Page 64 of Retrograde

I briefly recount what had happened. His features let up until his face becomes a blank slate, and his eyes turn into dark, lifeless pits.

“Uh-huh.” Tension rests in his neck and on his shoulders—an impatience to get out now that he knows I’m here to save him.

He doesn’t give a shit that Attila hurt me. And just why did I think for a heartbeat that he would?

“We should get going,” I say curtly, masking the strange hurt I feel.

I retrieved the spare keys from the barracks office earlier. I slide the appropriate one into the stall lock.

“I wouldn’t do that, Hotshot,” he stops me in my tracks with his sing-song voice. “That’s a bad idea.”

“What?” I gawk at him dumbly through the bars. “Why?”

“Because if you set me free, I’m going to fuck you so hard into the ground you won’t be able to walk after.”

I let out a strangled noise. My heart is galloping away with surging panic.

“I was going to go easy on you the first time. But after the stunt you just pulled? Provoking me like that?” He shakes his head. “Gentle’s off the table. You let me out, I’ll make you scream, and cry and beg me to stop, all of which I’ll ignore. If I start fucking you, I won’t stop until I ruin you. So ...” Aron raises his arms in a mock peace offering, and the chains clank loudly. “Unless you want that, you’d better walk out and leave me here.”

“I can’t leave you here!”

“Why the fuck not?” He shrugs. “It’s easy, Hotshot. Do you remember the way here from the caves?”

“No, Attila blindfolded me. But I do know the way from the ruins by the Rift.”

“There you go then.” He nods, then raises three fingers. “First, you go put that nasty mustard yellow uniform back on.” Now only two of his fingers are up. “Then you lead the Continuum scum to our hideout and have them raid it.” One finger is left. “You save your buddy Corrado and get your nice traitor life back.” The final finger goes down. “See? Easy. Don’t tell me you haven’t thought of that.”

I haven’t. And I don’t know whether to feel stupid, which I often do, or morally superior, which I never do. But mostly I feel shocked, torn, and like I got checkmated in a game of chess.

“Why the hell would you even give me that idea? They’d slaughter all your men.”

“There’s no Retrograde without me.” He grimaces indifferently, his tone light, cheery, completely wrong. “And they’re going to slaughter them anyway. It’s only a matter of time.”

“Well ... but ...” I sputter like a faulty engine. “Don’t you want to get out? Do you have any idea what they’ll do to you?”

“Most likely they’ll turn me into a castrated guinea pig.” His completely unconcerned way of speaking is getting on my nerves now—I want to shake him or throw something at him, because no one, absolutely no one, is this calm in the face of what’s waiting for him unless I get him out.

“What they say is true. You really are insane.”

“So?”

I’m so stressed and frustrated that fresh tears well in my eyes, and I have to bite my lip to stop them from overflowing. Still, I see it in his face that he’s noticed I’m upset.

“Riley, it’s simple. You have options. So, if you’re letting me out of here, be fucking honest and admit it’s because you want to come on my cock.”

I do. I can’t pretend otherwise. He didn’t just make me come the other day—he showed me that I could have something I thought was impossible for me. Does he even realise? Before, I felt damaged, defective and ashamed, and now I don’t. He is my captor, and yet he set me free. And now I crave this particular freedom more than I crave my actual freedom.

But I don’t need to tell him any of this. His devilish smirk shows me that he already knows.

“Fucking admit it then, you little whore,” he urges me, his voice rough and relentless. “You want my cock inside of you, so deep I’ll fuck my way into your traitorous heart.”

His harshly spoken words melt something inside me, the fusion of fear and intrigue potent and explosive. My pulse is picking up, heat flooding me from head to toe, a sense of imminent danger making me feel dizzy and more aware of everything—the fabric of my clothes, the stale air, the smell of blood still hanging in the air.

I grip the bars with both hands, shifting my weight from foot to foot to sway, my gaze locked with his as I taunt him.

“Promise you won’t put me back in the cage,” I demand.

“Nothing is easier. I promise,” he assures me lightly, like it’s an unimportant detail we’re talking about, and not something that drove me into the deepest despair of my life. “I won’t need a cage anymore,” he elaborates with a little too much enthusiasm. “Not after today. You can try to run, but you’ll never get away from me.”