Page 20 of Surviving Hallow Hill
Seven
“Okay,so what do we know about this place?” I look to Sia and Rue, because they were at the academy the longest. If anyone knows anything about the Hallow, it’s them.
“Nothing,” Rue replies.
“It’s where they send those who are too insubordinate to be at the academy. Those who come here aren’t seen again.” Sia’s eyes go dark.
A chill creeps over my flesh, and I can’t hold back my question. “Have you seen Kira at all?”
Their brows pull together one by one, and they all quietly shake their heads no.
The uneasy feeling in my stomach tightens, but I press on with my tangled thoughts.
“Do you think they’ll make us fight until all of us are dead?” I dig my fingers into the material of the magical jumpsuit to keep from losing my temper. If the only reason Dr. Hyde transported us to this awful place was so we can all die, I swear I’ll lose my fucking shit.
“Who knows at this point?” Sia runs a hand through his silver-white hair on a sigh.
The topic is heavy in the room, so I say, “Our powers work here.” I look around at their silver collars, resisting the urge to drift my hand to my back and trace my finger down a ridge of the metal in my spine. “You were able to shift without it hurting, and I can use my magic.”
“It’s probably purposeful.” Rue lifts a hand, and I watch with a bit of morbid fascination as his fingers extend to sharp claws with black nails. “Dr. Hyde probably deactivated the restrictions so we could fight each other.” The claw transforms back into a hand that he uses to push aside an errant dreadlock against his cheek.
“I can still feel a restriction on me,” I confess. “It doesn’t feel as... heavy as before. But I still don’t trust that fucking doctor. What if he decides to restrict our powers in the middle of a fight?”
Styx sits up from where he’s lying on the floor. He looks thoroughly pleasured, but still manages to school his expression due to the direness of the situation. “I need to get the collars off of us.”
“Oh?” Rue’s eyes shine with a hint of malice. “And how do you plan on doing that, omega?”
“First, I’ll need tools. Tweezers, screwdriver, pliers, a semi-living body of flesh and metal... That sort of thing.”
A fucking what?
“Fucking for what? You gonna pull the collars off with tweezers?” Sia snaps. He’s so easily irritated, I don’t even bother getting in the middle of the argument, evenifan irrational wave of protectiveness washes over me on Styx’s behalf. I have to remind myself that he can defend himself.
“You let me worry about how I’m going to get them off, yeah?” He dismisses Sia with a cold tone that surprises me. “I need to draw a blueprint of the metal on your spine, alpha. While I do that, I think you two should go find me the supplies I need.”
It’s so rare to see him take charge, but when he does, it’s in a powerful voice that leaves no room for argument. The others must sense it, because they get up and stalk out of our little hut.
“Be careful!” I call after them.
“Yeah, yeah,” Sia replies dismissively.
Smirking, I turn to Styx to see he’s pulling off a spare part of metal off the rusted walls. It’s long and thin, roughly the size of a pen, with a jagged tip.
“Turn around and pull off your suit,” he orders softly, yet firmly.
I stare at the piece in his hand warily before I turn and do as he says, exposing the chunk of metal at my spine. My breath catches in my throat as I feel his warmth envelop me from behind. Then his fingers are on me, touching the spaces where metal meets skin. They skim down my body, and I fight back the shivers.
Then I hear the scratching of metal on metal.
“What are you doing?” I twist and see him scratching that long metal piece onto the floor, etching thin lines.
“Working on the blueprint of this thing. Don’t move, my love.” His palm connects to my back, pushing me to straighten again. I do, listening to the steady scratching, interrupted with the feel of his fingers against my skin and the metal, his breath blowing softly against my back.
He works in the steady silence, content and concentrated, but it starts to bore me.
A thought occurs to me while we’re sitting there. There’s not much I know about him. We may be connected, and I may feel a fragment of his soul and Rue’s inside me, but I don’tknowhim. Perhaps I know him in all the ways that matter. I know his bravery, his protectiveness, just as well as I know the submissive side, the intelligent side.
Fuck. I don’t even know his real name.
