Relinquish(12)

His eyes look the same. Even the rugged stubble that has grown upon his chin is recognizable. The minty scent that clings to his breath is deliciously familiar, but it isn’t until he smiles that I begin to trust my eyes. “Are you really here?” I whisper.

His deep, throaty laugh nearly makes the pain worth bearing… nearly.

It has been nearly a year since I last saw him in the alley down from the Shard. An eternity since he turned his back on our love and gave me up for the sake of a destiny I did not ask for, nor was able to deny. It took months for the sound of his name not to feel like a knife serrating my heart, and several more months for the numbness to come and steal away the ice he left behind. I have tried to tell myself I no longer care for him, that I have moved on. It was a lie, oh such a terrible, foolish lie.

“Yeah,” he whispers as he places a hand to the side of my wound. I flinch, but his touch is firm, demanding. “Don’t move.”

“I can’t believe you are actually here. Kyan never said—” My words cut off with a groan as Bastien presses around the edge of my wound.

“Maybe you two can reminisce after Illyria is done hemorrhaging.” Carleon grunts with disapproval.

I bury my teeth in my lower lip as Bastien lifts my side to blindly examine the exit wound.

“This is a pretty nasty deal you got yourself into,” Bastien mutters, rubbing his jaw with bloody fingers as he sinks back onto his heels. “I think the only option is to just pull it straight out.”

He turns to Carleon. “You need to find a stick, something large enough that she won’t bite through. Then I’m going to need you to hold her down.”

I offer my friend a brief nod of approval as he rushes away and watch as Bastien eyes him up. “He’s a friend,” I say, surprised to find he still cares enough to be jealous.

“A very protective friend,” he mutters.

He looks tired. I can see it in the lines drawn heavily around his eyes. A laser gun has been set down beside him, forgotten. Why didn’t I know he would be helping with this attack? “He’s just worried about me.”

Bastien’s gaze hardens as he turns to look back down at me. “Does he do that often?”

I look away, afraid if I meet his gaze I will betray myself. “I can take care of myself.”

Bastien’s chuckle sends ripples of warmth along my body, stealing away the creeping cold that has gripped the lower half of my body. I feel stiff, wrong. “Not really proving that point too well right now. What were you thinking to take on that man by yourself?”

I wince. “I had no choice. Vikesh tried to kill Eamon…” I cut off the instant I speak his name, but the damage is already done.

An emotion crosses Bastien’s face, fleeting but pained nonetheless. A veil falls over his eyes as I turn to look at him. All emotion is wiped clean by the time Carleon returns with a branch in his hand. “I got it.”

The branch is hardly more than a stick. One end is badly charred, as if Carleon snatched it out of the fire and beat the flames away. “Good,” Bastien says. “Now I need you to hold her shoulders. She will buck when the pain starts.”

“No, I won’t.”

Bastien’s gaze flickers toward me for a split second before looking away. He rises onto his knees, getting into position. His biceps flex as he grips the metal, showing no hint that the heat still clinging to it bothers him. He looks down at me one more time. “Yes. You will.”

With a tug that feels as if Bastien has removed all of my intestines, I feel pain as I have never known before. I hear a distant shriek of agony and then darkness floods in as a wave of pain sucks me under.





Three



I reach for the hand resting beside me. It is warm and strong, gripping back tightly as my eyelids slowly flutter open. “Bastien?”

The texture of the hand feels wrong against my fingers, the palm soft instead of roughened by callouses. “Sorry to disappoint. It’s just me.”

I jerk upright and the room tilts on its axis. “Easy,” Eamon whispers, firmly pushing against my shoulders until I am lying prone on the bed once more. I don’t put up much of a fight.

“Where am I?” I draw my hand away from my forehead and squint against the brilliant fluorescent light overhead. I never have liked false lighting. After we took control of the City, Kyan moved our entire camp into the heart of the brick-and-mortar prison. Some people were thrilled by the change, but I was not.

It held too many new things: electricity, toilets that gushed water that wove through pipes in the walls, vents in the ceilings that pumped out heat that dried my skin into a flaky mess. I miss the cool damp of the cave, the flickering of flames as we sang around the campfire. I miss the waterfall and the delicious privacy that I could always be sure to find in one of the blacked-out tunnels.