Page 105 of Cruel Vows

I stride over to the wall and drop down to the bars, attempting to reach around the stone for her, but she’s not close to the bars.

Ellie lets out a small whimper. “I can’t get over there. I think I might have a broken leg.”

Rage floods through me as I pull back. “The bastard broke your leg?”

She laughs, sounding happy for the first time since we were abducted. “Yeah. I might have punched him hard in the balls and then scratched him pretty good. It’s a little hazy.”

“Only you would be laughing about that.” A small smile tugs at the corner of my mouth. “Have you been given anything for the pain?”

“Yeah. Think it was probably morphine. He injected me with something, and it stopped hurting as much, so I’m guessing that’s it.”

“Alright, well, we’re going to find a way to get out of this.”

I start running my hands over the stone, hoping that something is loose.

A loose stone that I could pry out would be a good weapon. Something that I could use to bash Noah’s head in.

Aiden coughs and curls in on himself again, falling to the side, head cracking against the cement.

Hurrying over to him, I check for a pulse. It’s there and it’s faint, but he’s alive for now.

I take a look at the rags wrapped tight around his cuts. They’re turning a dark crimson color, but there isn’t any fresh blood staining his skin.

There isn’t time to sit there and make sure Aiden comes back around, though. He would want me to focus on saving Ellie.

She’s the most important person to me.

I run my hands over the wall two more times, high and low, searching for a loose stone.

Finally, I skim over one and it wiggles a little in place. It’s not much, but as I sink my nails between the stone and the crumbling mortar, it starts to pull away.

Even though my fingernails tear and blood pools, I keep pulling until the stone is out.

It’s a good-sized one, nearly double the size of a baseball with a jagged edge.

With the stone out of the way, there’s a hole big enough to look through to Ellie’s cell.

She’s curled up in the corner, but her right leg is stretched out in front of her at an awkward angle. Eyelids dip down, her chin hovering close to her chest.

Ellie looks like she’s death warmed over, but when she lifts her head and looks back at me, I know that we have a fighting chance.

Footsteps echo down the hallway, and I stay close to the hole, the stone in one hand while I lean against the wall and block what I did.

There’s a low beep before a cell door opens.

Crouching down, I look through the hole and watch as Dad and Noah stride into her cell. Dad moves closer to her while Noah hovers toward the back, but Dad would be a fool to think that he’s the one in charge of the situation.

Noah edges around Dad. “Time’s up, Ellie. Who’s going to die?”

Ellie glares up at them, the stubborn set to her jaw that I’ve grown to love over the last few months. “Kill me. Let them go.”

No.

I keep my mouth shut even though I want to scream at her. She isn’t seeing the bigger picture here.

Aiden and I both want her to live.

In the grand scheme of things, she’s the innocent one in this entire mess. She should be the one who gets to walk out of here and live the rest of her life, but instead, she’s telling them to kill her.

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