Keeping Secret (Secret McQueen) - By Sierra Dean Page 0,55
Holden and I were cast into total darkness. It didn’t matter, there wasn’t much I wanted to look at in the pit anyway, and I could see Holden well enough since he was right next to me.
“So…” he started, but couldn’t find anything else to say.
“Yeah. I want to say something clever, make this whole thing a big laugh, but it’s kind of hard when a bunch of savages want to turn me into their incubator right after they eat you.”
“Look on the bright side,” he suggested.
“There’s a bright side?”
“Sure. Daylight is coming. Maybe they’ll lift up the roof and we’ll just be burned to death.”
He was right, I could feel sunrise coming. It whispered in my ear and tugged at my eyelids. “Maybe we can dig into the side of the hole?” I paced our prison, testing the walls. The dirt was wet, and though it would be easy enough to dig into, I didn’t know how far we’d get before water from the swamp started filling the pit. If we didn’t drown, it would force us into the sunlight where we’d die anyway. He would turn to ash within minutes, whereas my skin would bubble and burst, covered with agonizing burns until the pain did me in.
Boy did I like our odds.
I sat next to Holden and rested my head on his shoulder. He’d removed his jacket, and now that I was close, he laid it across my lap as a makeshift blanket.
“I won’t let them touch you,” he promised.
“I know.” I looped my arm under his and breathed in the familiar scent of his skin. “And if there’s a way out of this, I swear we’ll find it.”
“I know.”
The lies people tell each other when hope runs out are the easiest to believe. If words are all you have, what else can you do but hang on to them?
Sunrise came, and I felt Holden sag under my touch, now unreachable as he slept the worry-free sleep of the dead. I brushed his hair back from his forehead and placed a kiss in the wake of my fingers. It had been at least twenty-four hours since I’d fed, maybe more. If you could count the rabbits and possums I’d fed on in the woods during my walks a real meal. A year ago there would have been no way for me to fight the daylight sleep without a bellyful of fresh blood.
But I was Tribunal now.
I was so exhausted my bones felt like they’d turned to liquid. If forced to fight in this condition, I could do about as much damage as a rabid chipmunk. Sleep wasn’t an option, though. Sleeping would leave Holden defenseless, and if I awoke at dusk to find him gone—killed during the daylight hours while I slept—I would never forgive myself.
I pulled him flush to me, letting his cheek rest against my breasts, nearer than I would have ever let him get under normal circumstances. Right now it was different, though, since he was dead to the world and it made me feel better to have him close.
Day burned bright, and the sounds of the camp filtered down to me. I listened while I rubbed my thumbnail into the shortened lifeline on my left hand, cursing Fate out loud for not letting me make my own choice.
I waited. For death, for freedom, I wasn’t sure. All I could do was wait for the nightmare to end.
Chapter Twenty-Six
It might have been a coincidence, but when night fell and Carn still hadn’t shown up at the camp, I chose to think the Fates had heard my curses. First my strength began to return ounce by ounce. I was still hungry, and not at the top of my form, but every inch farther below the horizon the sun moved, the stronger I became.
When night came roaring into the Loups-Garous camp, Holden awakened and I was no longer alone.
“What happened?” he asked.
“Nothing.”
“They left us alone?”
“Not for long.” I pointed to the plywood ceiling where a chorus of whoops and howls announced the arrival of something or someone important. Either they’d been delivered another—more willing—baby-making machine, or Carn had arrived.
The plywood was pulled back, and several curious faces peered over the edge. Mohawk’s smiling mouth started moving, but it took a second for me to hear him. “Bet you thought we’d forgotten about you, Spitfire.”
“I could only dream of being so lucky.”
“Oh, you’re about to get plenty lucky, don’t you worry.”