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They drag me from the house and all the way down the path to the gate, where two of them hold me by the arms and a third punches me so hard across my face that my teeth cut into my cheek. Blood sprays from my lips as the next punch collides with my gut and I double over, then they throw me to the ground on the other side of the gate.

"If you come back," one of the guards snarls as he tosses my car keys next to me on the ground, "we will kill you."

The gate creaks closed behind me. I painfully climb to my feet with a muted groan. Sweeping my tongue around my teeth, I gather the blood and spit it to the ground with a wince while one eye closes briefly against sharp pain stinging at my brow.

Fuck.

I made it out alive. Barely.

Now I have to get back in and rescue Sabina before it's too late.

12

SABINA

There's no hope or sense to the urge to jump, but it rises like a wave in my mind as I clutch the railing and stare down at the paving stones below.

I haven't thought about death in years, not since back then when all of this started, and then months later when I started to doubt what was real and what was true. It's alarming how alluring the thought is now that it carries the weight of saving myself and Illyana.

But despite the urge, I can't gather the courage to hook my leg up and throw myself over, so after a shaky breath, I retreat back into my room and close the balcony doors. I can't decide if it's strength or cowardice that draws me back into my room. Maybe a little bit of both.

My legs give way by the time I reach the bed and I slowly sink down onto the mattress with a soft, upset groan. The air around me grows thin and cold so I wrap my arms around my middle and stare hard at the floor.

Cassian was here.

Never in a million years did I think I would run into someone like him here, and it throws everything else into doubt. Have I just been living a weird, curated dream all these years? Ten years in a daze with no real control over anything, despite how I told myself I was making a future for myself.

What does all that even matter now?

My stomach knots and a shiver swipes down my spine, settling deep into my bones as I tighten my grip around myself. That man, Mario. He paints this situation as a choice, but Cassian's presence has to be the final nail in the coffin of my lack of one. There is no choice. I'm here so they can harvest an organ for my daughter, who doesn't even know me.

Oddly, it now makes sense why they never came looking for me, but I spent all these years thinking it was luck and praising myself for surviving. Now I know the truth.

Fresh tears well in my eyes as defeat settles in my chest, but I no longer have any strength to wipe them away. I let them fall, trailing down my cheeks as my mind goes blank.

I don't know how long I sit there but by the time the door to my room unlocks and swings open, my tears have dried and my eyes burn slightly from how long I've been absently staring at the floor. One of the guards walks in without a word and I glimpse his shining, black leather shoes as he strides up to me. A second later, the back of his hand collides heavily with my face. I lurch to the side, a yelp of shock escaping my lips as hot, stinging pain rises up across my cheek.

"What the fuck?"

Glaring up at him, curses rest on the tip of my tongue, but just as I take a breath to say them, Mario's voice cuts through the air like the lash of a whip.

"Again."

The guard obeys and strikes me once more, which sends me lurching in the opposite direction, and both my cheeks flare hot and sharp.

"You had a visitor." Mario steps around the guard and smiles in a sickly, kindly way that masks all the ill intent brimming in his eyes. "What did you tell him?"

"What?" I blink quickly as tears from pain flood my eyes, but I swallow them down with a grunt. "Why don't you ask him?"

"Again," Mario instructs.

This time when the guard moves to strike me, I duck, but his hand swiftly ends up in my hair and he hauls me back to face Mario. Once our eyes meet, he strikes me hard against the face and pain throbs through my jaw.

"What did you tell him?" Mario repeats, and he smiles that same smile that's swallowed up by his mustache. "Tell me the truth."

"Why? Does no one in your family talk to one another?" I mutter bitterly.

Mario glances at his guard, and I can already feel the command to strike sparking in the air so I take a deep, shaky breath and shake my head as much as I can while caught in that man's grip.