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“Little dove?” Panda’s voice is loud and direct. The most coherent he’s sounded since he’s had me here. My eyes flutter open, and I blink a few times, feigning adjusting to the brightness.
“You’re awake, good. I need you not to fight me.”
He steps toward me and I flinch, jerking my body backward. Not that it gets me anywhere, but he pauses, frowning.
“What does that mean?”
“It means I need you to not fight me,” he says, stepping toward me again and pulling a blindfold from his back pocket. “I’m not going to hurt you if you do what I say. I promise.”
“Why?” I croak, my eyes wide, my gaze not leaving the blindfold as he advances across the room.
“Because the person who has been helping me wants to make sure you’re okay with their own eyes, but they want to remain anonymous.”
“But why? If they’re helping and you don’t want to hurt me, why remain anonymous?”
“That’s just how they want it. Once they see you’re not hurt. We’ll move to the next phase: getting us out of here.”
“I can’t just leave here, P. Please don’t make me.” I hate begging, but I can’t leave my life here. Panic floods my system and I’m officially too weak to try and fight it off. I hadn’t wanted to come back to Echoes Cove at first, but now… now there’s too much for me to leave behind.
He shakes his head, anger washing over his features as he closes the last bit of distance between us. “You’re still brainwashed. I’ll fix that too, don’t worry. I’ll help you realize the truth of it all.”
Before I can respond, his hands dart forward and he wraps the soft material around my head, covering my eyes and plunging my world into darkness. “Panda, please. Don’t do this.”
My voice is thick with uncried tears. Not being able to see anything makes all of this so much worse. I was not raised to be helpless. “You were supposed to help me. Protect me. But this… this isn’t that, P. Please see that.”
“I see everything. Far more clearly than you. Just trust me.” I feel the warmth of him disappear and choke back a sob. I swore I wouldn’t cry, but fuck my life, this is too much. I’ve managed to survive until now, but this might be the thing that finally breaks me.
“You can come down now!” Panda's voice echoes around the bare room, followed quickly by the creak of the wooden stairs. The smell of peppermint, wood, and spice fills the space. It’s so thick it makes my nose itch. “I told you. She’s fine. Are you satisfied now?
A beat passes, and Panda says, “Good.”
Whoever is standing there keeps their mouth shut as the blindfold soaks up my tears, all while my heart pounds so loud in my chest, I’m sure they can hear it. It feels like eons pass in the silence before the creaking starts again when whoever it is leaves again. At least I assume so. I guess it could’ve been Panda, but I didn’t hear him walk across the room.
When the door slams, my blindfold is ripped away. “We’ll be leaving here soon. Our lives are going to be so much better. Just the two of us, far from here, where the Knights can’t reach us.”
“I will never forgive you for this, P. You’re going to have to hold me captive my entire life.”
He shakes his head, looking at me like I’m the crazy one. “No I won’t, not once we de-program you. You’ll see.” He trails off into a mumble and turns off the lights, flicking on a projector which lights up the wall in front of me, images flickering brightly. I guess this is part of his deprogramming bullshit. I struggle against the restraints as he heads back up the stairs.
I need to find a way out of these fucking bindings, because if he gets me away from here, the only outcomes are that I’m going to end up dead or killing him.
* * *
I wake up to the flashing of images on the wall in front of me. It’s so bright that my eyes water and it takes me a moment to actually see what the images are.
Pictures of my guys, of Indi, of me with them…
I’m strapped back to the table I had been on when I first got here, tilted upright so it’s like I’m standing, except there’s an extra brace around my neck and forehead so I can’t look anywhere but at the images.
Then the pain begins. “They are no good for you. They just want to hurt you,” Evan whispers in my ear, and the burning on my forearm intensifies. “They will only bring you pain.”
I try not to scream out, try not to play into whatever sick game this is, but it’s impossible. I don’t think I’ve ever felt pain like this before. I can’t even work out why it hurts so much because I can’t see it.
“This isn’t going to work, Evan. The only one hurting me is you.”
The pain recedes a little before he appears in front of me. “I’m not hurting you. They are!”
He disappears again, the images continuing, and then I hear voices. Their voices. Our conversations playing around the room. I feel the cold sting of metal on the inside of my thigh, before the pain starts again as he slices my skin, blood running down my leg to the sound of Lincoln’s voice telling me how useless and pathetic I am.
