Page 81 of Shadow Man

I can't remember fun.

I can’t even remember why they took me in the first place, but the effects of what they’ve done are stamped all over my brain.

I smell their cocktails and canapés as they mill about underneath our cages. The auction will begin soon, and then I’ll be sold into a fresh hell.

I’m exhausted. I can’t keep my eyes open, but a fist keeps banging loudly on the bottom of my cage. Sleeping is against the rules. Crying is against the rules.Dying is against the rules.

I’m vaguely aware of someone staring at me. Nothing new there—I’m standing naked in a cage, exposed and shamed—but I don't feel the same anger and revulsion that I usually do. I blink and scan, and then my stomach lurches. I see a man I once knew—a man I once craved. A man who held me spellbound on a sidewalk in Miami. He’s standing at the back of the room with the devil himself, his icy gray-blue oceans offering me a tidal surge of hope.

Are they here to rescue me?

I can’t breathe.I don’t dare.

The beats of anticipation stretch on and on… And then they strike.

The force of the first blast blows the windows clean out, rocking the foundations, swinging my cage violently and sending everyone else crashing to the floor. Three more blasts follow outside, causing devastation and confusion everywhere I look.

When the guns start firing, I crouch down as low as I can, flinching as stray bullets ricochet off my metal bars. Men dressed in black army gear rappel from the roof and into the gaping holes where the glass panes used to be.

I sift through the chaos, my eyes never leaving him once I find him, watching as he cuts down three men in his path like a warrior in a storybook.Like a white prince riding a black horse with bloody scars and torn colors.Another tries to knife him in the neck, but the guy’s head evaporates into a crimson void.

I can’t stand it any longer. Freedom is too close a friend for him to betray me now.

“Get me out of here!” I scream, kicking desperately at the locked door. It’s not shifting and panic overwhelms me. The last thing I want is to die in this cage.

I hear him yelling at me to stand back, but there’s nowhere for me to go. He aims his gun at the lock mechanism and fires anyway. The metal flies apart and I find myself tumbling into his warmth; my senses swathed in the strongest, safest scent. I can't let him go.I can’t.So I snake my body around him, legs linked around his waist, my nakedness pressed up against his clothes.

“Thank you so much.” I’m sobbing with relief as he carries me through the raging battlefield. He finds a side room, some kind of an office, and kicks the door shut. It’s a temporary shelter from the crying and the screaming, the bullet shells and the acrid tang of death in the air.

“Don’t thank me yet.” He settles me down on the top of a desk like I’m precious and fragile, but doesn't he know? There are no more parts of me left to crack. “You’ll be safe here. I’ll be back shortly.”

“Don’t leave me!” My hands won’t untie from his neck. Only his strength is keeping me breathing when everything else wants to lie down and die.

“I need to help the other girls, Anna,” he says, but I feel his reluctance.

Horror filters through me. There are six others out there, bleeding and frantic.

“Oh my God, yes. Go!” My arms slither free, and I swipe my fingers across my face to catch my tears.

But he doesn’t leave right away. There’s a pregnant beat as he stands there, looking down at me, securing me in a new cage with his chilly gaze.

Who is this illogicality? He’s a killer and a savior. A soldier to another, and a betrayer to all the evil I assumed he was.

I haven’t felt shame in so long, but I can feel her creeping over my face again.I’m naked and filthy and—

“Here.” He shrugs out of his black jacket and hangs it around my shoulders. More strength. More warmth.Keep on breathing, Anna.

“Thank you,” I croak, pulling it tighter around my body.

“Are you hurt?” He leans down to touch my shoulder and I flinch away. I’m hurt in ways I can’t even calculate yet. He frowns. “I’m coming back for you, okay?”

“How did you find me?”

“Let’s get out of here first.”

I watch him close the door behind him, and then suddenly he’s re-appearing again. It’s the first time I’ll experience dissociative amnesia as a coping mechanism.

A few days later, I won’t remember anything about this night or this conversation, until the same man who saved me heals me whole again.