His words are strained, giving way to no other emotions, which only deepens my curiosity. The stiffness in his shoulders tempts me to pry more, but I know better than to poke the beast. Especially not when we’re all desperate for escape and weighed down by the exhaustion of the past twenty-four hours.
“Don’t you have any relatives?” I ask Daxton, knowing I’m pushing too hard and grasping for the last straws, but I don’t know what else to do.
“Our parents were our only relatives,” he grimly states, locking eyes with me in the rearview mirror.
They’re narrowed, as if warning me, and it sends something cold shuddering through my veins. I avert my gaze to the trees outside instead. Most are lush and green, fully awakened by summer’s touch, though a few still carry traces of late spring, their blossoms hanging in the fading light. The vegetation becomes more scarce the closer we come to civilization.
“I have some money from my time working at the dollhouse that I hid from Arthur in a secret bank account. I never got the chance to use it for something, and now it’s enough to last for a while until the supplies die out.” He clears his throat, looking uncomfortable as he drives. “I will drop you two off at a motel on the outskirt of town.”
His words feel like a knife twisting inside me, its only purpose is to bleed me dry of the worry and panic that takes over. All oxygen has been knocked out of my lungs, leaving me gasping for the last thread of breath.
“You’re not coming with us?” I ask hoarsely, and I hate how vulnerable I sound when I’d promised myself never to show weakness in front of anyone again.
My nails dig so hard into my palms that they leave crescent-shaped marks, the sting of pain keeping me grounded. I feel likemy heart has been torn out of my chest—the last thread of sanity slipping away because the only source of comfort formonthsliving in the dollhouse was him.
And now, he’s abandoning me.
He sighs, a loud and resigned exhale that slices deeper than I want to admit. He doesn’t answer, doesn’t even meet my gaze in the rearview mirror, and I fall silent shortly after.
I can’t bear to lose him.
“What date is it?” I ask, fearing the answer. Do I even want to know how long we were in captivity?
“June 17th,” Daxton replies, voice a low whisper.
“Year?”
“2023.”
Bile rises in my throat as I process the information. Time has twisted in my mind so thoroughly that I hadn’t realized it’s been eighteen months since we were locked inside the Dollhouse in December 2021. Grey remains silent, hands fisting his clothes.
The road transforms into a blur of cityscapes as we near town. None of us dare breathe, afraid that the police or anyone will discover what we have done, where we escaped from, and come to hunt us down. It has taken us longer than I assume it should to travel to Millvale, all because we’ve been forced to stick to the smaller roads in case anyone somehow recognized Daxton’s registration number.
Driving his car is dangerous; Arthur knew exactly which model, engine, and license plate it was, leaving us with a huge target on our back if someone from the dollhouse managed to survive.
Every time I close my eyes, I see the burning flames of the dollhouse flickering behind my eyelids, scorching my gaze and taking me to the depths of hell. Yet that’s not even all that plagues me. We left so many people—both innocent and not—behind, leaving them to their ultimate death, all in the name offighting for our own survival. I’ve always been a selfish person, willing to do everything to live, but it should’ve been me who died in the fire. Not them.
No matter that they were as bloodthirsty as Arthur, and wanted the honor of killing each other, I have to believe he tarnished them. Just like I was tainted.
Grey has, at last, drifted off to sleep beside me, his head leaning against the car door. I cannot help but reach out my hand to hold his, seeking a semblance of comfort in its warm hold.
When I look at him, there’s a certain squeeze in my heart, but it’s not a negative one, even if it feels like it will explode.Gratitude.I’m so goddamn thankful for this man who swept into my life at Dankworth Institute, turning my life and all I knew upside down, leaving me spiraling into an abyss of emotions I couldn’t escape, yet managed to save me all the same.
A harsh swerve to the left has my body flinging to the side, and images of my head pounding against the window, glass shattering the insides and cutting my face—the breath lost from me and the absolute pain and panic—have me expecting the impact of all those emotions again. But nothing happens, and I realize I’m not in my mother’s car, and Daxton merely turns down the road.
The car pulls to a stop, the engine dying out, and I look at Daxton in confusion as he unbuckles his seatbelt.
“What’s going on?”
I watch as Daxton grabs a cap he had stored in the glove box, covering half his face, before opening the car door.
“At the gas station. We’re running out of fuel, and the extra tanks are empty as well. I will be back in fifteen minutes,” he says before leaving the car, the thud of it closing echoing in my ears.
Grey stirs awake, looking disoriented. My gaze follows Daxton as he moves to the other side and starts refueling the car, distracted, his face set in a hard clench. Come to think of it, both men have been acting so damn weird ever since they mentioned the town we’re going to. What’s going on with them?
“Are you okay?” Grey’s tired voice washes over me like a blanket of safety when he glances down at my wrists.
My stomach churns, nausea twisting my insides from the memory of being tied to a chair by Arthur’s disgusting hands, and how I fought to free myself, ultimately tearing away tissues of skin. As if triggered by the memory, the pain instantly radiates through both my arms. The painkillers Daxton found in the medical kit he used to patch me up have numbed the area, but their effect is wearing off, and I bite my tongue to stifle a groan. I observe the clean stitches tying together my skin, preventing me from bleeding to death, but the sight soon becomes too much. It makes me sick to my stomach, so I focus on my hands, trying to push away the unsettling thoughts.
