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TheEminentkeptdetailsabout Dean’s impending visit to himself, but knowing he’s close, my visions of him come more often, flashing without warning in my mind. Sam’s bloodied face and the shaking of the earth play on repeat, forcing me to watch the figure falling from the cliff.
Dean becomes the least of our worries when we reach our room. We find the Eminent’s added security to our living situation, lining guards at the door, informing us we won’t be leaving until his Eminency allows it.
Until Dean comes to take me.
They bring our food, and Alex’s new assignment is as my escort. I huff a laugh when I see it, knowing for the past few days it read the other way around. There’s nowhere to escort me while we’re trapped in these four walls.
The chances of Alex reaching the surface to find the tunnel or another way of escape disappear. I worry Sam will try something stupid, and during a fitful sleep that night, I want nothing more than new images to enter my mind. Even when I question my gifts, they’ve proven to help me, but only more of the same finds me.
Once, not so long ago, I saw Sam walk into a fire on the hull of a ship. That never came to pass like I thought it would. These sights don’t mean a fatal end, and I can still change them if I could only get out of this room.
I don’t drift to visit my family. Transporting myself into their present is just like when I walk into the past, completely out of my control. Instead, I wake every few hours to find Alex in the same condition, sitting on the couch and staring blankly at the door where men stand on the other side.
Footsteps sound outside our room, and I urge Alex to go back to sleep. Tomorrow something’s happening. I can feel that much.
Rolling around in the empty bed, I force myself to close my eyes, begging for rest that doesn’t come. “I should have just sucked your dick,” I groan.
“The Eminent was right,” Alex says. “Not about the dick sucking.”
I try to laugh into the pillow, but I sigh instead and make myself sit up.
He tosses a ball against the door, making it bounce so it comes back to him every time. It’s a boy’s game and the constantthud - thud - thuddrives me mad. He’s trying to annoy the guards, and that’s the only reason I don’t make him stop.
I close my eyes and rub my temples from the noise. “Right about what?”
Alex throws again, harder this time. “I wouldn’t be able to get it up.”
This time a laugh escapes, and it’s the first time I’ve smiled since we came back to this room, our prison. I don’t doubt that Alex’s right given the situation and audience, but I joke with him, anyway.
“Way to hurt a girl’s feelings,” I mock.
He holds the ball in his hand and turns to me. “You’re not upset, and remember, I told you not to lie.”
Another toss and it thuds against the door, then the metal floor, and back to his hand. “This would have happened, eventually," Alex says. "He would have kept pushing us until someone snapped. Putting us together, having us all work with Sam, then beating Sam. Think about it.”
A growl rises from Alex’s chest before he continues. “He’s.”Thud“Not.”Thud. “Stupid.”Thud.
“He’s thinking he can beat Dean,” I argue. “That’s not smart. Even his Eminency has weaknesses.” I fling the blankets to the end of the bed in theatrics.
“Maybe, but Dean’s coming,” Alex reminds me. “And you let the Eminent know how precious you are to him.”
The idea makes me shiver, and I push away the fears about what he would do if he got to my family first. Dean’s manipulative tactics can be brutal, but his priority is getting to me. He would collect me, and then threaten them if I don’t go with him willingly, help him with what he thinks is some kind of psychic ability. He might even punish Sam in front of me, testing my allegiance.
He might kill Sam.
I push the thought away, refusing to let it seep into my mind.
“We should have given the adherents some kind of show no matter what you could do. Maybe we wouldn’t be stuck in here,” I say. “But it’s in a woman’s nature to avoid sexual assault, you know?”
“Oh, I know,” Alex throws the ball again. “Every woman down here fucking knows.”
“Will you protect my family?” I ask Alex. “When I’m gone.”
“We won’t let that happen,” Alex says.
I snort a laugh and tip-toe to the bathroom. “Please, Alex.”
He throws the ball a few more times before he tells me he will.
