“I don’t know.” Cass’s voice came out wrecked. “I don’t—I saw—”
“What did you see?” Riot’s hand was steady on the washcloth, but Cass could feel the tension radiating off him.
“Behind the door.” Cass pressed his palms against his closed eyes, trying to find words for things that didn’t have words. “I was on a cot. In a healing room. I was sick—I kept throwing up—and my hair was tied back—and—there were no healers. There are always healers…”
He stopped. His head pounded harder.
“And what?” Riot’s voice was still controlled, but barely. Cass could hear the cracks.
“Only Brother Matthias was there, but I couldn’t see him.” Cass’s breath hitched. “He kept saying things—that he had to be thorough—that the impurity was leaving—and there was—”
“There was what, Cass?”
“I don’t know how to—” Cass shook his head, frustrated. “Something felt wrong. And I was sick and my eyes were empty and I couldn’t make it stop and there was a sound—”
“What kind of sound?”
Cass’s head was splitting now. “I don’t know. Low sounds. Like—” He tried to think, tried to find a comparison, but his brain kept sliding away from the memory like water off glass. “I don’t know. I don’t understand why I can’t remember—”
Riot was silent. Too silent. Cass forced himself to look up.
What he saw made his breath catch.
Riot’s face had gone to stone. Not the hot anger Cass had seen before—this was cold. Frozen. His eyes had that flat predator quality, the Berserker watching from just beneath the surface,and his hands—his hands were shaking. Trembling with the effort of not doing something.
“Riot?”
“I’m okay.” The words came out rough. Wrong. Riot closed his eyes, and Cass watched him breathe—slow, deliberate, the way someone breathed when they were trying very hard not to break something. “I’m okay. Keep talking.”
The door in his mind was rattling, trying to open, and the pain was so bad he could barely see.
“No more.” Cass pressed his hands over his ears, childish and desperate. “I can’t. Please. My head hurts so much and the door is trying to open and I can’t—”
Riot’s arms came around him.
Not grabbing. Not demanding. Just—there. Solid warmth, the steady beat of a heart that was pounding too fast, giving away the rage that Riot’s voice was hiding.
“Okay,” Riot said into Cass’s hair. “Okay. You don’t have to tell me. Not right now. I’ve got you.”
They stayed like that for a long moment—Cass slumped against the toilet, Riot curled around him on the cold bathroom floor, both of them shaking.
“Honey,” Cass said when he was certain he wouldn’t throw up again.
Riot’s arms tightened around him. “What about her?”
“She’s still there. If she has to—if someone makes her sick—” He didn’t have words for the shape of his fear.
“Hey.” Riot pulled back enough to look at him, and some of the frozen rage had thawed. His hands came up to cup Cass’s face, thumbs wiping at the tears. “Look at me. Look at me.”
Cass looked.
“We’re going,” Riot insisted. “Tonight. Right now. We’re not waiting for morning, we’re not waiting for permission, we’re going. Okay?”
“Really?” The word came out small. Fragile.
“Really.” Riot pressed his forehead against Cass’s. “Get cleaned up. I’ll handle supplies.”
Cass nodded against him. The door in his mind was still there, still rattling, but it was closed now. He didn’t have to look at what was behind it. He just had to get to Honey.
