’d shed—the tears I was still shedding. I couldn’t stop the outpouring, though, the pain in my chest deeper than in my extremities.

I swallowed hard, but my words still came out broken, torn between a scream and a sob. “Why are you doing this to me?”

Adonis’s head slowly tilted to the side, but his expression was flat. He didn’t seem to notice the blood, but I wished he would. “I can’t explain my fascination with your mind, only that it is… Well, fascinating.”

I glared at him then, the anguish in my body finally returning to rage. My jaw clenched, my fists balled, the pain only adding fuel to the fire, and without a second thought, I spat at him. He flinched when it landed on his cheek.

His eyes widened, his jaw slack, as he wiped it off and stared at his hand, then a low chuckle left him. Grinning, he clicked his tongue and wiped his hand across my face.

When his fingers touched my lips, I bared my teeth and snapped forward, narrowly missing biting off a few more fingers. I wished I’d been able to sink my teeth in. I wanted to feel the crunch, to hear his scream, to taste his blood. At least then, I could spit that back at him, too.

I wanted to experience his suffering, and I’d take it any way I could, just like he was mine.

“Perhaps that is why.” He tapped his healed finger once on the tip of my nose, and I jerked away, but he grabbed my jaw and wrenched my face back, his pupils blown wide. “Strong minds break the hardest, and I can’t wait to see the catastrophe you become.”

I stood in the center of a long tunnel.