Page 16 of Requiem
“Why?” I ask, the word coming out rough.
Her laugh is short and broken. “Because I didn’t think I had a way out.” Her eyes drop to her hands. “Because I was selfish. Because I told myself I was surviving.” She shakes her head once, sharply. “None of that makes it okay.”
No. It doesn’t.
I look back toward the river, my jaw tight enough that it aches.Motherfucking fuck.“How often was he sold?” I ask, my chest caving inwith everything I’m learning about my best friend. “How many times did someoneelserape him?”
She flinches, guilt flashing in her eyes. “Just that once. When Alexei filmed that video that he sent Emma.”
I exhale heavily, running a hand through my hair.
After a few quiet moments, she speaks again. “I don’t think he’s coming back,” she says quietly.
Her words slap me across my face. I turn to her sharply. “Don’t fucking say that.”
“Micah—” Her eyes flick to mine. “I watched Alexei torture him with Emma’s photos. He was so sure that Jude was hesitating or holding ontoanyremaining softness inside himself because of her. And, well, he was right. So he used her to destroy the last of it.”
“No.” I shake my head, the motion sharper than I intend.
“I mean it.”
The certainty in her voice makes me fucking nauseous. I press my palm hard against my mouth for a second before dropping it. “He’s not gone forever,” I mutter, more to myself than to her. “He can’t be.”
Adriana’s voice is softer when she speaks again. “After Alexei killed Nolan, everything got worse.”
I don’t interrupt. I don’t think I can, with the thorns squeezing my throat.
“They moved us into his guesthouse,” she continues. “A small, one-bedroom place.” Her shoulders tense slightly. “We were there for months. But really, it feels like we were there for years.”
My gaze catches on a raven flying through the branches, drenched in morning sunlight.
“We didn’t have a choice,” she adds after a moment. “There was nowhere else to go or way out. We were watched constantly.”
I inhale a slow breath through my nose, trying to keep my head on straight. “And him?” I ask. “How did he lose his fucking mind?”
Her silence says more than anything. “At first…he was still there,” she admits. “Notfully. But enough. Enough that he could talk. That he knew who I was and what we were being forced to do. We attended Alexei’s events together, and he waspresent.”Her gaze drifts out toward the trees again. “Though toward the end…” Her voice falters. “I started getting scared of him.”
The words sit heavily between us.
“Why?” I ask quietly. “What changed?”
She shakes her head. “I don’t know exactly. The last time they took him behind that fucking door—” She presses her lips together, forcing her voice to steady. “When he came back, he wasn’t the same. When he came back, he looked like a…” she exhales, her gaze clashing with mine. “A demon.”
My hands shake in my lap, exhaustion settling deeper into my very bones. It doesn’t matter that I slept.
“I wish I had never met Nolan,” she says suddenly.
I glance at her.
“I wish I had never met Jude,” she adds, her voice shaking now. “None of this would’ve happened. Maybe he wouldn’t have gone through any of it.”
I chew the inside of my cheek, focusing on my pulse.
“Even if I…” She swallows hard, her eyes watering. “Even if I love him.”
I go still. My shoulders tense. “Youlovehim?”
Her gaze drops, as if she’s embarrassed by the admission, but she nods.
