Page 6 of The Shape of my Scar (The Unbroken #1)

F aolan

The door opened after a beep.

Faolan’s eyes stayed shut, lashes crusted with dried tears.

Her body was curled on the mattress in the same twisted shape she’d collapsed into hours ago—on her stomach, legs bent awkwardly, arms splayed, the purple dress bunched beneath her.

Her cheek stuck slightly to the pattern on the mattress.

Her throat burned; her skin itched with sweat and shame.

She didn’t move, though, suddenly, she was wide awake.

She forced herself to breathe slowly. In and out. The way she’d learned in the before-times—when her mother used to get angry and run through the house in her knickers, and Callum would whisper for her to be quiet. “Just breathe slowly. Pretend you are that sleeping beauty princess.”

Heavy footsteps inched closer before there was the clink-clank-crunch of the keys under his boot.

“Found it,” the man who always smelled like fish muttered, voice slurred with drink and boredom. “Thank fuck.”

She fought the instinct to move. There was an insistent itch on her back. Her heart thrashed against her ribcage.

The footsteps drew closer, and other smells assaulted her: sweat, cigarettes, something bad..

A shadow loomed.

Then…

His shoe nudged her ribs. Not hard, but casual, like he was checking if she was still alive.

“Out cold.”

A chuckle.

“Looks like he wore her out.”

He snorted, a thick, horrible sound that filled the room and made her sweat.

Vomit crawled up her throat. She clenched her jaw, forcing it down. One gag, and he’d know.

Her nails dug into her palms until her hands felt numb.

After a long minute, the man turned. The door creaked again. A moment later, the beep of the door signalled the door closing.

Click.

Still, she didn’t move. The fear was a living thing inside her, closing off her air.

She waited until the silence was complete, and only then did she open her eyes. They burned with unshed tears, blurring the low yellow light before tracking down her face. Soundless and slow, the tears slipped down her temples into the hair matted against her cheek.

Her shoulders shook with tremors.

And from beneath her curled fingers, she felt the small, cold jangle of stolen keys.

Her left hand moved, almost on instinct.

Fingers brushed over the back of it, slowly tracing the raised scar that ran like a thread of memory across her skin. A thin line, white against the grime.

It wasn’t new.

It hadn’t come from this place.

It was her mother who had given it to her.

A broken bottle. Screaming that had ended in her mother snoring on the sofa.

She’d been seven.

Her brothers had found her behind the bin shed, blood dripping down her sleeve.

Cormac had wrapped her in his coat. Callum had torn up an old shirt and bandaged the wound with trembling fingers. They just held her hand until it stopped bleeding. It had been the fuse that lit the train wreck that was foster care.

Faolan pressed her thumb into the scar.

It stung, but not from pain.

The pain was from remembering what it felt like to be worth saving.

Thane

The air was thick in the windowless room.

Zel sat closest to the door, knees up, eyes sharp. Maro crouched beside him, slowly grinding the stolen spoon shiv across the wall. Lirian leaned in the corner, silent and unmoving. His eyes were closed, but he was listening.

They didn’t speak again until the lights clicked off for the night.

Then Thane whispered, “Tomorrow?”

Zel nodded once. “Rubin’s on the rota. We need him inside the room.”

“Big bastard,” Maro muttered. “He likes the belt and taser. Likes to hear you scream.”

Thane swallowed. “What if he uses the gun? You sure he’ll be alone?”

“Always is on Wednesdays,” Zel said. “Comes in drunk. He thinks we’re too broken to fight back.”

“He’s not stupid, though,” Maro added. “If he gets one of us down…if he tases someone…”

“The rest will have to give in,” Lirian finished quietly.

The words sat like a shroud between them. Everyone knew it was true.

“We can’t let him get a shot off,” Thane said, his voice coiled tighter than a spring.

Zel tapped the tip of the shiv against his palm. “Maro and I will jump him together. You go for the arm, shoulder. I’ll go for the chest like this… Fast. Fast, before we lose the element of surprise.”

Thane nodded. “I’ll go for the taser. I’ve seen him use it; I know how to pop the safety off. Once he is down, key to the door. Then we have to worry about the front door key. The front doors have bars and locks.” Thane looked at each of them. “So, the front door key?”

Zel grunted, “Right belt loop. Black ring. He keeps it clipped. The windows have bars. We need that key.”

“It’s going to be tight,” Maro added. “Let’s go over it again.”

Lirian shifted slightly. His voice was dry and soft, but steady. “Once he’s down, I get the door. We don’t stop. No looking back.”

“We have to get Dory…” whispered Thane. “We can’t leave her here.”

They fell into silence again.

Then Thane said, barely audible, “If we screw this up…”

Zel didn’t blink. “We won’t.”

Thane swallowed.

Maro added, “Either we run now…or we die like Paul.”

And in the quiet, they were lost in their own thoughts.

Tomorrow wasn’t a choice anymore.

It was survival.