Page 48 of Monsters Like Us
My breath hitches when his eyes swing to me. His voice is shredded, but every word is a blade. “Everything he says is a lie, little murderess. I’ll protect you until the day I stop breathing.”
The panic that’d been trying to eat me ebbs like a tide. I latch onto his voice like a rope. Now that he’s awake, I can breathe again.
Vale’s smile stutters and rolls off his face like water. For a split second, I see something else—annoyance, maybe fear—and then his mask slips back on.
“How touching,” he says, his tone sarcastic. “We’ll see how long her faith in you lasts.”
Corinne moves as if responding to a different cue—professional and practiced. She checks Micah’s pulse, then touches his forehead with one cold finger. “He’s coherent,” shenotes. “Fragile, but coherent.” Her eyes flick to Vale, then to me, blank and unreadable.
Micah shifts, a thin sound tearing out of him. He moves as far as the chain allows, and his bare foot finds mine. The brief press sends heat through me, a small, feral comfort.
“You’llneverbe alone. I won’t leave you.” It’s not a speech. It’s a jagged promise.
Vale laughs it off, but the sound is too high. He steps back to the stairs like a man who’s been told the curtain will rise later. “We’ll see,” he says, and then he’s gone.
Corinne leaves the mug in the middle of the floor and drifts back up the stairs. I watch her go, memorizing the swing of her hips, the way she tucks a curl behind her ear.
The room feels smaller—not because there’s less air, but because there’s a new thing holding us together.
Micah’s breathing is shallow, the pressure of his foot still on mine. It’s enough. It steadies me. For now, his voice is the truth I trust.
“Stay with me,” he whispers.
“Always,” I whisper back.
CHAPTER 43
Katana
The silenceafter Vale and Corinne leave is thick enough to choke on. The mug of water still sits between us on the concrete, forgotten. My body shakes with leftover fear, but it’s the words I didn’t say that hurt worse.
“Micah.” My voice is a rasp, barely audible.
He lifts his head, pupils still blown wide, every breath a ragged scrape. Still, he watches me like I’m the only thing in this cell that matters.
I swallow, my throat tight. “You’ve always given me a choice. Even when you didn’t have to. You let me take back my power.”
His brow furrows, but he doesn’t interrupt.
My head ducks, shame burning through me as I slide my foot until it anchors against his. The chains rattle, the sound ugly, but the contact is everything.
“Every other male has just… taken. Left me used and broken.” A sob claws its way out, shaking me apart. “Not you. Even though they call you the ice monster… you’re not cold to me. You’re warm. Safety. Comfort.”
His jaw flexes. His fingers twitch against his cuffs like he’sfighting the restraints to reach me, even though he can’t touch me with his hands.
I meet his eyes, raw and burning. “Even in here, you’re my calm. My storm. And if you get free, you’ll make them pay for hurting me.”
For a long beat, he stares at me.
Then his voice, shredded but steady, echoes off the wall. “I will destroy them for you.”
His black eyes soften. “I’m yours. All of me.”
CHAPTER 44
Micah
The thingthey wheel down isn’t a machine. It’s a threat. Heavy wheels groan over the concrete, steel restraints bolted to its sides, wires snaking into a humming control box. It smells of oil and burned metal—like something built to leave no survivors.
