Page 53 of The Bonds of Indigo

Rolling my eyes, I take a sip, immediately regretting it. Not only is there ChapStick on the rim, but I can practically taste the burger.

“If it helps you open up, I don’t think them lashing you that many times is… right.” His voice turns soft, and when I look at him, his expression matches the somberness. “How many times?”

Dragging my tongue across my top teeth, I chew on my cheek before answering. “One-hundred-thirty-six.”

His eyes bulge.

“One for each kid murdered that day.”

For a moment, I have to think if I had the number correct, because the look he gives me confuses me. His brows pinch hard, and his eyes narrow incredulously.

“What?”

“How you worded that. Don’t you mean, ‘How many kids I murdered that day’.”

“Yeah… isn’t that what I said?”

He picks up his water, taking a long sip before running the back of his palm across his lips. “One for each kid murdered that day.”

I roll my lips together, doing my best to seem confused by his uncertainty.

“I killed that day. I missed a word, sorry.”

A laugh rolls right between his grinning lips. “He was right,” he says, bringing the burger back to his mouth and taking a bite. While chewing, he chuckles. “You’re good at concealing.”

We sat in silence for the rest of the meal. I didn’t touch more than one additional fry before he was packing everything back into the bag—trash and uneaten food—and heading out of the room. He bid me goodnight, saying they’d both be back around five in the morning to get me. That would only give me a few hours of sleep; by the time I crawled into bed, the bright red clock read 12:04.

I shut my eyes, feeling the roughness of the white sheets and the extremely hard pillow attempt to cradle me. It doesn’t work, and I just toss and turn.

There wasn’t anything to dress my forearm, so I was forced to use a… whatever the medium fucking towels are. It isn’t for the face, but it won’t even wrap fully around my tiny frame. So like, what’s it for?

Just the thought of how irritated I was over the damn thing has me shifting my arm outward, putting it as far away from me as possible.

The medicine should fix my arm over the next couple days… Still, it’s frustrating I can’t heal my own wounds.

I watch the clock tick for an hour when I feel a brush against the threaded bond.

“Amarah?”

Gods, I wish he would stop reaching out to me. I’m just going to ignore him. He can’t tell the difference anyway. I’d heard him before when he reached out right after the crash, and he was none the wiser.

“Are you awake?”

For Vayl’s sake, I wish I wasn’t.

“You better have eaten.”

Great, scolding me like some child. He sounds drunk, the soft slur at the end of each sentence different from his normally smooth, husky voice.

“You need your strength.”

I’m fully aware of that, thanks.

“Are you really asleep?” Gods he’s persistent! I’m not giving in, and he’ll just have to move on. “Good.”

Fucking good.

“Your eyes remind me of the person I’m looking for.” Holy Vendra herself, my heart nearly stops. “I wish I could reach out to that person like this, to have a bond with them. Everything I’m doing is to get them back to me, and I’ll do everything to make it happen. You’ll eat when food’s given to you. You’ll rest when you can. You’ll do as I say, and once I get what I want, so will you. Then we can be done. We will never see each other again, as you said to Atlas.”