Page 122 of Savior

She waits at the sheeting as if waiting for me to thank her.

I press my lips into a complex, thin line, narrowing my angry eyes at her.

“Well, then.”

The sheeting rustles as she moves it back and goes out. Her footsteps draw further away as the metallic sound of a door opening and shutting resounds through the room.

However, as the curtain shifted, I saw the red lights of an exit sign right across from my bed. And if I can figure out how to get out of these cuffs…

They’re ungodly tight, and that plan dies as quickly as it had formed. And I lay back in a huff.

“Goddamnit, how did I get here?”

Talking to myself won’t help, and I’m sure cameras surround me if I look hard.

I honestly thought Luca had found me, and the joy I felt at the idea was unfathomable to what I awoke to.

Fuck, Luca…

Is he okay? Is he dead? Is he here?

After the shit we did together, will he get into heaven, where he belongs?

All of this shit I’ve been through lately now feels for naught. It feels like all of it has been for absolutely nothing.

All the ways Luca has changed me churn in my veins like a new personality being born. How soft I’ve gotten. How much I’velet my thick walls fall for him. There’s no going back from that. There’s no way to undo what he’s done.

A tear falls down my cheek.

I should have just stayed under that fucking bed. If this was my fate all along, I would have hidden better.

Because now I know what it feels like to love someone so deeply, you’d give your life for theirs.

And now I know what it feels like to lose them.

And none of it is fucking fun.

CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

LUCA

The men are milling about like they’re ants hard at work. My hands shake as my brain can’t wrap around what I see.

These aren’t men I’m used to seeing; they’re new. And there are more of them. Some are dragging dead bodies out of the tree line towards an organized pile in the middle of the dooryard.

The rooster from hell is bellowing from the coop off to the right side of the commotion as if he senses something’s amiss.

“Father Russo!” a man shouts, in a tone that says he’s likely been yelling at me this entire time.

Finally, I turn away from the destruction.

Ardesia and Brynne are walking toward me with looks of despair on their faces.

It’s what buckles my knees and sends me to the floor.

Ardesia rushes me, guiding me up and onto a chair in the dining room. The same one Sloane fucked me senseless on what seems like only hours ago, even though it wasn’t.

“Where is she?” I ask him. “You said we’d be safe here. Instead, we were sitting ducks, weren’t we?”

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