Page 36 of When Sinners Fear
His mumbled response doesn’t keep the bad thoughts away.
I’m suddenly filled with the need to talk to him. “I know, Knox. I know that you tried to spare me.” The words choke in my throat. Garbled and jarring images invade my mind. “So I need you to stay strong. It’s selfish, I know. But you asked me to stay with you. Please stay with me.” I can offer no defence as my mind warps and infects and plays on my worst fears. Surviving this without Knox.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
KNOX
I’m not sure what awake or asleep are anymore. Realistically, I know I’m drifting between consciousness and not, but every time I think I’m conscious – awake – dreams come to me. They’re dreams of water and a breeze, sunlight on my skin. And then I’m back here on dirty ground, with nothing but thick, humid heat drenching me and darkness. It doesn’t matter how many times I search the corners and rooftop for a glimpse of sun, it’s not there to be found.
So much fucking pain.
I feel sick most of the time now, like my body can’t cope anymore. It can’t. No matter how fit I was when I came in here, it’s not making one bit of difference. No real food but occasional dry bread and slop. No water other than a few drops. We’re surrounded by our own dried in piss, just to add that stench to the mix of problems, and bacteria, and I’m sweating – fever, probably. So, whatever water is inside me is coming out to try combating infection, too. I’m screwed in reality.
“Knox?” I grunt in reply. “What did you say?”
“What?”
“You were talking about something.” I open my eyes and look around the space, searching for her. She’s about six feet away, standing and looking around the bars. “Something about a sauna. Albeit, you might be incoherent.” I watch her from down here, as she tries inching her hipbone through the gap of the cage bars. Calculations come from her mouth, complex math, like she’s trying to solve an equation. “I’ll need another week of not eating to get through at that rate. Not enough water for another week.” She stops and looks down at me. “Do you think the poison is to kill or just make us sick? Ratio on time verses weight loss will decrease by at least two days with vomiting and diarrhoea.”
“Don’t drink it.”
“But if I drank some, just enough to make me sick, you had some, so then maybe…”
“No. Come here.”
She pulls her body out from between the bars and takes the few steps to sit herself down beside me. No shame about her body on display anymore. No care that I’m looking at it covered in filth and bruises. We’re just two animals in here. Less human, more basic instinct and intent.
Her hand comes through the bars so she can get to my forehead, and she rests the back of her fingers on me gently. “You’re burning up.” No shit. “That’s not going to get better without antibiotics.” No. “Can you move?”
“Not much.”
Silence. We both know why. She’s probably calculating the amount of time I’ve got left, and, just like me, she’s recognising the fact that I am now fucking pointless when it comes to protecting her. Some kind of agony flows through my guts at the thought. Not because of the pain, but because I know what they’ll do to her if I can’t. She’ll be used without care for how or when she dies. They won’t pick points on her skin that she can survive. They won’t think about how much a female body can take before it gives up. And they sure as hell won’t play some pretend game with her to make others believe something that’s not entirely factual. They’ll devour, and they’ll use, and they’ll keep going until there’s nothing left.
In the midst of all this, I can’t stand that thought.
“Peyton?”
“Yes?”
“If I don’t wake up again, drink the soda.” I’m mumbling, barely able to speak. “All of it.” Silence again. What else is there to say? “You shouldn’t have been here.” Not because of me, anyway. She’s right, she should be living a life out there. Fuck study. Too beautiful for study.
Energy levels fully fucking depleted, and I take a last look at her before closing my eyes and taking the image of her with me. Pretty as hell. Wasted.
“No. Try sitting up,” she says, tugging my face. “It’ll keep the infection circulating lower, away from your heart and lungs.”
Whatever Cortez nature I’ve got left in me manages to find a small, exhausted chuckle. “Biology doesn’t work like that.”
“No, but there’s always hope.” She strokes my head and runs her fingers down my cheek, tugging me again. “Get up, Knox. I need you to get up. Please. Don’t leave me alone here. I can’t do this without you.”
I don’t get up. I can’t. I lay some more and let the feel of her fingers lull me somewhere that isn’t here again, until they stop. Or I stop.
~
I wake with a start, unsure where I am for a few moments. It soon comes back at me when I open my eyes, but I’m still part resting in a dream. There was a blade. Sharp as hell. And pain. I look sideways and notice Peyton’s hand resting in mine. She’s curled up in her tight ball again, hair trailing through the bars between us, and one long arm stretched to reach me. I gaze at our fingers together for a while, and a light smile crosses my mouth. Her fragility, my veined heavier hands. It’s only when I let the rest of my gaze drift down her body that I see the soda bottle by the bars between us.
My stare goes straight to her marred breasts and chest, heavily focused on breathing and nothing else. Nothing happens for a few seconds. She’s just stationary – still. Perfect skin and limbs and no fucking movement at all. “Peyton?” I murmur, coughing. Nothing.
And then I see the subtle rise and fall of it all.