Darkest Descent

5. 5

5

Alice

My heart stayed locked in my throat as Hunter rose up from Asher’s chest and sauntered over to the knife, scooping it up with a real fucking skip in his step. All my organs plummeted out of my ass when I realized I’d never even tried to grab it. So stupid. Such an idiot. Death wish. Too consumed by the horror in front of me to think rationally. I could have saved him.

Neither Asher nor I moved as Hunter headed for the door, both too shocked to react. This was an insanity I could never have anticipated. It was like living in a daze, like my mind hadn’t truly caught up with what was happening.

Asher was… he looked distraught, ruined. His skin was blotchy, scratched up cheeks and chin, tender looking under his eyes, across his nose. Like he’d been dragged across a coarse carpet over and over .

Hunter looked like he’d been killing him as he assaulted my brother’s face. His expression was rageful, focused, terrifying. And there was nothing I could do to help. The anger built in me until it broke, and I sat, shattered, watching it happen.

Hunter turned to us at the door, his hand on the knob on the outside. “For good enough behavior, I’ll bring down dessert with dinner.”

Then he was gone, his departure leaving a vacuum of pressure. Asher and I were in silence again, alone and scared. We listened to each other breathe, Asher’s stuttered and wheezy as he eventually rolled onto his front and shuffled to the wall opposite me, coughing and retching, before leaning his back against the cool brick with an expression of blank horror on his face.

“I’m sorry,” I whispered when I couldn’t take the silence anymore. My brother looked at me and frowned, his eyes glassy, but then he sucked in a deep breath and shook his head, like he was shaking away the anguish.

“We just need to wait.” His voice came out hoarse. “We need to wait, sleep. Rest. He’ll be back. We can get him when he comes back.”

Images of me and my brother, roped to the wall, frail and hungry, attacking the giant man who had kidnapped us with such ease, ran through my head. It was laughable, but the humor of it only pained me. It seemed so fucking hopeless. I knew nothing of where we were, what the rest of the building was like, if Hunter was on his own. I assumed he had cameras, but I couldn’t see them. He had intentions impossible to fathom, and it terrified me. Making us kiss. The way he used Asher and the threats he made had me sick to my stomach.

“I—” I tried to speak, to say anything I could think of to soothe my brother. Failed. The room closed in around me, the dank walls looming, squeezing inward. I ran my hand over my face, pressing my fingers into my eyes like it might shift everything - when I opened them again, everything would be different.

“We just need to wait,” Ash repeated, and I opened my eyes, finding him there, in the hell hole we’d awoken in. Our gazes locked for a moment, then he turned, leaving me to my horrifying thoughts. I watched his back rise and fall until my eyes wouldn’t stay open anymore.