“Please,” I whisper now, tears slipping into my ears. “I’m not supposed to be here.” My voice falls apart briefly before anger slams through me hard enough to override the fear completely.
“Do you hear me?!” I shout toward the sealed room. “I’m not crazy! Let me the fuck out!” I thrash so hard the bed frame groans beneath me. That is when I notice movement in the tube.
A clear line of liquid begins traveling downward from inside the wall—slow and steady—gliding through the tubing toward my hand, and every part of me turns cold.
“No.” I yank against the straps so hard that pain explodes through both wrists.
“No, stop! Stop!” The fluid keeps coming, patient as death. “Please!” I sob, twisting helplessly. “Don’t do this!”
It reaches the cannula and slips into my vein. A sharp chill spreads instantly through my hand, then up my arm, then deeper, carrying a heaviness that doesn’t belong to me. My pulse races harder in response, but the rest of my body starts betraying me one piece at a time. My fingers go numb first. Then my jaw.Then the strength drains from my neck until I can’t keep my head lifted.
“No…” I try again, but the word slurs into nothing.
The ceiling blurs above me. The light blooms wide and strange. My heartbeat sounds far away now, frantic but fading behind layers of cotton.
I fight it with everything left in me. I think of the bridge, of Cain’s face when he told me to jump, of the way he looked relieved when I did. And just before the darkness folds over me again, one final thought cuts through the drugged haze like broken glass.
He planned every second of this.
Chapter 21
Sierra
Voices reach me before anything else does, low and blurred at first, like they’re drifting up from the bottom of deep water. My body feels heavy in that strange, useless way it does when sleep isn’t sleep at all. When something chemical is still dragging through my veins and refusing to let go.
I try to move—instinct more than thought—and the pull of restraints answers me immediately.
The straps are still there.
Panic rises so fast it almost clears my head on its own.
I force my eyes open in slow increments, wincing as the ceiling light bleeds across my vision. The room is still that same dead white cage, sterile and hostile. My wrists ache where the leather has rubbed the skin raw, and every small movement sends the pain higher. The restraints around my ankles pulse with thesame cruel rhythm as my heartbeat, while the wide belt cinched across my waist keeps me pinned flat no matter how carefully or desperately I test it.
Then another pain begins surfacing beneath everything else, one I hadn’t even noticed through the drugs and adrenaline until now. It stretches high across my legs, above my knees, dull and heavy at first before turning sharper with every second the haze lifts from my head.
My breath catches before I can stop it, the sound thin and sharp in the silence. A faint metallic smell lingers in the air now, subtle but impossible to mistake, and when I shift my legs the slightest amount, something tacky drags against my skin.
No.
No, no, no…
I try to lift my head, desperate to look down at myself under the shapeless hospital gown draped over me, but the strap across my waist snaps me back before I get far enough. The effort sends pain streaking through my neck and shoulders, tearing a strained sound from my throat. With no other choice, I turn my head instead—quick and frantic—searching the room for answers as everything tilts and swims before slowly sharpening into the shape of men.
Cain stands beside the bed in a black shirt with the sleeves pushed to his forearms, looking clean, composed, untouched by everything that happened. There’s no river water in his hair, no blood on his skin, no sign he drove us off a bridge and climbed back out of it. He looks like a man waiting for a meeting to begin.
For one desperate second, seeing him hits me with such intense relief it almost hurts.
Someone I know.
Someone who can explain this.
Someone who can stop whatever nightmare I woke up inside.
Then another voice cuts through the room.
“Easy there, kitten. You’re gonna hurt yourself.”
Every muscle in my body locks as my head whips toward the wall. A man dressed in black stands there, broad-shouldered and still, a balaclava covering most of his face and leaving only his eyes exposed. I don’t need to see more. My body recognizes him before my mind catches up.
