Page 83 of Devour
Then, she found me and helped me see.
My lip trembles just thinking about her because now, she’s gone too. But she’s not gone-gone. She’ll be back. She’ll find me?—
There’s a shift in energy around me. A crow caws in the trees above.
No…
Anger rises into my throat. I want to scream at fate for being this terrible. Why does it have to be this hard all the time? I want to give up. I want to curl into a ball and rock back and forth until death takes me.
Tears well in my eyes as I realize it’s going to get so much worse before it gets better.
I thought Lina would come find me. Instead, it’ll be me that goes to her.
I wipe my tears from my cheeks before the warriors come, convinced that when they grab me, I won’t scream. I’ll protest in the form of silence.
But I can’t. Their boots shake my soul the same way they shake the ground. So, when I’m ripped from my hiding place and bound and gagged and taunted, I scream.
I scream for my parents. I scream for this world. I scream for everything I ever dared dream.
I scream and thrash and cry like I never have before.
Was I wrong? Are we doomed after all, Lina?
37
Lina
Roaring, raging, horrifying pain consumes me. I wake to screaming in the darkness, the memory of the dream already fleeting, but the fear pulses through my body all the same.
Panting, I sit up in the fur-covered bed.
Just hours ago, I felt comfortable and content, and now, there is pressure on my chest that I cannot breathe through.
Like a sandstorm of grief that came out of nowhere. One moment, I was walking along the edge of the desert, on my way home, and the next, I was surrounded by nothing but the poisonous sands of the Morteres, sweeping over my body and sinking into every inch of me. I am lost in this poisonous grief.
Astella.Tears well in my eyes the moment her face comes to my mind.
In my dream, she was taken. The Drak got her, and her scream reached my soul.
She’s just a girl. So young and much stronger than I’ve ever been, but she shouldn’t have to be that strong. She shouldn’t be alone.
I left her alone.
No. I sacrificed myself so that she could live. But guilt still climbs its way up my throat, choking. “I miss you,” I tell her. “Please be okay.”
Does she too think of me and all of the worst things that could be happening to me? Torn apart and fed on. Starved. Burned alive. Or does she know? Does she know that, for now, I am well? That somehow, despite everything, life here is good?
I flinch at my own thoughts. Life here isgood?
Do I actually believe that? Is that real? Have I been hypnotized? Is that all it takes? Good food and furs to sleep in, and life can be good?
I have no freedom. No security. No answers. Nolife.
I am at the mercy of a monster with fangs, who takes innocent lives. And somehow, part of me thinks it is good.
I stare up at the ceiling, pushing all of the spinning, conflicting thoughts to the side. The sandstorm clears away, leaving a ragged body not ready to move.
Numbness spreads across my skin. Icy cold nothingness takes hold of my mind. I lie there like that, letting the nothingness become me.
