AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“I’m sorry, I’m so sorry. I need out of here,” I whisper. “Norn, please, I did what you asked. Please. Let me out.”
Kade slides down the wall while looking at me in surprise. “Len?”
I crawl over to him as he sinks down to his back. “I’m sorry,” I say as I lay my chest down on him, needing to feel him. I’m at least covering him enough the camera might not see as I slide my fingers into his shirt and hold tightly onto him. “I’m sorry, please, Kade, I’m sorry.”
Kade’s quiet and I don’t like it. I don’t like the darkness. Without his touch, without his hands, it’s suffocating in here and I’m not sure how much longer I can breathe. My stomach seizes and I burrow my face against his chest, digging my nails into him as I hold him close.
CHAPTER7
TWO DAYS LEFT
KADE
Norn’s promise to let Len go if he shot me wasn’t much of a promise. He made Len suffer far longer than the hour he agreed. Maybe he wanted to make sure I really was dead or maybe he wanted to break Len even more. Len never gets off me, hand clenched tightly onto mine, which I squeeze whenever I feel him close to breaking. It seems to pull him back down off that edge, but I’m not sure how much longer I can keep him from dipping into the darkness.
At some point well into the night, I hear the door open.
Len’s entire body tenses, but he remains lying on top of me as it’s swung open by a guard.
“Norn wants to see you,” he says.
Len’s fingers tighten on me as I wish I could see better in this room cast with shadows. He pushes off me and I can hear him scramble to the door, but I can’t see shit without turning my head and I don’t know if I’m allowed to stop pretending to be dead yet. Either way, I don’t have to see to hear the noise the guard makes as he dies.
I should help Len, but I’m not sure what kind of help I’ll be. Even so, I push myself up, thrilled to be able to move after having lain still for hours, but my bruised and bloody body aches. When I reach the door, I notice that there’s a pile of dead men and can tell which way Len went by the bodies littered down the hallway. Before I head after him, I back into the room, positive that Norn is watching.
“You better be fucking careful, Norn. You’ve just sealed your fate.”
And I confidently know that Len is going to make him pay for what he’s done.
I step out into the hallway and just follow the bodies to find Len. When I reach him, he’s standing outside, gun in one hand, knife in the other, all alone. He’s just standing there, unmoving as I walk up.
“Len, come on.”
He doesn’t acknowledge me as I come up behind him and take his wrist. He jumps and turns on me, like he didn’t hear me calling for him.
“Hey,” I say, voice gentle.
“I need to kill him,” he whispers.
“You will, but right now, let’s go somewhere and get cleaned up and composed and—”
“I’m going to kill him. I’m going to fucking slaughter him. I’m going to make it hurt. And I’m going to watch him die.”
I grab Len’s wrist and pull him around before drawing him into me. It feels mildly dangerous with the knife and the gun, but I still pull him in close. His entire body is tense and rigid, and I want to pull that out of him.
“We’re going to a hotel, and we’re going to just… relax for the night, okay? Now where’s your car?”
He points in a general direction but refuses to move. “Go on back to my car. Here are the keys. I’ll take someone else’s car and I’ll be back later.”
I grab his face in my hands. “Len, I might not know how to fight, but I’ve been in this world a very long time and I know that people make mistakes when they’re angry or upset or not collected, and right now… I wouldn’t consider this collected.”
“What are you talking about? I’m fully collected. I’ve collected all of my thoughts about how I’m going to cut off just a piece of each limb and watch him suffer. Then I’m going to lock him in a room and I’m going to leave him there until he dies.”
“Yep, let’s go,” I say as I hook his waist and drag him after me. “I can’t believe you shot me.”
“It was a nick. I needed your reaction to be true disbelief. I wouldn’t have really hurt you,” he promises me.
“Yeah, well it still stung like a bitch,” I grumble.
