My head throbs, the pounding intensifying with every breath, but at least the sun’s no longer assaulting the room. The glare is gone. My mouth also aches, but the tape is no longer silencing me, whenever it was, she’s removed it.
Did I pass out? Or is the concussion just rewiring time again? Everything feels off. Skewed. But it’s dark now—nighttime surely.
I shift sluggishly in the seat, and crane my neck in search of something useful. That’s when I see her.
She’s curled in the moonlight, its silver glow carving shadows across her face. There’s a deep, purpling bruise high on her cheekbone, swollen and stark. He really did a number on her.
But she’s still, caught in a restless sleep. Her brows twitch, tension drawn tight even in unconsciousness—haunted by whatever dream she’s trapped in.
I test the chair, inching it across the vinyl floor deliberately slow to try and avoid any unnecessary giveaway. The soft underlay muffles the noise, thank God. No creaks. No giveaways. Just the faint scrape of wood on cushioned laminate. Encouraged, I keep going, shuffling in painstaking increments toward the door.
The kitchen’s my target—if I can reach it, maybe I’ll find a knife, scissors, something sharp enough to sever the ropes. Or failing that, something to burn through them. Not ideal, but desperation doesn’t care about comfort.
Still, the thought of open flames near my skin makes my gut clench. Plan B is a last resort.
This damn cat. His eyes snap open, pupils slitted and glowing with that eerie, misty green. Before I can react, he’s at my feet, coiling around my ankles like smoke, yowling—not a meow, but a full-throated shriek that echoes far louder than it should.
“Shut up,” I hiss, as if the little traitor understands me. Of all things to blow my cover—a yowling, leg-hugging cat. My luck’s officially in freefall.
“What are you doing?”
Nell’s voice wavers behind me, thick with sniffles. So much for stealth. I’ve been caught mid-escape by someone who sounds like she’s barely holding herself together.
Good luck dragging me back to that bedroom now. She’s built like a gust of wind, and it still defies physics how she got me in there the first time. There’s no way—short of divine intervention or forklift assistance—she’s moving me again.
“You need to let me go Nell—”
“Wait, how do you know my…”
She trails off, recollecting the earlier encounter with whoever that mans was, and the realisation seeps in, quick and cold by the looks of it.
“Look, Manticore are probably hunting you down right now, and the longer you keep me here, the less time I have to try and fix this. You need to untie me.”
“Do you think I’m stupid?” she snaps, defiance blazing back to life. The bruises, the blood—none of it’s dulled the fire in her eyes. “You really think I’m just going to let you walk out of here? You haven’t told me a damn thing, and now you know my name. That’s all you’d need to find me, to come back and kill me in my sleep.”
She’s spiralling, fuelled by fear and fury—and serious trust issues. One look at her face tells me they’ve been earned.
“You’ve got this so twisted,” I bite back. “Your friend is gone. I don’t care if you want to pretend otherwise, but she’s not coming back. And unless you want to wind up the next commodity on Manticore’s butcher block, you need to let me go. What’s even your plan here?”
I lift a brow, watching the faint flush crawl up her cheeks. She doesn’t like pressure—doesn’t like being seen.
“What, you gonna keep me here indefinitely? Just tie me up and hope the answers come to you in a dream? What’s next, Nell? You gonna kill me? Really ask yourself if you’ve got that in you.”
She’s trapped between the truth and me, and we both know she hasn’t got it in her to kill me.
14
Nell
He’s right.
I can’t kill him.
But I can’t let him go either.
I’m wedged between panic and consequences, stuck in a trap of my own making. I need to find my friend—desperately—but I need to stay safe, too. And dragging him here was a catastrophic misstep. What was I thinking?
He knows my name. My face. Where I live. If he gets out, he’ll know everything else there is to know.
