Page 49 of Deathless
They shoved me forward, and I went down hard on metal flooring. Lorenzo landed beside me with a grunt. I rolled toward where Jasper should have been.
"Diego?"
"I'm here, hermano. JASPER!"
A boot pressed into my back. "One more word and I gag you."
The doors slammed. The engine roared. I yanked at the zip ties until the plastic cut and blood made them slick. They didn't budge. My grandmother used to say the Reyes family was too stupid to stay still and too stubborn to stay dead.
Abuela, you should see me now.
The van turned hard and threw me into the side panel. Lorenzo swore beside me. I got my knees under me but couldn't balance with my hands behind my back and the hood blocking everything.
"Diego, stop. You're just bleeding."
"I don't give a shit. Jasper's..."
"I know."
The van kept driving, and I lost track of time in the dark, just trying to breathe through fabric that sucked against my mouth with every inhale. I tracked turns out of habit. Left, right, long straight, another left. Then I lost count and just listened toLorenzo breathing beside me, steady enough to mean he was conscious, uneven enough to mean he was scared.
The van stopped, and they hauled us out, walking us through echoing corridors where the air turned cold, and shoved me into a room alone. The door locked behind me.
"Strip."
"What?"
"Clothes off. All of them."
"Fuck you."
They slammed me against a wall, and the gun pressed into my ribs hard enough to bruise. "Strip. Or we do it for you."
I pulled my shirt over my head, working blind, got my jeans down, kicked off my boots. I stood there naked in the dark with the hood still on. Someone put their hands on me. Between my legs, behind my ears, under my arms, between my toes. The search was thorough, professional, and completely indifferent to the fact that I was a person. I held still. My mother would've killed every man in this room with her bare hands. My mother wasn't here. I stood there and took it. I thought about Eight getting taken by strangers, whether she'd been searched like this, whether anyone had let her keep her clothes. Then I stopped thinking about it because if I didn't stop, I'd tear someone apart with zip-tied hands.
New clothes landed against my chest. I fumbled with buttons I couldn't see, pulled on pants that hung loose without a belt.
"Move."
They walked me further, shoving me through another door, and it closed and locked.
I stood there, catching my breath.Fuck, Jasper. You’d better not be dead, guapo.
Silence, then footsteps, then someone grabbed the hood and yanked it off.
Light made me squint. The room was stone on all sides, a single bulb overhead, no windows. Rhadamanthys stood by the exit with his revolvers and that fucking Stetson still on his head like the last hour hadn't happened. Rafael stood beside him with the eyepatch and scars. Luka pinned me with those cold blue eyes.
Lorenzo sat in the corner looking pissed but whole.
I met Luka's stare.
"Where's Jasper?"
"Safe. Being processed."
"You hooded him and stripped him and threw him in a cell."
"Yes."
