What justice it would be to use the same knife against Dane that he tried to strike Weston down with.
The thought makes me fight harder, kicking and elbowing, trying to break free. His arms cinch down on me as he reaches for the hilt, prying it from my fingers, before tossing it directly into the roaring flames.
“No!” I scream, reaching toward the fire, but pulling back immediately. The metal is already red hot, and useless to me now.
“Did you really think that would work?” Dane sneers in my ear. “Did you think you could use my knife against me?”
My bare feet glide across the wooden boards as I try to kick out of his grasp, but I can’t get any leverage. I need to get away from him. I need a weapon.
My boots. I need to get back to my boots.
“Calm down, Lennox,” Dane croons, his cruel voice barely recognizable from the one I’ve come to know, and it sends shivers of terror up my spine. “You’re going to listen, and listen carefully.”
My elbow collides with his abdomen, and he lets out a grunt, but his grip doesn’t loosen.
“Fuck you!” I scream and he squeezes me tighter, my training no match for his size and brute strength, especially without a weapon.
Dane drags me across the room, away from the hearth and anything that I could have used against him there. I thrash harder. My boots are so close; I just need to get out of his clutches and get to my dagger.
A sickening crunch echoes in my ears when I throw my head back and collide with Dane’s face. He cries out, but I ignore it, because it gave me the distraction I needed. Dane’s arms release me as he tends to his face, and I crash to the floor, my knees hitting the wood hard under the full weight of my body.
Crawling across the floor as fast as my limbs will carry me, I scramble to my boots and shove my hand inside, feeling for the familiar touch of the metal hilt, but my hand comes up empty.
Fuck! Wrong boot!
The thought barely gets through my mind before Dane’s bruising grasp is on my hips. He drags me across the floor and tosses me as if I weigh nothing. Pain erupts as my head cracks on the wooden frame of the bed, and I crumple in front of it with a thud. Dark spots appear over my spinning vision as I try to push away the daze.
They clear as I blink rapidly, only to find Dane stalking toward me, blood streaming down his face into the wicked smile across his lips.
“You’re never going to win, Lennox. You can keep fighting, but you’re not in charge here. I am.” He crouches down in front of me, his icy glare and wicked smirk sending fear coursing through me. “You’re going to bring me to the cure. One way or another, I’m going to get it. I don’t care if I have to take it from any of the children at camp who worship the ground I walk on. I will get her back!”
“I’ll never show you where it is,” I force out, my voice echoing around me, feeling like it is separate from my body.
“You will,” he says, his eyes narrowing as he reaches toward me. He fists my shirt and yanks me to my feet, dragging my face toward his as he hovers just a breath away.
“I was going to let you get away with it, whatever your little plan was, but you’re hiding things from me. No one hides things from me onmyisland.”
My breath stutters as I stare into his eyes, the once comforting amber now hard and deadly. The glint of metal catches my eye as his arm lifts, and I see what is sparkling in the firelight.
My dagger.
Dane has my dagger.
I wasn’t wrong before; I didn’t choose the wrong boot. My dagger wasn’t inside because Dane found it.
The gleam in his eye shines as he brings the blade closer to my face, sliding the edge under my chin, far enough away that my skin tingles with the proximity.
“Tell me, Lennox,” he says with a tilt of his head. “If your story is true, and you were held captive andescaped, why would you have this?”
My instinct takes over, and I grab his wrist, wrenching the muscles in his hand and bending it just like Weston taught me, like Sig and I practiced, but it doesn’t move. His hands are too large, his knuckles white as he holds the hilt in a death grip, making the muscles I targeted too taut to move. My efforts only garner a depraved chuckle, just before there’s a flash of movement.
His hand wraps around the back of my neck, pulling me toward him as the cold blade settles across my throat. The face presses firmly against my skin, and my entire body stiffens in his tight hold.
My teeth clench as I bite back the panic. He’s won. He’s bested me. I’m at his mercy, and my only consolation is that he won’t kill me, because he still needs me.
But I failed, again. I failed the Castaways, I failed Weston, I failed myself. The sinking feeling in my stomach that threatens to swallow me whole, the one I’ve been so familiar with in the last twenty-one years, makes me question why I continue to try.
It’s for them. I’m trying for them.
