Chapter Seventeen

Pain dragged Hawk out of the darkness, kicking and screaming.

Everything hurt. His arms. His back. His ribs—damn his ribs. The last time they'd ached this badly was the summer he'd slipped while reshingling the barn roof and fallen twenty feet to the ground. His head throbbed with the beat of his heart, and when he parted his lips, he tasted salt and metal.

He'd swallowed enough of his own blood after a few rounds in the cage to know that taste.

But this wasn't the soreness that came after a good fight or even a sound ass-kicking. And Hawk knew, he knew he wanted to linger here in the physical pain, caressing every twinge like a lover, savoring it. Because if he kept going, if he remembered—

Something vast and terrifying waited for him beyond the pain. Horror and guilt and loss and—

Fire.

No, it was better here, where idly trying to squeeze his hands into fists shot off bright flashes of color behind his eyes. Like fireworks, like—

Flares against the night sky.

His breath rasped loud in his own ears. Faster. Panicked. Because it was coming for him, whether he wanted it or not. Consciousness. Memory. The truth, speeding toward him at a hundred miles an hour—

Metal crunching. Jeni's scream.

The denial rose in his throat, caught on terror. Came out as a name. “Jeni.”

“I'm here.”

Joy exploded, better than fireworks. For a few seconds, the pressure on his chest eased. Even the pain wasn't so unmanageable.

She was alive.

But her voice was hoarse. Not the warm, husky rasp that followed a long night in bed, but ragged, shredded. Hawk tried to force his eyes open and hissed as the agony returned, stabbing into his skull.

He tried to lift a hand to rub at his head, but his hand jerked to a stop a foot from the floor. Cold metal dug into his wrist, accompanied by the soft clink of chain.

All of the joy fizzled, but something more useful rose in its place—resolve. Fighting through the pain, he cracked his eyes open and blinked until the soft blur across the room turned into Jeni.

Blood splattered her torn clothes. Her hair was tangled around her face, matted with blood and darkened by soot. Her eyes were so red—as if she'd been crying forever. And wide metal cuffs circled her delicate wrists, each attached to a chain fastened to the floor on either side of her.

Hawk's chains jerked tight again, setting off a screaming pain in his shoulders, and that's when he realized he'd tried to move. Tried to get to her, to touch her and reassure himself she wasn't harmed.

Only ten damn feet separated them, and she might as well have been on the other side of the world.

But she knew what he needed. “I'm okay. I'm not hurt.”

He slumped back against the wall and winced as the rough brick dug into the bruises on his shoulders. “What happened?”

“Someone hit us.” She smiled, but it was a forced thing, tight and painful to look at. “They must have known they couldn't outrun you.”

Us.

The cell wasn't that big. Fifteen by fifteen at most, and bare except for the hooks on the walls and the chains holding them.

Holding the two of them.

Dread contracted into a tight knot. There was no direction to turn that didn't end in pain. The farm, in flames. Shipp on the ground, his dead eyes staring blankly past Alya's screaming face.

Only two of them in the damn room. “Luna?”

Jeni's face crumpled. “I'm sorry, Hawk.”

He clenched his teeth until the room swam and Jeni blurred again. He squeezed his eyes shut and regretted it when the memory formed. Luna, only four or five years old. Fearless, even though the other younger kids had been skittish around the older brother who'd roared back into their lives to turn their world upside down.

Not Luna. She'd fixed those eyes on him, big and brown and full of mischief, and he'd known that coming back was the right thing to do. No one would beat the curiosity out of her, bury her under harsh words about her own worthlessness until that sweet little face with the pointed chin turned pinched and hard and empty of hope.

Hawk had been twenty-five years old. So damn young to feel so fucking old—but Luna's smile had healed him a little. Made him feel like he'd done something right, maybe for the first time.

“How?” he asked, not recognizing his own voice. Not really wanting to know. “Was it—?”

“It was quick.” Jeni breathed out a ragged sigh. “She didn't suffer.”

Maybe not, but she'd died scared and hopeless, all because Hawk hadn't taken two fucking seconds to hug her and tell her she'd be okay. The guilt of that hurt worse than his ribs, but not as much as knowing he had to lock it down. Forget Shipp, forget Luna.

If he didn't pull himself together and think like a damn soldier, Jeni would be next.

He forced himself to breathe. Deep and even, three slow inhalations and exhalations. Then he opened his eyes and focused on Jeni. “Where are we?”

“You're in the dungeon,” a man answered. “Civic Building. City Center.”

Hawk turned his head as much as he could without setting off a cascade of stabbing pain. Bars made up the left side of the wall, like something out of a pre-Flare movie—not just ancient rusting metal instead of shining steel, but theatrical. Menacing and raw, all naked threat. The room they were in was like those spies fried on the wall and left as a message—psychological torture.

The hallway was dark, but he could make out a vague shape through the bars on the other side. Shaggy hair. An unshaved face. A white dress shirt and dark slacks that disappeared into the shadows. Bare feet and ankles wrapped in chains.

“Hawk, meet Nikolas Markovic.” Jeni could have been making polite introductions at a party if she hadn't sounded so goddamn scared. “Dallas's missing councilman.”

The one Lili had sworn she had a feeling about. Hawk didn't know if he wanted to laugh or break down in fucking tears. Because if whoever had seized control of Eden had the power to throw a councilman in a goddamn dungeon—

We're all fucked.

He wouldn't say it out loud, not with Jeni listening and already terrified. “Good. A councilman can tell us how to get the fuck out of here.”

“Right.” Markovic laughed, harsh and loud. “I'm still here because I like the view.”

Hawk clenched his fists and tested the strength of the chains. “Maybe we have different skill sets.”

“Aren't you the optimist?” A door clanged down the hallway, and Markovic leaned into the dim light, his hollow face changed, alight with fury and intensity. “String them along. If they think they'll get nothing, if you have nothing, they'll kill you.”

For one blissful second, the advice didn't make sense. Then Hawk remembered the hooks high on the wall. The perfect height for some good, old-fashioned torture. And as the footsteps drew closer, Hawk whispered a silent prayer that they were some good, old-fashioned torturers, too. The kind who would look at Jeni and assume a woman couldn't know anything worth telling.

Because if they laid a hand on Jeni, Hawk might tell them everything.