Page 48 of The Sin

I increased the length of my stride. It wasn’t the afternoon train I was trying to beat. There was a dark, bottomless chasm chasing at my heels, reaching its tendrils all the way from The Smoke, and suddenly it felt like I might just stand a chance at outrunning it before I drowned in the hollowness.

I walked faster and faster, until I was practically jogging, the flashlight bouncing its beam across the narrow walkway and the tracks.

“Georga.”

I heard Roman call my name. I wasn’tthatfar gone. But I didn’t slow. I broke into a full-on jog, my feet pounding the packed dirt.

“Georga!” he called again.

I ran harder.

Faster.

The air inside the tunnel was stuffy, but the pressure on my chest lightened and my lungs opened up.

Harder.

Faster.

Sweat gathered at the nape of my neck and trickled down my back. I slowed to a jog again, only for as long as it took to strip off my coat and toss it against the curved wall, then I was sprinting, racing against time, outrunning the past, present and future.

If Roman still called for me, I no longer heard him. Adrenaline spiked my blood until it rushed between my ears with a roar that obliterated every thought I refused to hold onto, every feeling I didn’t dare feel, obliterated every lie and betrayal and hurt.

A cramp finally stabbed at my side, but I ran straight through it. I was losing my breath, but who needed to breathe?

A hard body crashed into me from the side, an arm caught around my waist to pull me over and on top for a soft landing as we tumbled to the ground, as I tumbled into Roman’s arms. I hit out with my elbows, reared and strained within his embrace, but he held on firmly, scrabbling his way up against the wall and bringing me with him.

I shoved and jerked, whipping about like a frenetic snake.

He spread his legs, easily pulling me in closer between them and wrapping his arms around me.

The welcome roar in my head faded.

“It’s okay.” His voice was a breath against my ear. “It’s okay. I’ve got you.”

It wasn’t okay. That sweet, sweet, mindless rush of adrenaline leaked away and took every ounce of numbing cold with it. All those thoughts I didn’t want, all those feelings I couldn’t bear to feel, swarmed me and I was utterly defenseless.

“It’s okay,” he murmured, so quietly, so fiercely, as if he could will it into being. “I’m here.”

The hollowness caught up to me, swallowed me, and spit me out.

Sobs racked through my body, loss and grief ripped from the core of my being. Heaving dry throbs scratched my soul like sandpaper, and then the tears came pouring out of me.

Roman held me, kept whispering, “It’s okay,” and “I’ve got you,” while I sobbed until there were no tears left in me, until there was nothing left in me, and still his quietly murmured words kept coming—I’m here. It’s okay. I’ve got you—and slowly filled the nothing.

I don’t know how long I sat there, cradled within his warmth and his gruffly spoken mantra, and there was still a loss inside me that could never be replaced, but that utterly desolate emptiness slowly and steadily became more bearable.

“Our ovaries are not rotten.” My voice was low and scratchy, as if my vocal chords were as bruised and battered as my soul. “At least, not at first.”

“It varies,” he said, still speaking softly near my ear, his breath warm on my skin. “Some girls only have a couple of months, others remain healthy until around the age of fourteen or a little beyond.”

So, he knew.

Of course he knew. Jenna had only been in The Smoke for a couple of months, and she knew. Everyone outside the walls of Capra knew.

“That’s one of the reasons you’re required to marry young in Capra,” he added. “There hasn’t been a case of anyone reaching fifteen with healthy eggs, but they’re hoping as the population heals, that age limit will creep higher.”

The first couple.

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