This Coven Won't Break - Isabel Sterling Page 0,84

later, Benton was out of jail.

I must finally fall asleep, because the next thing I remember is waking up to the sound of metal scraping against the stone floor. I scramble to my feet, disoriented and sore from sleeping on the ground.

Benton stands on the other side of the cell. A deep purple bruise blooms across his right jaw, and dark crescents sit under his eyes like he slept worse than I did. There’s a tray of food on the floor of the cell where he must have pushed it through, and he holds a cloth bag in his hands.

He glances from me to Archer, who is awake but still leaning against the wall, and then shoves the cloth bag through the bars, tossing it in my direction. “There are clothes and soap and toothbrushes in there. You should eat the food before it goes cold.”

I glance behind me at the door to the little bathroom, the one piece of dignity this awful cell provides. “I bet you love this.” I grab the tray and take it to Archer. I won’t eat until Benton’s gone, even though my stomach is begging for food. “I bet you dreamed of this while you were in jail.”

“My parents are gone for the day,” he says, ignoring my accusations. “You should rest while you can.”

“Why? So we can be fresh for their experiments? Do they have more fun torturing us if we can stay conscious?” My words are bitter and angry, but Benton won’t even meet my gaze. He stares at the floor, his fingers pressed against the metal bars, and I can’t help but remember the way he asked his father to stop. His father’s wrath so swift and vicious that it knocked Benton to his knees.

I don’t understand how he can win, how he can see us locked in a cell, and still look so miserable.

“It wasn’t supposed to be like this,” he murmurs to himself, but the empty hallway echoes his words back to me.

“Why?” I try and fail to inject the same level of acid as I did into my earlier words. “Upset your parents get to kill me instead of you?” My voice trembles as the reality of it crashes in. They’re really going to kill us, once they’ve used us for all we have.

Finally, Benton glances up to meet my eye. He stares at me like he’s trying to peer into my soul, and when he finally turns around to leave, he looks impossibly sad and alone.

* * *

Benton’s expression haunts me the rest of the day.

At least, I think it’s been a day. It’s impossible to tell without the sun or clocks to mark the time. My empty stomach grumbles, but then even hunger gets tired of spending time with me and abandons me to my thoughts. Archer, who is in even more pain than yesterday, tries to coach my magic into existence. We strategize how to escape. He tells me how to hold on to my sense of self, but Benton’s expression lingers in my mind. He should be happy that I’m caught, that I’m going to die, and yet . . .

And yet.

Every time I hear a door close out of sight, I expect the Hunters to come back. I expect to see Benton’s father with his cold eyes and shiny silver lighter. I expect someone to draw our blood to begin their tests, but it’s like something else has captured their attention. No one comes for us. Not until the tide of hunger has come in and out at least three times.

Then finally he is here again.

Benton is back with another tray of food. His face is different now, a mask composed of plaster and ice. Emotionless. He slides the food through the space at the bottom of the cell and leaves without a word. I help Archer eat—he can’t bear to use his hands—and after I’ve finished what’s left of our food, I curl into a corner and reach for my magic again and again until my entire body aches and unconsciousness consumes me.

Metal crashes against metal, and the sound jolts me out of uneasy sleep. I flinch away from the sound, slamming my elbow against the wall.

“Now, what do we have here?” A familiar voice asks, but I can’t place it right away.

I force myself to sit up, squinting until I can make out the shapes in the light. My heart stops.

Riley.

Morgan’s ex holds a crowbar in one hand, and he hits