Not again.
Panic sinks its claws into me like a vice. My eyes snap open, and I clamp my teeth down without caring if something gets bitten off. Thethingleaves my mouth in an instant. Screams rip from my throat. I throw every ounce of my weight against the ropes holding me down.
I can’t fucking breathe.
How is this happening again?
He’s dead
Tommy’s dead.
I killed him.
He can’t be here.
My legs hit the soft floor, and I scramble back, choking on terror as the tears start to burn my eyes. I can just make out the shape of a giant through my blurry vision, and reality comes crashing in.
Ordus.The kraken.
Not Tommy. Not the Gallaghers.
But a ten-foot-tall monster who has me imprisoned, starved, dehydrated, and injured. He’s strong enough to kill me with a single swipe. And he was—he was doing something to me while I slept.
There’s nowhere for me to go. I can’t outrun him. I’m trapped with a raging bull, and I’m guaranteed to lose.
I can still taste seawater on my tongue and Tommy’s battery acid at the back of my throat.
I whimper, curling up against the wall, hugging my legs to make myself smaller. God, I wish I were anyone else but me. I wish I could rage and have the strength to tear his throat out instead of huddling up to the wall, hoping and praying it doesn’t hurt that much.
Ordus isn’t going to be happy by my reaction. I hit him, just tried to bite him. Not for the first time, but I would’ve worn his patience thin already. Bile lurches up my throat, and I swallow it back down to keep from angering him further. If I throw up, my punishment would be brutal enough to leave me twitching on the floor, unable to move.
Nothing good ever comes from sleep. I was right.
God, I want to fucking scream.
People don’t wake up and feel better, open their eyes then forgive and forget. The memory of all my indiscretions would still be fresh in his mind. I was given a pass yesterday. It never extends to the next. Tommy taught me that, and I’ve been too stupid to remember.
“Cindi.” His voice is quiet, cautious. Ordus lowers himself closer to the ground, slowly approaching me with his hands out, palms facing upward.
It’s a lie. He’s not surrendering. He’s lulling me into a false sense of security.
I swallow an angry, fearful sob, keeping my head down, gaze averted, not daring to make a sound, even though I want toscream for being the way I am, for not being strong enough to look him in the eye and tell him to go fuck himself.
I wish I buried that blade into his neck yesterday so I didn’t have to discover every fear I had was true.
Ordus is a monster, one as bad as the rest of them.
I was beginning to think maybe he isn’t a monster. Maybe he’s just misunderstood. Maybe he’s nothing like the faces I passed day after day, fooling me into believing the true monsters are the ones hiding beneath the bed while they smile with their straight teeth.
I’m a fool for thinking he held any goodness in him last night when all he wanted was to wait until I was asleep before taking advantage of me. I don’t know what he’s done to me. My underwear feels like it’s in place. My dress is right. It doesn’t feel like anything has beenin there.
Still, I have no way of escaping. Scaling the wall to get to the hole proved impossible. With Vasz playing guard dog, I won’t make it far. And what? Do I think it’d be even remotely possible to outswim Ordus if I fail at killing him?
This is all my fault.
I should have stayed awake, ran at the first sign of troubledaysago. I should never have stopped moving.
My tongue flicks over my dry, chapped lips. I covertly feel the ground around me for the weapon I fell asleep with, but I come up empty. I start to shuffle back, only to stop when an indiscernible rumble starts in his chest.
