Page 11 of Deathless
I rolled out of bed, then dragged my feet across the room, hoping he’d get impatient enough to leave once I reached the door. No such luck.
Turning the knob, I pulled the barrier open an inch, just enough to look through. A middle-aged man with medium brown skin, a shaved head, glasses, and a salt and pepper five-o-clock shadow smiled at me.
“Hi there, Hudson.” Dr. Corwin gave me a friendly wave. “It’s nice to meet you. Would it be okay if I shook your hand?” Heheld his palm out toward me, but didn’t attempt to wedge the door open wider.
He asked the question. Left it up to me to open the door wider if I wanted to. Already, Devin had taught me something important so quickly. If someone gave me a choice, the opportunity to refuse or accept, they just may be worth trusting.
I let the door swing wider and reached forward to clasp the doctor’s hand, which he took in a solid grip before releasing me quickly. “It’s a pleasure. You can call me Malik if you’d like.”
“Um, okay.” I stood there awkwardly, not knowing what else to say. Having conversations with other people would be another thing I’d have to re-learn. Talking to Devin felt so natural. I forgot other people would be different.
The doctor, Malik, didn’t seem to mind though. “Do you go by Hudson or anything else? I met some of the ex-gladiators, a lot of them seem to prefer their fighting names, which is interesting.”
He sounded genuinely interested, without a drop of condescension, and I found myself feeling a little more at ease. “Uh, Hudson is fine. I wasn’t a gladiator.”
“I know that,” Malik said gently. “I just wanted to make sure you didn’t prefer anything else.” He stepped away from the door, giving me plenty of space. “Well, I’m going to make more introductions and get settled in. Perhaps I’ll see you later, at dinner maybe?”
“Oh, I dunno. I don’t really eat with everyone else. Usually, I just stay up here.”
“I see. I understand Rori is holding a meeting in the other house this evening, so most of the fighters will be there.” Malik kept his tone even and light, but I could feel him watching my reactions to every single word. “Maybe if it’s quieter here, with less people around, you’d give coming downstairs a shot? If you’re feeling up for it.”
“I don’t know, maybe.”
“Sure, give it some thought.” He shot me another friendly smile as he turned to leave. “See you later, Hudson. It was nice to meet you.”
A few hours later,as the sun was going down, I found myself pacing back and forth in front of my bedroom door. For the first time since arriving here, I felt restless. Antsy. Like this bedroom I’d hidden away in was suddenly way too small. Instead of feeling safe here, away from everyone else, I felt…trapped.
“He might be fucking with your head,” I muttered to myself, thinking of Malik. I played our earlier interaction over and over in my head, trying to figure out what ulterior motive he might have, and kept coming up with nothing.
He’d been polite. Didn’t invade my space. Waited for me to shake his hand. And then left. Our whole conversation probably happened in less than a minute.
Devin made it clear that he’d wished I’d leave my room more often, but that he wouldn’t force the issue. I’d never been tempted to leave the safety of these four walls until now, after Malik mentioned there would be fewer people downstairs.
Too many people was overwhelming. I’d get panic attacks. But if there were only a few, in a bigger space than this room, maybe I could handle it.
I stopped the repetition of my pacing to look out the window. Fighters were walking to the other house, talking amongst each other in pairs or small groups. On the porch of the other house, watching everyone enter through the front door, was her.
The woman in charge. Rori, she was called.
Next to her stood the tall, dark-haired man who was always at her side. He was speaking to her, mouth moving with a cocky smirk pulling at his lips, but his eyes were focused on the men walking in. Every fighter got a thorough inspection, whether they realized it or not.
Santos was on the woman’s other side, and his focus was entirely on her. The Butcher was clearly smitten, one hand resting on the machete’s handle sheathed at his hip, the other hidden somewhere behind her back, probably touching her.
“What’s so special about her?” I asked the windowpane. “How is she so different that she doesn’t remind you of everything they did to us?”
As if she heard me, the woman’s gaze flicked up. Her amused smile fell away, leaving behind a hard mask of disapproval as our eyes met.
I backed away from the window, walking clear across to the other side of the room, as far away from her as possible. My chest burned, pulse and breath tight with adrenaline. I had to force myself to calm down, remind myself that she was roughly a hundred feet away. She couldn’t get up here. She didn’t evenwantto come up here; she was about to hold a meeting, for fuck’s sake.
“She doesn’t want me. She doesn’t want me,” I repeated under my breath to reassure myself. “She wants nothing to do with me.”
That phrase, more than anything else, broke me through the panic. Santos could keep staring at her like the sun shone out of her ass. Devin could tell me again and again that she wasn’t a bad person. None of it sank in. Nothing could convince me that she was worth trusting.
But as long as she had Santos and that other man, plus all the other fighters wrapped around her finger, she had no need forme. She had all the attention and power she wanted. Why would she bother with me? I was nothing to her.
I would rather be nothing than anything to a woman. Especially this one. Women who had power over men were the worst of all. Better to be forgotten in this case. And for the next hour or so, her attention would be well-occupied by her devoted followers.
Once my heart rate slowed to a normal pace, I returned to facing the door and pulled it open. I moved slowly through the hall of bedrooms, then took note of all the windows and doors on the lower floor once I reached the stairs’ top landing.
