Page 21 of Savage Escape

“Caden... you all right?”

The merc didn’t acknowledge that he’d spoken. She kept staring at the wall behind him, dark eyes glazed and unfocused. Fear crept up his spine at the sight of her sprawled, limbs splayed like she wasn’t in control of them, and her whole body shivering.

Kyott had done something horrible to her. He’d never seen her so... so affected by the torture before.

The bright morning sun shining through the tiny window did a pretty good job of highlighting every bruise, wound, and cut on her. And there were many, too many. She was red, drenched in red, her own blood. It took a beat for him to process what he was seeing. Dozens of long red lines cut into her skin, all seeping red. Inner thighs, the backs of her calves, and all up and down her arms.

“Holy Christ.” Maybe it wasn’t as bad as it looked. Maybe they were all surface wounds that would heal easily. “Quinn, are you...”

She was either drugged or so far gone that she was completely out of it. Her eyes were dull and glassy; her breathing was concerningly slow and deep for just getting off the rack. Could be too much blood loss or the effects of some kind of sedative in her system. Nathan was hoping for the latter.

“Ezzy.” Focused past his shoulder and smiling that soft smile he’d only seen on her once. “You shouldn’t be here.”

A slight slur in her words like she was too tired to bother with forming her vowels correctly. Drugged was so much better than bleeding out, not by much, but still it was something to be thankful for. It was a short-lived relief, however.

Drugs plus mercenary add in the torture and a dash of strange surroundings and he had himself a very out-of-it lethal killing machine who wouldn’t think twice about dropping him if he made a wrong move.

“Caden, it’s me... Nathan Savage.” Not even a batted eyelash in his direction. She kept smiling that soft smile at the wall over his shoulder. “I’m gonna try my best to wash out your cuts, all right? We don’t want them to get?—”

“I’m so tired, Ezzy.” She wasn’t whispering anymore. Her usually guarded eyes turned desperate and terribly helpless. “I don’t... I don’t want to... hurt anymore. I can’t.”

He was witnessing an utterly personal and vulnerable moment. She couldn’t defend against him, not with the drugs in control. She couldn’t turn away and pretend, like a normal person, that she had something in her eye. Stripped bare of all her emotional and mental defenses, there she was, Caden Quinn.

The broken and defeated version of her anyhow, pleading for someone, someone important to her, to understand why she had given up. Why she was allowing herself to die?

Nathan didn’t know what to do. Under any other circumstances, he would have quietly left the room and let her deal with her own shit without the feeling of someone watching over her shoulder. He wanted to retreat to the other side of the room and cover his eyes to grant her some kind of privacy, but he couldn’t.

Despite the urge to cover his ears and wait it out, a bigger part of him was furiously engraving all that she was saying into his brain to go over later, burning it into his memory so as not to forget a single syllable. It was a compulsion for him where Caden Quinn was concerned. Any and all information he could get, he would. He was already going to hell, anyway.

Although retreating to his side of the cell and pretending that he wasn’t mentally scribing every second of her unguarded confessions was probably the smartest thing to do, at least until the drugs wore off, it was not an option. He wasn’t putting such an effort into keeping her alive just so she could die of an infection.

“Caden, I’m gonna have to touch you to clean out your cuts.” Oh god, he was going to lose a vital part of his anatomy, he just knew it. “I’m cleaning out your cuts, okay? It’s gonna sting, so please try not to take off my head—or anything else, okay?”

“I... buried you...” Her head lolled to the side, and her sliced arms wrapped around her middle. “... all I got are headstones now...”

He didn’t know where to start. There were so many cuts on the drugged woman—no, mercenary. It was a very important distinction. A drugged and injured civilian woman was about as lethal as a wet cat. A drugged and injured mercenary was a whole other can of worms; ninja worms trained to kill and would do so at the slightest provocation.

She didn’t acknowledge he’d spoken. She was muttering again and staring at the wall like there was someone there. He touched her hand, ready to deflect the inevitable blows, but she didn’t even so much as twitch at the contact.

Not good. Caden Quinn avoided physical contact, save for fighting, at all costs. She either hit or retreated.

Even when the cold water touched her skin, she didn’t react. Only kept muttering to that spot on the wall. The cuts were deep but clean. She needed stitches for a few, but nothing fatal. It was only when he pushed her shoulder to get a better view of her back did she react.

As soon as his hand hit her ribs, she bolted up, shark eyes slammed into place and the edge of her hand connected with his throat. Gasping and sputtering, Nathan reeled back to avoid more hits. She slid out of his hold. Knees bent, soulless eyes now focused on him, the threat in her drugged state, she circled him.

“Caden, it’s me. It’s Nathan.” He stood and watched in resignation as she circled him in the tiny room. “Nathan Savage... I’m not gonna hurt you... Caden.”

She swooped in and landed a quick jab on his stomach and then just as quickly slipped out of range.

The only thing getting through the haze was the pain and that he was the one delivering it. So Caden, being first and foremost a fighter, would annihilate the threat so she could safely get backto convincing the wall to let her die. Nathan wasn’t too keen on getting his ass beat, but he didn’t want to fight her and add to her injuries, either.

“Ava, hold on! It’s me!” Maybe her real name might get through. “Ava!”

It did.

She stilled for a long moment. Nathan watched as she caved in on herself. Shoulders slumped, head bowed, knees stiff.

“Ava.” He’d never seen her look so... so what?

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