I saw Warwick out of the corner of my eye, starting to run to me, the heavy cinder shovel in his hands, but he stopped short, his attention on the doorway.
I tried to follow his gaze when electricity zapped through my body, locking me in place as agony tore and sliced through every nerve and muscle. My frame crashed to the ground, flopping and jerking, spitting and choking.
It stopped, and I gasped for air.
Boots struck the ground, a face peering over me. “Can’t even make it an hour.” Boyd’s smug smile blurred in my vision. “He said as long as you’re standing tomorrow night.” He hit the button again.
My body shut down, protecting itself from the onslaught of utter agony.
Like that should be anything new.
Chapter 22
“Kovacs.” My name was called through an inky goo. The pull was like milk being poured into coffee, the creamy haze lightening the syrupy darkness. The obscurity had protected me, a barrier to the pain that invaded my muscles, like an exposed wire through my entire body. I became aware of weight restraining my arms and legs, the cold, hard stone digging into my bones, and the smell—a particular odor which clung to the walls, the scent branded my memory.
The hole.
“Kovacs?”
My eyes flew open to Warwick leaning over me, his shadow flickering with the effort. Sucking harshly, I sat up, hoping this was all a nightmare and I’d wake up in bed with Warwick. But the man who reached out and touched my face wasn’t the real one, nor were we in a nice comfy cabin.
Chained and in hell, the suffocating stale air of the hole roped around my lungs. This time there were no loud noises or flashing lights, which I found odd. Just darkness. I had to breathe in and out in slow pulls to curb my panic. Only a little light from the cracks around the door gave any break to the solid blackness, allowing me to see marginal details of the man crouching in front of me.
“Beginning to think you enjoy being chained up, princess.” Warwick’s shadow ran his thumb over my busted lip. Petro had gotten a solid hit in before I took him down. “Stop being a fucking hero every moment.”
I could feel the difference, his presence barely solid, sweat beading at his forehead.
“I couldn’t sit back and watch. I couldn’t let it happen to my friends,” I muttered to him, sagging into the wall. The manacles around my legs and arms gave me barely any room to move.
“Talking to yourself, Ms. Kovacs? Or do I assume someone is here I can’t see?” A voice jerked me, rattling my chains. My heart thumped with a spurt of adrenaline, not expecting anyone else in here with me. “You have returned. It may sound selfish, but I’m glad. I know you are at least alive.”
It sounded somewhat off, but I knew that voice.
“Kil-Killian?” Shock and happiness twirled like a tornado in my tone, my eyes squinting, trying to see through the dense darkness for a shape against the wall. “Oh, my gods… you’re okay.”
“Okay is a relative term.”
Rolling my lips, my head bowed, “I’m sorry what happened to Sloane.”
Killian didn’t respond, but in his silence, I could feel all the emotions he didn’t want to speak. The hurt, guilt, anger, and grief. Killian didn’t just lose an elite soldier. He lost a friend.
From the moment I met him, and maybe even before when I sat high on top of HDF, staring over at his palace, as if I knew he was standing on his balcony peering in the dark back at me, I could feel a connection to Killian I couldn’t explain. It was different from Scorpion and Warwick, but was there just the same.
He cleared his throat, finally speaking, and I could hear a slur in his speech, as if he was struggling. “What did you do to get in here?”
My mind flashed to when Killian and Sloane were getting attacked by the guards, Rosie being held back, her face already showing signs of being hit. But now I could put a name to the soldiers I saw holding her. It was the same ones who came for her today.
“I have a feeling, doing the same thing as you.”
He went quiet again.
“And they call us the monsters,” he uttered quietly amid the scraping sounds as he adjusted against the wall. “Is she—are they all right?”
“I hope so.” We both knew how it was here. We probably only delayed their pain, not actually stopping it. And maybe trying to stop it only made it worse. Once I stepped out of here, I had no doubt I would be their new target.
“If one of those fucking cowards touches you or them…” Warwick snarled.
“What are you going to do? You’ll end up down here too.” I knew my logic was off, since I had the same response. But I couldn’t stomach anything more happening to Warwick. What they did to him down here last time was enough. And now there was no line Boyd or any of them couldn’t cross. Istvan gave them the all-clear.
“Is Scorpion here with you? I’m still unsure how it works.”
“Uh… No.” I peered up at the beast standing over me now. “Did I not also tell you I have a connection to Warwick?”
“Warwick?” Killian sighed with annoyance, “Of course, you do.” His chains jingled. “I see you have a type, Ms. Kovacs. I’m gathering I am too housebroken and refined for your taste.” It wasn’t an insult to me, but directed at Warwick.
“Bet you fuck that way too, prick.” Warwick snarled. “You couldn’t handle her. This one is feral, especially when she fucks. And in your bed.”
“Warwick.” Even though Killian couldn’t hear him, a blush still warmed my cheeks.
“Let me guess, he’s calling me some uptight asshole?” Killian let out a dry, empty laugh. “Very predictable, Farkas. A tiresome response. Plus, you have no idea what I’m like or what I’ve been through. I don’t think it is me she would become weary of over time.”
A low growl scraped over me.
“He’s trying to get a rise out of you.” For a moment, I was in his cell far above the hole, watching him pace back and forth.
“You chained up with one of your boyfriends didn’t already get a rise out of me?” he grumbled out loud, running his hand through his tangled hair. His mood had nothing to do with Killian but everything to do with what went down in the factory.
“I’m okay,” I muttered to him.
He snorted, scouring his face, then stared off into the distance, cries and bangs howling through the penitentiary. “No one’s coming for us.”
“Then we find another way,” I repeated the statement he had said to me once. “We don’t play by the normal rules, Farkas. You and I make our own.”
His head snapped back to me, his eyes darkening, drilling into me with intensity. It was another example of how Warwick could strip me bare, peeling me down to only the basics. The part of me that would crawl through carnage and challenge death head-on.
The screech of door hinges severed our link, shooting my gaze to the solid cell door of the hole. My body automatically curled against the wall, knowing nothing good came when it opened.
As light pooled in, my eyes darted over to Killian, a gasp filling my throat while nausea sloshed in my stomach. Chained to the wall, his shoulders slumped, he looked haggard and depleted of strength. But it was his face that took the brunt of his punishment. It was pulverized, swollen with bruises and wounds. I could see why he was struggling to speak clearly. With the iron collar around his neck and being starved and depleted, he wasn’t able to heal himself in any way close to what he normally could.