“Okay,” she says finally. “Let’s go.”
But despite her agreement, she lingers right where she is until Julian physically ushers her up the stairs, one hand hovering at the small of her back.
I want to call out to her, to keep her from leaving me, but I keep my lips pressed firmly together. If I piss Julian off right now, there’s no telling what he might do to her, and I’m in no position to help her. I refuse to be responsible for Hannah suffering any more than she probably already has.
They both disappear up the stairs, and the door swings shut after them, closing and then locking for good measure with a click that echoes through the dank basement.
As soon as they’re gone, I start trying to get free again. The weight on my chest is still there, still threatening to choke me, and it’s harder than ever to breathe. I try one more time to work my hands out of the shackles, but I just end up scraping my wrists even more raw than they already were.
My head swims from the rapid breathing and the remnants of whatever Julian’s goons injected me with when I tried to fight them off. Everything I’ve learned in the last fifteen minutes crowds my brain, making my thoughts disjointed and chaotic. I can feel my pulse in my temples, thudding heavily, as if my head is a ticking bomb waiting to explode.
My vision goes blurry around the edges, and even though I try to hold on to consciousness, it slips away like a shadow.