Page 32 of Sadist

My gun was sitting on my bedside table, and I snatched it up, dried blood flaking off the grip as I checked the mag. No bullets. Useful. It was far harder than it should have been to reach for the lower drawer and slide it out, grab the ammunition I needed, and load the gun with my eyes closed to try to help the spike of pain that was ricocheting through my skull with every breath.

Zichen…The image of thrusting the knife into his jaw suddenly floated into view as more scraps of memory started to knit together.

Okay.

I had gotten myself back in here at least.

I think. Did Erryn bring me in? I peered up at my dresser to the place where she usually left her gun. It was bare…and I couldn’t smell the perfume that tended to cling to things in her wake.

The weight of the gun in my palm was a small comfort as I stood, glancing around through one slitted, reluctant eye for my phone. Clearly, concussed Theo was capable of mood lighting, but couldn’t do useful things like leave the device that controlled ninety percent of my home with the touch of a button handy. Or leave clothes within reach.

Clothes were in the way too hard basket. Blanket it was. I pulled it off the bed and tucked it around myself, breathing through the nausea the movement evoked, and eyed the distance to the kitchen.

Whywas it so god-damned far to the kitchen?

“Theo?”

I jumped, training my gun on the figure slumped over the table in the shadows.

“Erryn?”

“No…It’s me.”

“Octavia?” I rasped, trying to blink away the lights that had exploded in my vision at the sudden movement as my mind seemed intent on heading back into the shadowy depths of sleep.

“Yes,” she breathed. “Don’t shoot.”

I lowered the gun, swiping a hand across my eyes and wondering if I had actually died after all, and this was purgatory. It definitely wasn’t hell…becauseshewas here.

“You shouldn’t be up yet,” Octavia said, taking a hesitant step toward me. I brought the gun back up, and she froze, raising her hands, her eyes locked not on the gun, but my face.

“Put the gun down, Theo,” she said, her voice gaining an edge to it I hadn’t heard before. “I’m not going to hurt you, or I would have done it while you were unconscious and bleeding all over me. And who the fuck is Erryn?”

I blinked at her in confusion.While I was what?

“How are you out of your cell?” I asked.

“You let me out,” she said, taking another step forward. I tilted my head, giving her a warning look, and she stopped.

“What’s the last thing you remember?” she asked.

I swallowed, racking my struggling brain.

“Downstairs,” I said after a long moment. “I dispatched Zichen and then…not much after that.”

“You let me out around three a.m. on Saturday. The same day I was reported as dead after an explosion on the M25 killed fourteen civilians,” she said, her tone even and quiet. “Twelve initially. Two more died at the hospital from their injuries. Octavia Vanguard is among the deceased.”

“Wh—” I began, but she cut me off.

“You had a pretty bad concussion,” she went on. “And a stab wound to your upper right thigh that I stitched yesterday. You called me a cunt twice during that. Google has me concerned that your fifth and sixth ribs on your left side might be fractured, based on the bruising.”

My brainreallyneeded to wake up because I was really struggling to follow her. How was I not dead? How was she still here? I glanced at the door, realizing why a second later. She had no way out without me, and no one could get in without me letting them in.

“You got into the computers,” I said, glancing over her shoulder at the dark screens.

“I did,” she said. “I needed a tutorial on how to stitch flesh. I also kept you alive the last three days, and trust me, you are a total bitch to nurse.”

“Why?” I asked, my gun still trained on her.

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