Avenged (Altered #2)(14)

“No.” She wasn’t going to be a prisoner again. She couldn’t. “I can’t. You don’t understand.”

He snagged the sleeve of her ugly orange jumpsuit. “I saw where they were keeping you. I saw how you were living. You don’t think I understand?”

“You saw, Nick, but you didn’t live it. You don’t know.” Her voice was rising, but she didn’t care. Her mother would have told her to calm down, that a woman in hysterics was an ugly thing. But her mother wasn’t here. Her mother was dead.

“So tell me, please.” His voice was soft. “I can understand.” In the light of the lantern, his eyes were darker than usual, like deep wells she could fall into.

“No, you can’t, Nick. You can’t.” She pulled her arm from his grasp, wrapping it around herself as if to hold herself together. She stepped back, needing space, something of limited quantity in the small cave. “No light, Nick. I was kept in rooms without windows, in case I did gain some power that hadn’t presented yet. And drugged, over and over. So many times, I lost count. They’d poke me with needles, take so much blood that I would be black and blue up and down my arms and legs.” She inhaled, trying to stop the words. She’d been trapped behind walls for months, and now when she wanted a cage for her emotions, there was nothing to be found. “One day, I woke and my body ached. I hurt for days. I found out later that they’d pumped me full of adrenalin, over and over, to track if the drug had affected my heart. They shocked my heart, to see if they could force a new power out of me.”

Nick’s jaw tightened, and his fingers clenched and unclenched at his side. Cool it. She doesn’t need your anger. But he showed no other outward reaction when he asked, “What makes you think I’d let anyone do that to you again?”

“You can’t stop them. And I can’t go from one prison to another, Nick. I won’t.” Kitty bit down hard on her lip, then, to stop talking. She’d already said too much. She didn’t know him. Even the people she knew didn’t know her well. Bottom line, she didn’t share her feelings. With anyone. Ever.

Now, she spilled everything—to Nick, of all people.

She closed her eyes, squeezed them shut. She couldn’t stand it if he pitied her. She’d take any barrier she could get. She put her hands to the side of her head and did the only thing she could.

She closed him out.

Her own thoughts were unmanageable. She couldn’t deal with his, too.

This entire time, she’d started to believe he understood. Obviously not.

She glanced around. Realistically, she knew she had no chance if she left him here. She had no survival training. They were miles from civilization. She had a light jacket, in the middle of November. Even if she found the extra shoes and Nick let her go, she had no clue where she was and no idea how to get out of here. She’d just be walking aimlessly through the forest.

She wasn’t prepared for a prolonged hike in the wilderness.

She was trapped. Again. It was a different situation, but she still had no escape.

Sitting there, doing her best not to meet his eyes, she tried to think of something to say. If she were Blue, she might have been able to blow him off or come up with some sharp response. Something that proved she wasn’t beaten.

But even though her mother was gone, she’d drilled the importance of good manners into her, the art of pretending things were fine when they weren’t. So she said, “Thank you, Nick. For getting me out of there. It means…well, it means everything to me.”

“Jesus, Kitty. It isn’t like that…” His eyes were stricken with pain. I didn’t betray you.

“You should tell your Martins that Dr. Fields planned to test his drug on the group of soldiers that just arrived at Goldstone. I don’t think they know. I’m not even sure when that was supposed to happen. I tried to…escape, I guess, but I don’t know when that was. Maybe yesterday?” She looked to him. They’d knocked her out. When that happened, she never had any idea how much time passed. His mouth thin, he nodded. So, she must have been right—only the one day. “Yesterday then. But those men don’t know. If you can get word, maybe…maybe your Martins can help.”

He swiped his hand over his face. “Okay. Fine. I’ll text Martins. We’ll talk about the rest of this again tomorrow. I swear it’s going to be okay. We’re both tired, and this will look different when we’re out of here.” He reached into his pocket and removed a disposable cell phone. Before he typed, though, he nudged his head toward her abandoned MRE. “But you need to eat.”

He was right. She did need to eat. She reached for the packet. The only sound in the cave was the tapping of his fingers on his phone. She put the food in her mouth, chewed, swallowed, all on autopilot. She didn’t taste it. After she’d eaten every bite, she lay down. The exhaustion was intense, the most complete exhaustion she’d ever felt.

Months ago, when she was first taken, she’d been unable to sleep, constantly on guard against potential threats. After a while, she’d accepted her fate. Things would happen as they would, she knew that. Worrying was useless.

She closed her eyes in this strange and dangerous place, falling into a deep sleep.

…

Luke Kincaid hunched over his laptop at the makeshift desk in the miniscule apartment he shared with Parker Sinclair and Jack Barnett. The apartment would have been fine for only him and Jack, as they’d originally planned. But Parker had arrived on their doorstep a few weeks ago.