Page 108 of The Breeding Cave
“Thank you,” I whispered, tears pricking my eyes. “I promise I’ll get us out of here.”
Once I reached into the lantern, I grabbed the candle and pulled it out. Just as I placed the flame near my finger, my baby kicked my stomach. I jerked the candle back and sucked in a sharp breath. The flames … it was as if the baby was telling me the flames would kill her too.
But what was worse?
Her dying a peaceful death now, or … her living as a slave to Alvin.
What would Luciano want? Would he accept me if I killed both of us to be reborn? Would setting myself on fire even give me another life, give me powers? What if Alvin was wrong? What if I really wasn’t a phoenix?
CHAPTER
SIXTY-ONE
YEOSIN
The baby kicked again against my stomach. Tears ran down my cheeks. How can I do such a thing to her? How can I kill her when this was what Luciano hired me to do? After he told me how he felt?
“Hurry,” Colossal whispered, looking over her shoulder. “He will come back soon.”
My stomach twisted into knots, and I backed up farther into my room because I didn’t want them to see me burn alive. I didn’t want to put them through that torture, to hear my pleas to save me from the pain.
They were right. I didn’t have time to waste.
I pushed my finger into the fire and watched as it immediately ignited into flames. The fire crawled up my forefinger, engulfed my hand, and continued up my arm and to my shoulder. I waited and I waited and I waited for the pain.
But it never came. At least not how I’d imagined it.
My baby kicked uncontrollably, the more fire engulfed my body. Tears flowed from my eyes at how cruel I was to do this to her. She didn’t even get to experience life, and I would kill her before she could take a single breath.
Enough of my wrist shriveled up or burned off in flakes that I slipped out of one of the four shackles.
Maybe I can do this. Maybe my entire body doesn’t need to burn for me to escape out of here!
So, I ignited my other wrist and my two ankles, setting more of myself on fire. Flesh burned off into ash. My tears melted away. I was hot and hot and hot and hot, but it didn’t hurt.
What hurt the most was feeling my girl …
Moving. Struggling. Begging me to stop.
But I was close. So, so close.
Vision blurring, I stumbled within the den and fell to my knees. I could barely see straight from the fire’s haze, so I closed my eyes and tugged at the chains, desperate to get them off, to slip out of them, to disappear into the night.
“What’s that smell?” someone growled, their voice distant.
While I tried my hardest to escape, my strength became weaker and weaker. I gripped the shackles on my legs as hard as I could and tugged away at them. I needed to get out of here right now.
All I could hear was the pounding of footsteps coming up the staircase. I screamed out in agony, not from the pain of the fire, but from the pain that I had done all this … all this and I might still not escape.
Suddenly, I got one of my ankles free.
The fire continued to burn at my body, my insides twisting and shrinking, my baby’s strength diminishing as well. I grabbed my other ankle and slipped off the last shackle as someone approached to my left.
“Yeosin, you bitch,” Alvin snarled from the other side of the room.
While I still couldn’t see, I could feel. His presence. The room. Everything.
I shuffled to my feet and ran as fast as my body would take me toward the cliff. I didn’t know why I ran that way. I didn’t know how quickly I did. But one second, my feet were on solid ground, and the next, I was floating.
