Page 15 of The Last One Standing (Rogue X Ara #4)

One end opened onto a slanted hill, rich with flowers and overlooking a bubbling creek. Pale sunshine washed over it all, reaching into the tunnel, bathing the stone in morning light.

The other side sounded of dripping water, and it burrowed into my skull.

Drip. Drip. Drip.

Water fell there. My heart skipped a beat, and as I slowly turned my head, I felt it crawling into my throat. Mist drifted in from the pounding rain, grazing my skin, and I flinched at the dampness, panic slithering down my spine.

The mist clung to my skin like poison, an ocean threatening to fill my lungs.

I staggered away from it and thus, toward the sunny field, but I wouldn’t turn my back on the storm. I kept my eye on it, afraid that if I looked away for even a second, it would somehow turn sentient and attack.

But I stared too hard, and a shape formed from the dark fog—a beast, large and black. The only other color on that side of the tunnel was blood red, encapsulated in two eyes.

I froze, not daring to breathe as it looked in my direction.

When those eyes swirled with flames, my feet moved of their own accord. I sprinted forward as hard as I could, shocking even myself, and the beast matched my movement.

It raced toward me, too, and when water hit my face, I breathed, filling my lungs with the scent of fire—not rain. When my hair was soaked and my clothes clung to my form, I ran harder into the eye of the storm, because fire stared back at me, and I knew it’d be warm.

When I should’ve collided with the animal, should’ve felt a hard body, scales, or flames, I was thrown back into the cold wall by my shackles. My entire body hit the stone with a thud before I fell slack, gasping, muscles burning from the imaginary exertion.

I lifted my head, chest heaving, to find Adonis standing over me, his nostrils flared and shoulders stiff.

The bed, if it could be called that, pricked my skin, the straw itchy.

I rolled over, looking through the bars into the cell next to mine, and found Mother lying just on the other side, her bed pushed as close as she could get. She’d lost weight, her red hair duller, frayed. Her eyes had sunken in with dark circles beneath them.

“I don’t know if I’ll ever leave here,” she muttered, then her eyes flashed to mine, and she gripped the bars, eyes wild. “But you must. You must escape, and be free, and when you do, you must live . Live for both of us, okay? Promise me, Ara. Promise me! Promise?—”

“No.” I rose to sit on my knees and wrapped my hands over hers. Her eyes frantically searched my face, a tear slipping past her lashes, sliding down her cheek. “No, we are going to escape. We are going to be free. We are going to live.”

I glanced around the cell and stilled, squinting at the door. It was…cracked open, just the slightest bit, nearly unnoticeable. Releasing her hands, I stood on weak legs and staggered over to the door. I wrapped one hand around the bar, holding my breath, and pushed.

It swung open silently, not even a creak from the old hinges.

My exhale was shaky, adrenaline pouring through my veins, lighting a fire under my ass. With each step I took out of my cell and into the hallway, hope swelled into my chest, my heart racing wildly.

I made it to my mother’s cell, and her door was unlocked, too. I pulled the door to the side and rushed inside, falling to my knees before her, grabbing her hands. They were ice cold, and I held them to my mouth, blowing hot air on them.

“We’re going to get out of here,” I said and tugged her upwards, but she didn’t budge. She just stared. “Come on, Mother. We have to go.”

I pulled her again, but she was dead weight on the floor. She just kept staring, her eyes wide.

Her hands were still cold, and I blew on them again, my breath a puff of white in the icy air. I rubbed my hands over hers and pulled her again and again, begging her to get up.

Just get up.

Get up.

Get up.

I dragged her body across the floor, her eyes still staring, but no longer at me. They were just…open, looking into nothingness.

Her hands were still cold.

So was her arm, her shoulders.

Her joints were stiff.

Her lips a faint blue.

The smell hit me, then.

Decay.

My chin quivered, and I flinched away from her, staggering back until I hit the wall. I slid to the floor as my body shut down, protecting me from whatever panic or pain or devastation clawed at the walls of my heart. I felt nothing as I stared at my dead mother with wide, unseeing eyes.

Maybe I was dead, too, and this was my punishment.

When the cell door slid closed with a clank, the lock turning and sealing me in with her, I didn’t move.

I stared.

When her face warped into another’s, I still didn’t look away. I didn’t flinch or move a muscle. Not even my eyeballs moved in their sockets.

Her foggy blue eyes melted into dark ones as his face came into focus, his growing cackle in my ears, his fingers knotted in my hair.

“Goddess, I’ve missed this. You should’ve opened your mind to me months ago.”

I didn’t have it in me to cry or scream or beg this time.

“Don’t worry, little mutt.” He unwound his fingers and smoothed my hair again and again. I didn’t move or react. “It’s almost over, and then, everything will be as it should.”

The numbness still had hold of my body, a welcomed reprieve.

It started with my toes.

Ice crawled over the blackened nubs, my bleeding ankles, still firmly latched in metal. The ice devoured my calves, my shins, licked along my knees, my skin dark blue, cracking, dying in its wake.

Then, it jumped to my fingers. The ache was deeper than anything I’d ever felt, dull, then sharp, sharper, sharper. Blades of ice sliced the skin from them.

Screaming filled my ears. The sheet of white greedily raced down my knuckles, my palms, my wrists. The metal there, shackled and locked, was too tight, biting into my skin, so cold it stung—a fire of ice.

I didn’t stop screaming while the dead winter ate my body, inch by agonizing inch. When it circled my heart, encasing it in a solid, unbreakable cage, it slowed.

Thump.

Thump. Thump.

I sucked in a heavy breath but no air came, different than my normal panic. There was no air to be used.

Thump.

Seconds passed, my lungs screaming.

Then, nothing, just vast, all-consuming blackness.

The hand encircling my throat came into focus, warm, and my mind clung to it, chased it, wished it’d grow larger and cover my frozen skin. I was thankful for the hand crushing my windpipe, grateful for the faint tease of heat…

Until it shook me, and the back of my skull struck metal, sending sparks behind my eyelids, pain exploding in my head.

My eyes shot open with a sharp gasp, my hair and clothing soaked. My chest heaved, limbs trembling with enough force to rattle the chains, teeth clattering. A metallic tang filled my mouth.

Adonis hovered over me, his smile stretching too wide, too amused.

Then, he lifted the bucket.

My eyes bulged, my head shaking back and forth. I jerked my hands to protect my face, but it was for naught. They slammed back to the table when the chains reached their limit, and something in my wrist popped, fractured.

I didn’t have time to scream before I was drowning again. Water invaded everything it touched: my nostrils, my mouth, my throat, my stomach.

I was in agony, but nothing hurt more than knowing that no one was coming to save me, and I couldn’t save myself.

This would never end.

The click of a lock stirred me awake.

I kept my eyes closed this time and remained where I was, standing where my shackles told me to.

A hand tapped my cheek.

When I didn’t acknowledge it, it tapped again, harder, the voice filtering in. “Wake up. We have to go.”

There were no shackles left on my body, my arms hanging limp at my sides. “We’ve done this one already.”

“Wake. Up.”

Another slap stung my cheek, snapping my face to the side, and my eyes finally shot open, angry, tired, and burning from exhaustion.

I shoved at him but bit back a sob at the pain in one wrist. It was swollen, twice the size of the other, the dark bruising visible in the dim torchlight. “We’ve done this before. ”

“No, we haven’t,” he hissed, grabbing my good wrist when I tried to shove him again, but the heat of his skin on my raw wounds stung worse than the shackle.

My scream caught in my throat, and I tensed, afraid that if I pulled, it’d do even more damage.

He released my arm with a slight shove and held his hand in front of him, palm out, his entire body taut as a bowstring. “Is there…blood on my hand?”

I nodded, my gut rolling at the pain shooting up my arms.

“Wipe it off,” he said, his eyes on the wall above my head. “Now.”

My breathing turned rapid. His hair was white, his eyes white, his skin white—just like the man in Canyon, the owner of the bookstore. He wasn’t Fae, either.

I staggered forward, tearing a strip off my dress, and quickly wiped his hand. When it was clean enough, I stuffed the makeshift rag into my pocket and put space between us, more than before.

“It’s gone?”

“Y-yes,” I muttered, then closed my eyes, taking a deep breath. “What is the point of this, Adonis? Why?—”

He grabbed my elbow and dragged me down the hall, glancing back over his shoulder. “What are you talking about?”

“Have you lost your creativity?” I asked.

I knew this man wasn’t Adonis, but he could hear me. With his grimy claws in my mind, creating another hallucination, I knew he could fucking hear me, and I was aware of it this time. He couldn’t trick me again. He couldn’t hurt me again if I expected it.

His voice was low, a hushed whisper. “Do you think this is…what? A vision? A dream?”

I shook my head. “I’m not falling for it again.”

He increased his pace, his grip on my elbow the only thing keeping me upright as I tripped and stumbled over my own feet. He moved too fast, and I hadn’t walked this much in…Goddess knew how long.

Fewer torches were lit this far down the tunnels, and when we took another turn, we were thrust into complete darkness, not a single light as far as I could see—and I had no idea how far that was. I stared into an abyss, utterly blind.

My arm slipped from his hold when I planted my feet. “I can’t see.” He looped his fingers around my elbow again and pulled, but I resisted, gasping for air. “I can’t see. ”

Why would Adonis want me blind? The worst possible outcomes flashed through my head: surprise attack, hidden weapons or traps, an ambush, some kind of creature, being stuck in here during a…flood.

My heart jumped into my throat, the air growing thinner. I couldn’t see the walls, but I felt them closing in. I wheezed and clawed at my throat, my sternum, the flimsy dress that suddenly suffocated me.

“Stop,” he commanded. “Stop panicking. We don’t have time.”

My glare shot in the direction his voice came from, but even in this proximity, I couldn’t see him. I opened and closed my mouth before I realized my feet were moving. In my panic, he’d been able to lead me forward again, and I was none the wiser.

Easy prey.

I exhaled a shaky breath and listened for any sign of what was to come, what form of torture Adonis had planned, but all I could hear was our footfall and my own pounding heart.

“I can’t see,” I repeated as if that would make a difference. It was what he wanted—for what, I didn’t know.

“This wing of the dungeons isn’t used anymore. A few rooms collapsed, and the entire portion was abandoned.”

Why was he saying any of this?

“No one will see us.”

“No one can see anything,” I whispered under my breath, unsure if he could even hear me. I barely heard the words myself.

We climbed stairs, one, two, three, four, then a knob turned, clicked, and the door swung open.