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My body fell, and the noose constricted around my throat. My air supply was taken from me, and I swung slightly left and right. But my body hung limply, and I didn’t try to resist, even though it was the most unnatural thing to do.
Not to fight.
At some point, my lungs would heave and I would automatically struggle, but I’d probably be dead from his knife before then.
He unsheathed his knife from his pocket.
I could feel my face already turning blue.
I wanted it to end already.
I wanted the pain to start so it could end.
My eyes became blurry, and I could make out his withdrawn arm as he prepared to stab me.
Melanie wailed.
Then I heard a voice I thought I’d never hear again.
“Stop!”
The executioner lowered the knife and turned to Magnus.
“What the fuck are you doing?” His voice was loud and scathing, full of a rage so fierce that it couldn’t be subdued. I could feel the energy of his power, feel the way the guards responded to his outburst. “She’s our best worker. Why are you hanging the strongest woman on the line?”
“Because she’s a fucking cunt,” my current guard said. “That’s why.”
This rescue was about to be pointless because I was slipping out of consciousness.
Then my feet touched the crate…and I could breathe.
I gasped for air, like I’d died and come back to life, like I’d crashed and the doctors put those paddles against my chest and shocked me until I returned.
“She’s weak,” my guard continued. “She dropped a whole box of cocaine. She’s the slowest one on the line—”
“Because you starved her.” Magnus pulled out a knife then cut at the rope.
I fell forward, landing on the snow and earth. I coughed hard as I collapsed on the ground. A knife cut the ropes from around my wrists. I reached for my already swollen neck and continued to heave, yanking that air into my lungs so my heart rate would slow once the oxygen had been replenished in my blood.
“You starved her like you’ve done to the others.” He sheathed his knife but didn’t lean down to comfort me. He stood next to me, addressing the guard who now got in his face. “She’s my prisoner, and I know that she busts her ass every goddamn day. You poisoned her like you did to the others. We’ve all looked away up until this point, but no more. I won’t let one of the strongest lifters on the line die just because you can’t get a woman to suck your dick.”
The coughs subsided, and I lay there, just breathing, feeling the flames from one of the nearby torches.
The guard stared down Magnus before he backed off. “Then we’ll pick someone else—”
“There’s no Red Snow this week.” Magnus came over to me, and like last time I fell in the snow, he extended his gloved hand. “They’ve seen it enough times. They know how it goes. They’ve already seen the show.”
I stared at his hand for a few seconds before I placed my palm in his.
He squeezed it before he pulled me up, squeezed me the way Bethany squeezed me, like he wanted me to know he was there…that he was my friend.
12
Hero to One, Villain to All
When I made it back to the cabin, I immediately collapsed on the bed. I was already so weak to begin with since I hadn’t eaten in five days, but after the adrenaline rushed through me during that critical moment, I was even more exhausted. My throat ached like it’d been burned, and I still needed to cough here and there. “Thank you…” I’d thought my life was over. I’d thought my sister would have to listen to the sound of the knife stabbing into my body over and over. But at the last possible second, he returned.
Magnus walked out.
“Wait, where are you—”
The door shut and locked.
I stared at it, so disappointed that I didn’t know what to do with myself. I wasn’t sure what I expected, but at least a few words, a conversation…something. He saved my life, and then he just disappeared.
I lay on the bed and stared at the spine of my book.
It was as if it were talking to me, and not from the words on the page.
I grabbed it and pulled it to my chest, holding it like a stuffed animal, gripping it like a lifeline. Tears welled a moment later, a catharsis that came from nowhere. Every time I complained that my food wasn’t right at a restaurant, every time I groaned when I had to walk to work in the rain, every time I was annoyed when my date showed up late…all of it felt so fucking stupid.
I never should have taken anything for granted.
Never.
Fifteen minutes later, the door opened again.
I immediately sat up and abruptly wiped my eyes with the back of my jacket, cleaning myself up, embarrassed that someone would witness a moment of weakness.
