Page 31 of Till Death

My skin crawled at his gentle touch. It took everything in me to hold still. To lie and wait. But as soon as he lifted me, wound be damned, I snatched Chaos from her stolen sheath at his waist and jumped free of him, hissing as my body protested.

“Don’t be foolish, Nightmare. You can’t escape.”

“You don’t…” I stumbled, pulling my fingers from the gash to see the blood was still running. “Don’t call me that.”

“I’ll call you whatever the hell I want to call you, Maiden.” He lunged, tossing bulky arms around my waist just to throw me over his shoulder, with no concern for my wound.

I screamed in pain, piercing the night as I hauled the knife back and would have buried it into his ass had Paesha not been there to catch my arm and take the blade from my weakened hands.

“I’ll never stop fighting you,” I growled.

“I’d be disappointed if you did,” Orin answered, his voice far calmer than I would have liked, as I struck him over and over with a fist.

As we neared a door of the odd, towering home, I lost my will to fight and pleaded, hating the way it sounded, but I was desperate. “Please. Please don’t lock me in. I can’t stay here. I have to go. You don’t understand.”

He dropped me into the empty room, and my hip cracked on the bare wood floor. “You can’t be allowed to roam free, either.”

The second I was shut in the room, the walls moved in. Closer and closer they inched. I crawled, banging on the locked door. Pounding on the ground. Screaming as loudly as I could. Adrenaline mixed with fear as I became consumed by space. Every bit of air in the room grew heavier, a chore to drag into my lungs. I struck the wood until my gloves wore down, and after I removed them, beating until my knuckles were bloody and the skin on my palms raw. Until the tears no longer fell, and I had no voice remaining. I could handle a lot. But the single thing that would end me, that would turn me into the monster they feared... the monster I feared, was captivity.

I was born to be the most powerful person in the world, and it was crushing me.

When I woke, lying in a pool of my blood, weak and defeated, I stared at a half-filled glass of water and a sandwich set on the floor just inside the room. I wasn’t proud, lifting the water to my lips, forcing myself to sip instead of gulp. I reached for the sandwich. The immediate pain from the movement was severe. And defeating.

“Would you like some more water?” a high-pitched feminine voice asked from the hall.

“Yes, please,” I rasped, desperate for the door to open.

“Move back against the far wall. If you do, I can help you.”

There was no way in hell. If not because it might be my only chance at escape, then because I could hardly lift my head to finish the last swallow of water.

“I can’t,” I whispered, clearing my throat before trying again. “I can’t.”

The door inched open, and a woman with short red hair and rosy cheeks popped her head in, the soft smile on her face fading away as she saw me lying on the ground. “That’s… that’s a lot of blood.”

“Sorry.”

“Did you just apologize for bleeding?” She knelt down before me, but as soon as she opened her mouth to speak, she was interrupted.

“Godsdammit all, Althea,” Orin roared from behind her. “Are you trying to get yourself killed?”

The door swung open, slamming into my feet. I groaned from the jarring pain stabbing through my abdomen. Orin’s golden eyes scanned me from head to toe, his fist clenching before he rested a hand on Althea’s shoulder. “Go get my mother’s medical kit and meet us in the kitchen.”

I hissed in protest when he hoisted me from the floor and carried me through the house, the eyes of several strangers falling on us as we passed. He laid me on a sturdy wooden table, fully clothed, and though I could barely open my eyes, I still managed to glare.

Gripping the edge of the table, Orin eyed my stomach. “You remove the shirt, or I do. Your choice.”

“Go fuck yourself.”

“You have three seconds to decide. One.”

My eyes fell shut.

“Two.”

“Two and a half,” I groaned.

“You and I both know you aren’t going to die. I could just leave you to suffer.”