Page 279 of Scarlet Wars
A man we all believed had died fighting the Radicals at Crown.
Maurice.
SIXTY-ONE
CADEN
I woke up, my arms screaming in pain.
Fire licked through my muscles, burning from my shoulders down to my hands. My entire body throbbed in protest as I tried to shift, only to feel the harsh bite of metal cutting into my skin.
In line with my last memory, I was still hanging from the ceiling, unbreakable chains digging into my wrists and keeping me in place.
I forced my eyes downward, blinking hard through the fog clouding my vision. Blood stained my body, dark and sticky, but the bleeding had stopped. And the wounds seemed…healed.
Small victories.
My eyes flitted across the room, searching the shadows until they landed on Walker. He was slumped in the same position, still suspended like me. His head hung forward, the short strands of his military cut doing nothing to hide his closed eyes.
“Walker?”
No response.
I scanned his body, cataloging the bruises, the torn shirt sticking to his chest. He looked pale. Too pale.
“Come on, Walker. Wake up.”
Finally, a groan.
James’s head shifted slightly. His eyes opened, green and glassy at first, then sharpening fast as he took in the room. His attention flicked to the chains, the rig, and then to me.
“Where the hell are we?” he rasped, his voice rough.
“No idea. Do you recognize anything?”
His focus swept across the jagged stone walls, the faint, acrid scent of blood lingering in the air. Then his gaze landed on the heavy steel door.
“We’re at the Bastille, hidden below the surface.”
A cold spike of adrenaline shot through me. “One of its famous torture caves?”
The tendons in James’s neck tensed. “Yeah.”
Great.
I forced myself to steady, ignoring the burn in my arms as my pulse pounded harder than was remotely helpful.
“We need to get out of here, but without translation,” I said. “We’re still beneath the bubble.”
James sighed. “Awesome.”
I forced my upper arms to relax even though every fiber protested the strain. My fingers twitched uselessly against the chains.
“Any idea who took us?”
James’s brow furrowed as he considered it. “My money’s either on the United Chiefs,” he said slowly, “or the person behind the bubble.”
“Or both,” I suggested. “Working together.”
