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Now the slimy, dark walls of the sewer seem to be spinning around me. The ground moves sideways, or maybe that’s me.
What was that stuff? What has he done to me?
I sprawl out on my belly. I’m too disoriented to even care that I’m lying in the smelly, oily muck in this sewer. It’s not that I don’t know how nasty this is. I do. But I just can’t do anything about it.
My eyes are already shuttering.
“Sleep well, Zella,” Rys purrs somewhere above me. He shifts, lowering down to my side, nearly brushing my cheek with his hand. Half asleep and almost unaware that I’m doing it, I lean into his touch. “Dream of me.”
3
I don’t dream.
I rarely do. It’s a side effect of my meds. Some of my nighttime pills make it so that I can’t fall asleep deep enough to dream. As I come to slowly, aware that I was asleep and now I’m kind of not, I realize that I didn’t dream—and, for some strange reason, I’m not only relieved, I feel like I won something.
Waking up is a fight, though. That is unusual for me. Ever since I was forced into the asylum, I’m always up before the rest of my floor. Not today. Not now. It’s almost like I’m drifting under the waves, floating along, no intention of breaking the surface.
I don’t think I’m going to get the choice to stay under much longer. It’s a gradual process, but my restful state is slipping away like grains of sand in a timer. I try to hold onto it. A warning beats against my hazy brain, telling me that I don’t want to wake up. I’m warm, though my face, my ears, my nose are a little cold, and I’m safe while I’m asleep.
Right?
I… I’m not so sure.
For some strange reason, I ache all over. My bed isn’t the softest, sure, but it feels like I’m sleeping on the floor. My back is super stiff. While I keep my eyes screwed shut, a weak attempt at tricking myself into thinking I’m still asleep, I curl up into the fetal position, trying to twist my body in a better position.
It doesn’t work. My side is screaming and I roll over, flopping on my back, my arm flung outward as I stretch.
My fingers brush against something fuzzy. Images of rats and caterpillars and, I don’t know, mutant spiders go running through my mind. My eyes spring open.
Suddenly, I’m wide awake.
One second. That’s all it takes. One second where I gasp in terror, unable to keep from imagining a big, fuzzy, mutant spider running across my hand, then I react. I throw my blanket off, then try to jump out of the bed. Impossible. I’m already flat on the ground. There’s nowhere else to go but up.
Scrambling into a sitting position, I push off of the hard ground, desperate to get away from the monster spider I’ve imagined.
I’m disoriented. It’s strangely dark where I am, with a heavy, dank, musty chill hanging in the air. I’m halfway to my feet when my bare foot slides on something slick, something sleek, and I stumble forward, throwing my hands out in front of me to break my fall.
I land on my hands and knees, the same material I slipped on cushioning me enough so that I don’t shatter my kneecaps. Like I thought before, the floor is hard—and it is the floor. It’s hard as marble and just as cold; the shock of the temperature cuts through my leather gloves. My fingers scrabble to find purchase against the slippery swath of thin fabric beneath me. Once I’m resting against my heels, I blink, trying to figure out where I am and what the hell is going on.
Okay. So, it’s not my room, and not only because I’m missing the six vertical bars stretched across my window. Can’t have any bars—there’s no window where I am. No bed, either. Just the encompassing dark and, as I blink rapidly, trying to get my sight back, a pale light illuminating the gloomy space surrounding me.
I blink again, focusing.
I’m not seeing things. A faint orange glow stretches out, touching everything around me. It’s not enough to help me make any sense of my strange surroundings, but the eerie gleam makes me nervous. That’s… that’s weird. I should be glad that there’s any kind of light here—
Light.
Light Fae.
I remember. Suddenly, I remember where I am and why.
I’m in the sewer, and I’m hiding.
Or, I was. I didn’t do such a great job since he found me.
Rys.
My head jerks toward the source of the faint orange light. Facing it head-on, the fire inside is so bright that I have to shield my poor, stinging eyes with the shadow of my glove.
