Page 27 of Dominion

Alive but not happy.

Alive, only alive, all because of me.

“Are they… hurt?”

Downcast eyes and the fluttering lashes was what Cillian grazed me with, and I fucking knew I wouldn’t like what I was about to see.

“I want to see them,” I stated, moving past him, and going in the direction where I came from. My limbs were heavy from thecold, my heart shattered from the words Cillian didn’t dare say, but I had to see them with my own eyes.

My mind had one sole goal—to get down the mountain and to make sure they were okay. They had to be okay.

Fucking had to.

We didn’t go through hell just to shatter now.

Leaves and branches broke underneath my boots, my feet eating up the ground with fast and sure steps, until the hand on my upper arm stopped me in my tracks. “You’re going in the wrong direction.” I turned around to see Cillian standing behind me. “Come on.” He indicated with his head, pointing in the right direction. His hand wrapped around my much smaller one, and he started pulling me with him.

There werea million different scenarios that ran through my head in the short time that it took us to get back down toward the cars, but nothing could’ve prepared me for the sight in front of me.

More than twenty boys and young men stood around, huddled together, wrapped in blankets and jackets that I recognized as the ones that Chiara’s team wore, most of them barefoot, and looking to be close to starvation. Empty eyes met mine as we passed through the crowd, chapped lips, and lost dreams, and I couldn’t hide the emotions reflecting on my face.

I didn’t want to pity them because they had no use for my pity. They were the survivors, true warriors, and I didn’t want to imagine the things they must have gone through. But the sight of them, the knowledge that there was a person in this world, so depraved, so sick, who would do something like this, made my stomach churn.

“Who are they?” I practically whispered, my eyes flickering from one boy to another, all of them quiet and looking at the ground. Only a few of them watched Cillian and me as we passed. Cillian avoided the looks, his head held high, but I could see the tension in his shoulders, in the way he flexed his hand against mine. He completely ignored my question, and I didn’t blame him. I had no idea what it was that they saw up in the manor, but whatever it was made him angrier than I had ever seen him before.

No one should have to go through something like this. No one. If the stories I knew about the Red Manor were true, then I had no doubt that this was just the beginning of recovery for these young men.

Cillian stopped, my front almost smashing into his back, and he turned toward me. “I want you to promise me something.” His voice was like velvet, strong and silky, but his eyes… His eyes told a different story. There was worry in them, fear so clear that I could almost taste it on my lips. “Promise me that you won’t give up on him.”

“Give up on who?”

“Just promise me, Sky.”

Hope.

I still held onto the hope that both Ash and Dylan were okay, but the longer we stood here, the more that hope started dwindling. “I promise,” I said, ready to get out of here with the two of them. Ready to have them both close to me.

The smallest nod was all I got before we started walking again, faster, with one goal ahead of us—to get to Dylan and Ash. I didn’t expect to see Chiara with a frown on her face, or Claudio with a look of pity that almost brought me to my knees. They weren’t dead. I knew they weren’t dead.

But being alive and not really living was worse than being dead.

Cillian’s hand disappeared, leaving me all alone with what was ahead of me, while the sharp claws of anguish scraped over my throat. I pushed away the ominous thoughts, bullying me into a state of despair, and followed Cillian, toward the car we came in. There were no sounds in the air, no laughter or cheerfulness, only the gloomy faces and lips pressed into thin lines, barely visible under the cloak of night.

The doors on the left side of the car were open, revealing a tattooed arm I knew well. I loved those swirls, that ink. I’d traced it with my tongue more times than I could count, and from the first moment I realized that he wasn’t an enemy, I knew that the hand that was now gripping the blanket covering his lap would always be the hand I would want to hold.

Through thick and thin, everything good and bad, Ash and Dylan would always be my first choice. My gravity. The two moons I didn’t know I needed.

With hurried steps, I pushed past Cillian, rushing toward the car, looking at Ash’s pale hand. I didn’t register the silence right then. I didn’t register the way Ash whispered, his voice broken, shattered as he spoke to Dylan.

I didn’t register the quiet whimpers and the begging coming from the person who meant the world to me. I couldn’t grasp what was happening until I stopped right next to the door, my eyes taking them both in.

Ash’s cheeks were sunken, the crimson traces of dried blood visible on his neck, while dark circles rounded his eyes, making his blue eyes paler. His dark disheveled hair looked like he’d pushed his hands through it one too many times, but he looked okay. He was alive.

He was okay.

He wasn’t hurt.

My happiness was short lived when I looked at Dylan. The sight in front of me almost brought me down to my knees.Gripping the door in my left hand, I opened my mouth, trying to speak, to say something—anything—but words failed me.

---