Page 96 of Scarlet Wars
“You were triggered by something in there,” he said, voice soft but threaded with steel. “The darkness. The small space. I can’t remember you ever being triggered by those at Crown.”
The words landed too close.
My knees gave a soft protest as I sank back down on my bed, elbows braced on them, head in my hands. The fear completely drained, leaving only the exhaustion of it all, and the mortification of him seeing me come undone.
“I’m so sorry I ruined our mission,” I mumbled, unable to look him in the eye.
I felt him move closer. “Do you really think I give a fuck about that?”
When I still didn’t look up, he crouched in front of me, close enough that I could feel the faint brush of his breath against my knees. He peeled my hands off my face, then raised my chin, and lifted my face until I had no choice but to meet his eyes.
“Where did you go, Emma?” His question was a soft demand. “What did your mind drag you into?”
Gods. I didn’t want to tell him. My chest ached with the memory of it.
But he’d stayed with me, he’d pulled me out of it. He had a right to know, and honestly, I was too wrung out to lie.
He leaned in, enough that his forehead nearly brushed mine, his breath warm and even between us, as if he could steady my heartbeat by sheer proximity. “Tell me.”
I exhaled, the sound trembling in the silence between us. “When I ran from Boston… After crossing the state border into New Hampshire, I…ran into a man. Human.”
The words scraped raw on the way out. How was I supposed to tell this story?
I glanced up at Caden. He was still watching me, his pupils blown wide, confusion pulling tight with a darker edge beneath it.
“This man…pretended to help me,” I forced out, my throat closing around the guilt I didn’t deserve, curling like barbed wire around every syllable. “My feet were blistered, and I was exhausted, so I…”
The next words were whispered, all of them laced in shame. “Ilethim help me. I was so thirsty, and I drank some of his water.Voluntarily.”
My gaze dropped, unable to meet his. My hands twisted together in my lap, nails digging crescents into my palms. “Turned out, the water was drugged, and he abducted me. Locked me in his cellar for two and a half days.”
"Motherfucker." Caden’s voice was a low, venomous hiss.
I drew in another breath, steadying myself before dragging the next part out. “He wanted me to translate him a lot of money. Didn’t want to listen to reason, didn’t believe the bubble would kill me if I did. But the worst part…” I cleared my throat. “I wasn’t alone in that cellar. There was another girl, Amy, who’d been there for weeks. He tried to force me to make her fall in love with him.”
Caden went completely still.
His jaw flexed once before he asked, “What happened?”
A flicker of pride slipped through the heaviness. “Amy and I teamed up and fought back. We caught him off guard, knocked him out, and ran. Drove his truck until we almost reached the national border.”
“He’s still alive?” The words were more statement than question, stripped to something dark and dangerous.
I looked up at the man I’d fallen apart in front of and gave a single nod.
His expression didn’t change, but the air around him did. It dropped a few degrees, and when he finally spoke, his tone wasglacial. “Not for long.”
Caden rose slowly, then lowered himself beside me, the mattress dipping under his weight.
His body heat bled through the space between us, his warmth a quiet contradiction to the violence in his voice.
“Amy’s the reason I made it out of the bubble alive,” I continued quietly. “She drove me to the border. She gave me the supplies I needed to make the crossing. And she gave me something to fight for, when…”
The words snagged.
“When you didn’t feel like there was a reason to,” Caden finished, low but certain.
I nodded once.
