The Struggle(54)

Seth secured the belt. “What do you want to do now?”

A flush crawled across my cheeks. “The . . . the bed.”

Before I had a chance to stand, Seth slipped an arm under my knees and easily lifted me up in the air. In a few heartbeats, he had me back on the bed, propped up against a mountain of pillows. Sitting next to me, he quickly rearranged the bottom of the robe so that it covered my legs.

“Let me get you something to eat,” he said.

I shook my head. “I’m not hungry.”

His chin tilted to the side. “You said earlier you weren’t . . . you weren’t sure when the last time you ate was. You need to eat.”

“I know,” I answered wearily, peering up at him. Seth looked so different to me with his expression full of concern and trepidation. I couldn’t remember if I had ever seen him like that before. “I’m just . . . Not right now.”

The muscles along his shoulders stiffened. “Josie, you really need to eat something.”

Nodding absently, I toyed with the edges of my belt. There was so much floating around in my head, but there was something just out of reach, lingering in the recesses—something important that I needed a reminder about.

“Do you know what woke you up?” Seth asked.

My fingers tightened around the edge of my belt. “I think I was having a nightmare. I thought I was back . . . back there when I woke up.” The next breath I took scalded my throat. “And I just freaked out.”

“It’s okay. And it’s totally understandable—” He picked up my hands, sucking in an audible breath. “Josie, your skin is like ice.”

Skin like ice.

I withdrew my hands, curling them against my chest. I’d felt skin like that—skin that was cold and didn’t feel weird. A memory wiggled free. I’d crawled across a floor on my knees to check the pulse of Lauren—of the bound demigod. She’d been dead. “Oh my gods,” I whispered, lifting my gaze.

“What?”

“Oh my gods,” I repeated as more memories resurfaced at a rapid clip. “I saw the demigods—the missing demigods. One of them—her name was Lauren. She was . . . she died while I was there.” Horror filled me as I remembered the feel of her skin and her starved, abused body. “They did horrible things to her, Seth. Horrible things and she died—” My voice broke off, and I swallowed hard. “She died in a room with a dirt floor.”

“Josie,” he said, voice gruff.

“She had to have been starved and beaten. She was covered in dirt and bruises.” I had to keep going, because I had to get the words out of me. It was like lancing a blister. “I thought . . . I thought I was going to become her. You know? I mean, she’d been there for months and months. I can’t even imagine—” I sucked in a sharp breath as a sound came from the back of Seth’s throat. “They left her in the room with us even after she’d died.”

“Gods.” Pain flickered across Seth’s beautiful face as he took my hands again, folding his around mine.

“And when they finally came for her, they . . . She was dragged out of the room. Just dragged across the floor like she was nothing more than a piece of trash.” Tears blurred my vision and then my body jolted at the realization. “Mitchell—Mitchell is still there, Seth. We have to get him.” I pulled my hands free once more and started to rise from the bed, but Seth blocked me with one strong arm. I turned wide eyes on him. “Mitchell is still there.”

“You need to keep sitting.” Seth’s voice was too level, too calm.

I stared at him. Keep sitting? “You don’t understand. We have to go back and get him. Seth, he was in bad shape, and I hadn’t seen him in—I don’t know how much time passed, but he won’t survive much longer.”

If he was still alive, but I couldn’t bring myself to think that.

Seth gently turned me so that my back was once again flush with the small mountain of pillows. “I get what you’re saying, but you’re not going back there.”

I opened my mouth.

“You are in no shape to go anywhere right now. I’m not saying that to be an ass, but the last thing you need to be doing is roaming around, let alone putting yourself in danger.” Those amber eyes seemed to glow. “You need to be right where you are, resting and getting better.”

“I’m fine,” I denied, my hands balling into fists.

His brows flew up. “Have you seen yourself, Josie? There is barely an inch of skin that isn’t bruised. You’re exhausted and can barely stand, and I can’t feel—” He cut himself off.