Page 54 of Dark Night of the Soul

The same cheek. The same spot.

Fresh pain exploded. The carefully dressed wound tearing open.

I felt it. Registered it. Filed it away.

But my hands didn’t release.

“Please—” the nurse choked out.

The word cut through the programming. I froze.

What am I doing?

I released her. Stumbled back. My cheek was wet. Warm. Blood dripping down my jaw from the reopened wound.

She scrambled for the door. Hit the panic button on the wall.

“I’m sorry—” I started.

But she was already gone. And alarms were already screaming.

I pressed my hand to my face. Felt the torn bandage. The blood. She’d cleaned it. I’d undone it in seconds.

Three guards entered. Armed. One grabbed my arms, wrenched them behind my back. The programming surged again. I could break the hold. I knew how. The exact pressure point, the precise angle—

No. Stop. Don’t.

“Sedate her,” someone said.

A sharp sting in my neck. Cold spread through my veins. I tasted blood. From my cheek. Dripping into my mouth.

They were right. I was a weapon.

It was the last thing I thought before darkness took me.

Chapter 20 | Kincade

I’d spent the last three hours trying to get my fucking wrist out the iron cuff. Blood helped. It made it slick enough. I needed to break or dislocate my thumb. I’d been considering this—skin was already wrecked, what was one more thing?—but was actively trying to avoid the worst possible scenario.

The pain didn’t matter. Pain was information. The body reporting on your decisions. I’d made mine.

If I was going to get out of here with her, I had to do something extreme.

I twisted. Pulled. The iron bit deeper into skin and tissue. I angled for the thumb joint. Ready to commit to the damage.

I was deciding whether to do it when the lock clicked.

I froze.

Not the rotation. Wrong timing. The guards weren’t due for another hour.

The door opened. Slow. Deliberate.

Silas stepped inside, moving like a shadow, dressed in black. His one good eye tracked to my wrist, the blood, the angle I’d been working.

Something flickered across his face. Gone in a second.

He crossed to me without a word, pulling lock picks from his jacket.