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“Easy.” He rubbed my back and I was lost to the movement. “More,” he urged.
I swallowed again and pushed the bottle away. “Now you.”
If this was how I got through to him, then I would. He fixed that self-destructive stare on me. I knew the look well…but this was the only way we were going to survive…together.“You don’t drink, I don’t drink.”
He scowled, then reached up, took the bottle, and lifted it to his lips.
That’s it…drink.
He finished the bottle before rising and making his way across the room. My gaze was dragged back to that blinking red light in the corner of the ceiling before the sharp crinkle of plastic drew my focus.
Caleb strode back with a sandwich in his hand, then he held half out to me. “Now eat.”
My stomach clenched as panic and acid rose in the back of my throat. “No.” I shook my head and met his gaze. “No. Not the food.” Memories assaulted me from the first time they'd dragged me here. “You can’t trust the food.”
He just lifted the sandwich to his mouth and took a bite. His jaw worked as he chewed and swallowed, waiting…
You can’t trust the food…
FIVE
Caleb
She slept,eventually. Curled in the corner, refusing the bed, just like I knew she would. Her breaths were steady and deep. But her body betrayed her, twitching and jerking, fighting demons in her sleep. I stared at her clenched fists until my eyes burned. But I didn’t dare close them…not in this place. Demons didn’t just wait for us in our slumber…they waited here, as well.
Somewhere in the hallway the faint snap of a lock sounded.
“No,” a woman pleaded, her words faint.“No, I won’t go…I won’t—"
Then there was nothing. I waited, waited so fucking long…
But there was just silence.
Christ, this fucking place.
Red…
Red coated my world. Red lace at my feet. Red that stained these hands. I flexed my fingers, still feeling the pulsing of her pussy. I'd tried to draw her back from the darkness, tried so fucking hard to keep her safe. Look where that had gotten us. I wanted to never see red on her again. I looked her way, desperate to lose myself in those gray-blue eyes until I stopped existing. Maybe then, I might touch perfection.
Because she was…pure perfection.
“Tobias,” she called my brother’s name. “No…”
I winced at the sound and looked away, at the half-eaten sandwich discarded on the floor at her feet. No matter how hard I'd tried, she refused to eat.
“Don’t go…” she whispered.
I swallowed that sting and turned away. Still, it stayed with me, as well as the last thing Nick ever said…fix it. Fix it or you’ll lose her forever.
I'd tried to fix it, and gotten my brother killed. I closed my eyes and inched toward that black abyss waiting for me. I was a dead man anyway, one living on borrowed fucking time. I was under no illusion about that. As soon as they found a workaround for whatever Jack Castlemaine had on them, I’d meet the same fate. Only this time, there’d be no quick end. No, the fucking Priest would see to that. They’d take their time, drag it out…make an example of me, if only to break Ryth. They’d break her and there wouldn’t be a goddamn thing I could do to stop it.
I hung my head.
“Don’t worry, T,” I whispered. “I’ll be joining you soon, brother.”
My hands shook as fear wormed its way in deep.
“Caleb.”
