he was there.
Had she lost time again? Or had he moved so quietly she just hadn’t heard the normally heavy footfalls of his boots on the hard floor?
Either way, it couldn’t be good.
In the dim light she could only see his shadow, but it was enough to send a trill of fear through her as he slowly unlocked the door.
“You, number 38. Out now.”
She froze, not even breathing.
Even in the darkness his cold stare burned her. “Don’t make me drag you out. You know what will happen.”
Heart caught in her throat she forced herself upright, hunching over to avoid hitting her head on the low ceiling of the cell.
She shuffled out, wincing when he snatched at her upper arm in a vice like grip.
The quick movement pulled up the sleeve of his tunic, revealing the mark all of their keepers wore branded into their wrists.
Two triangles, side by side, a filled in circle resting between the points.
At the sight her stomach lurch, but there was no time to think about it.
The man dragged her behind him, past the thin faces of the other girls, some older than her, even as old as sixteen or seventeen. Most of them were younger, their cries for their families and their homes mixed with the stories whispered up and down the cells in the long dark nights.
They couldn’t help her, just looked away as she stumbled past.
Esme didn’t blame them.
Each of them would have their own turn, soon enough.
She half fell into the next room, it’s blinding whiteness stabbing at her eyes, numbness tripping her feet so that she didn’t have a chance to fight back before he pushed her into the chair again, tightened the straps around her wrists and chest, and then lowered the metal.
The man’s closely cropped blonde hair caught the light, and made his face seem to glow.
With chiseled cheekbones and deep blue eyes, he’d have been handsome except for the scowl that twisted his face.
“Let’s go over the readings one more time.”
He wasn’t talking to her.
They never talked to her or any of the other girls, just moved them into position, threatened them until they complied.
Her eyes locked on the far wall where a painted sun rose between two mountains, promising a new day.
A day where none of this happened.
Escape.
Someone behind her grunted in acknowledgment and there was a sharp click as if a switch had been thrown.
And then the pain began.
Esme set bolt upright in the bed, screaming.
She could still feel the pain lancing through her head, the sneer on the blond man’s face as he turned away, intent on something she couldn’t see.
But here, now, strong arms enfolded her.
“What was it?” Gavin whispered. “Whatever it was, it’s gone, it can’t hurt you.”
She couldn’t answer, just shook, clinging to him while the last echoes of the pain faded.
“Just a nightmare,” she whispered. With her voice caught in her throat, she had to stop, try again to make the words come out. “Or maybe a memory, or a glimpse of the future. I don’t know. I never have.”
Gavin pulled her into his lap, one hand stroking her hair back while the other held her tight.
He was right. She was safe here.
Until he asked the question that threatened to bring it all back.
The question she’d endless wondered about, tortured herself with ever since she woke up and her clan was dead, the children gone.
“What do you mean, maybe a memory?”
She closed her eyes, and the smells, the faces of the other children, everything was so real.
But was it really?
“I’d tell you if I could,” she answered. “But I don’t have any answers either. They think I was fourteen, maybe fifteen when the clan found me. I was on the coast, but my clothing was soaked with freshwater. Auntie Layla guessed I’d been washed down the river to the sea, then managed to drag myself far enough up the beach not to be pulled back into the waves.”
She’d tried for years to break through that wall of black ice, to remember something, anything before waking up in Layla’s caravan.
“I don’t know where I was before. But sometimes....” She shook herself. “It never mattered to her. The clan took me in, gave me a new family. Never asked questions I couldn’t answer.” She took a deep, shuddering breath, almost surprised at the bitterness that tore through her.
“I’ve been with them for more than ten years and still that dream comes and all I’m left with is shreds of a nightmare that’s gone