Page 40 of Firefly

“Rebecca, what’s wrong?”

She caught her breath, the color returning to her lips, and her heart slowed a fraction. But not enough.

“You were squeezing a bit tight,” she said between breaths. “I’ll be fine.”

Simon pulled her into the room, sitting beside her on the bed, watching intently as her cheeks regained some of their color.

“I can’t believe you're alive,” she said when her breathing was under control.

“Why did you believe me dead? Apart from the obvious.” He tried to smile, but it died on his lips, weighed down by the heaviness he hadn’t been able to shake since that horrible night in Amsterdam.

“Father told me you died more than a year ago. I never should have believed him.”

"You never received my letters?"

She curled her hands into fists. “Letters? Father must have kept them from me.”

He said nothing, watching for any sign her father had told her the rest.

She lifted her hand, unclenching her fingers, and rested her palm on his cheek. “You seem… different.”

He nodded, swallowing.

“Where have you been?” Her tone was innocent enough.

“I went to the war.”

A hand flew to Rebecca’s mouth. “You were a soldier?”

“No.”

Her gaze darted between his eyes, waiting for him to say more. When he didn’t, she asked, “Why did you go?”

“Alexander required demons.”

Rebecca shuddered. “The job you do for him at night.”

“He ordered me to leave and not return until I brought back one hundred demons.”

Rebecca gasped. “And did you?”

He nodded.

Throwing her arms around his neck, she said, “Oh Simon, my father is the most cruel evil man. We have to leave. We have to get out of this place.”

He buried his nose in her hair, drinking in her scent. “Rebecca… I can’t.”

She released him. “We must. He has used you terribly, and he will use Sarah next.”

“I found a way to stop him from hurting you. I can stop him from hurting Sarah.”

Rebecca bit her lip, the flesh between her teeth going white. “He did stop… for a time, but he resumed experimenting several weeks ago.”

Rage burned through Simon as he looked her over, truly seeing how weak she had become in his absence. He shot to his feet, tearing down the stairs and flinging the door to Alexander’s lab wide.

“You broke our agreement.”

Alexander looked up from the corpse on the table. “You forget yourself, Simon.”

---