Page 18 of Harmless
“Sorry.” I lifted my hand away. “Do me a favor though, Santos.”
“What?”
“Think of Rori. Think of the last time you saw her. Picture her face. Imaginehertouching you. Remember what she told you. Remember how you felt back then.”
Santos had gone unnaturally still, and I knew his mind was back there, with her. I used the silence to examine how I felt while telling this other man to fantasize about his last moments with the womanIloved.
After a few long seconds of sitting with that, I realized I was…fine.
I was fine when Rori herself told me she wanted to explore things with him after all this was over. They were still practically strangers, but their connection was clear and undeniable. I didn’t feel threatened by or jealous of this guy. Shit, I was starting to like him too.
I’d always known Rori would find multiple men to be with. And I was secure in knowing my connection with her was something irreplaceable, something neither of us had with anyone else. We had a bond that ran deeper than two partners. She was my home, my safe place. The only woman I’d allowed myself to fall in love with, even if I was too chickenshit to voice it.
Santos and Ihadto get out of here just so I could man up and tell her all that shit.
“You there, man?” I asked him after probably a full minute of silence. “You with her?”
“Yeah.” Still, he sounded hesitant. “This isn’t weird to you?”
“What, telling you to think about my woman to get you in the right headspace to survive? Nah.”
He laughed dryly, with a bit more humor this time. “You’re right, though. It’s working. I’m remembering how…serious she was about coming back. How painful it was to be separated from her.”
“You can believe her when she says she’ll do something. I’ve known her for thirteen years, and she’s never half-assed anything or gone back on a promise.”
“I want to believe you, Torr. I do. It’s just hard to go against the last six years of life experience.” He made a soft sound, and while I barely remembered what he looked like, I could picture him smiling. “Rori…she feels like a fantasy. Like she’s not even real. The last time I saw her feels like it could have been a dream.”
“She is real, my man. And this nightmare you’ve lived is about to end.”
“I would love for you to be right.” He sighed. “I really would.”
More silence stretched between us for a while until I cleared my throat. “Uh, is it cool if I pat your shoulder?”
Santos laughed. A real laugh this time that echoed off the walls of our dungeon. “Sure. Just don’t feel up my leg again.”
“Deal.”
I felt around blindly until I found his forearm, to which I followed up to a broad, round shoulder. As I slapped my palm there twice, I nearly got the wind knocked out of me from Santos smacking me right in the center of my chest.
“You’re alright, Torr,” he said, still chuckling. “You’re not bad.”
* * *
Everything changed roughly a day later.
Light flooded our dungeon with no warning, sending Santos and I ducking and covering our faces to protect our sensitive eyesight. What had been white noise in the background became a deafening roar. I realized it was a chorus of voices, hundreds of them.
An audience.
“What the fuck is happening?” I groaned, squeezing my eyelids shut against the painful light.
“It’s the side wall opening up,” Santos answered. “Right to the sand pit. Looks like we’re fighting.”
Peeking over my arm only brought more searing pain to my eye sockets. “We’re…what?”
“Come on, dude. Like you didn’t know this would happen.”
“How am I supposed to fight when I can’t fucking see?”
