Page 9 of Hex
Chapter Four
Sage
“Do you think something’s happened to him?” I feel like I’d know if something was wrong with Hack, but I can’t help asking anyway.
“We’re just not catching him while he’s asleep. We can try again after I’ve peed.”
I thoughtIwas optimistic, but Saffron is on a whole other level. Considering she’s been in these cave-like cells for goddess knows how much longer than me, I’m surprised she hasn’t gone insane.
On my first night here, I slept for what felt like days, my body coming to terms with being used again after weeks of being in stasis. It doesn’t help that it always seems like night. The space is small, but it’s enough for me to stand comfortably—if I stay on the spot in the middle—and I am making sure to exercise and move all of my limbs regularly. Being able to feel anything again is a literal miracle so I’m not wasting a second of it. I plan on getting out of here as soon as I can create an opportunity, which means I need to be ready, and not all weak in the corner mumblingwoe is me.
“What was with that demon, Slay?” From the sound of her voice, she’s sitting beside the bars of her cell. Over the last six weeks, I’ve learned to focus my hearing on various things, one of those being where Saffron is sitting. The water droplets and the harpy sisters are the only other things I ever hear.
No sign of Danika yet, but she was definitely in one of these cells. Saffron spoke to her, she knew things that only Danika could have said. The thing that really made me cry was the misheard lyric snippet my best friend gave Saffron.
“Hit me with your pet shark! Fire away…”Apparently it’s what Danika was singing out loud for hours after she first arrived. Of course, Aggie hated it. Mera, not so much.
“What do you mean?”
“He looked like he wanted to eat me, and I can tell you now…I wouldn’t taste very nice. Not after sitting in the same clothes for years on end.”
“I feel ya there, Saffy.” We’re given a clean—empty—metal bucket every two days to do our business in. Other than that, we have to make do with what we have.
Our clothes on our backs.
A blanket each—albeit moth eaten.
Our bathroom bucket.
And water and bread three times a day. Sometimes four, if we get an extra visit from Mera when she’s bored and Aggie’s busy.
If I never look at bread again when I get out of here, I won’t be sad.
“Okay, I’m ready.” Saffron’s sweet-candy voice rings through the darkness.
My heart jumps the same way it does every time we attempt this, because the hope that I’m going to see Hack, and have him see me, is through the fucking roof…or mountainous tip.
Having never met a faerie, I had zero idea what to expect when Saffron first told me she was a dreamwalker. Apparently, it’s asuper rare faerie power that is only in the royal lineage. She and her sixteen sisters all have some form of it, but not all with the same strength.
Her offer to help me see Hack in his dreams felt like a trap, especially considering she doesn’t want anything in return, but I trusted my gut and laid down on the floor of my personal tiny cave, reaching my arm out through and around the bars. The tips of our fingers touching is all Saffron needs to let her magic flow.
Today is the first time this has worked, but not with Hack nor Danika—because I’ve tried both. Instead, I thought about Slay, because I remembered him telling me once to get in touch with him if I needed help and Hack wasn’t around. So that’s exactly what I did.
He swore a lot, to begin with, asked me a lot of questions about where I am—to which I had no answers—until eventually he took the time to listen to my request. I need Hack.
I need him like I need air to breathe.
He is my lifeforce, he makes me feel stronger, invincible almost, and without him, I’m entirely lost in a void of emptiness.
“You think Slay’s had time to pass the message along?” I’m stalling now, scared that Hack won’t sleep, scared that I’ll never get through to him. With the ward on the mountain, I don’t even know if he can feel me like I can feel him. I have no idea how all of this works. The witchy knowledge that Hekate blessed me with has been a grand total of useless so far.
“The sisters will be around soon, so now’s the best time to try, unless you want to wait another few hours until they’re gone again?” I can hear the smug grin on her face. She knows I don’t want to wait.
“I’m ready, sticking my arm out.” With my back flat against the rock surface, my arm through the bars and reaching as far as I can stretch toward Saffron, I close my eyes.
Our fingertips touch and Saffron murmurs something before an electric shock buzzes from where we’re connected. It travels through my body and sends me straight to sleep, the darkness clouding into a fog. I can’t see Saffron, but I can hear her whispers as I continue to picture Hack, allowing the pull for him to be free and search him out.
At the point the fog usually begins to darken again, due to another unsuccessful attempt, this time it doesn’t. Instead, it brightens into a meadow of white daisies as far as the eye can see. The sky is dusky, a strange deep-purple color, with the sun setting and a few stars shining. It’s the best of it all.
