Page 87 of Silver Sinner

I blink again and the fresh blood staining my skin has grown tacky. Another blink and it's dried tight against my skin with a few slow rivulets rolling down my torso.

I'm dying.

And Layla is gone.

I'm unclear how much time passes between Trik leaving and a handful of men arriving. They take me down, talking amongst themselves, but I have neither the energy to fight back nor the coherence to understand them. They drag me out of my cell, then unceremoniously drag me up the steps, where each impact of my knees against the steps jolts my hip and pulls at my wounds.

No one cares.

I can scarcely get a breath past my lips. Stone steps become tiled floors of black and white, then the cool touch of night air and gravel that scrapes at my skin. They haul me up and the last thing I see before the trunk of a car slams down on me is a sea of stars above me.

Can Layla see the same stars? Is she even alive to look up at the stars?

The car engine rumbles to life and my body jolts as we move, but pain is rapidly becoming a distant thought. I'm cold and numb, losing sensation everywhere except the heat of the pendant embedded inside me.

Layla's pendant.

I've failed.

I lost her. I lost Moses. Adrian will never find my body.

Time becomes… irrelevant.

I let myself become blinded and cocky, certain I could handle Trik without considering just how fucking crazy he really is. Enjoying the normalcy that came with Layla just left us both open for attack.

Now, I'll die for it.

Regret lingers in the back of my throat like the burn of vomit, but not regret for Layla. I regret that we didn't have more time, that I didn't tell her I loved her, that I didn't trust her enough to ask her outright about the truth.

Or maybe I didn't trust myself. Didn't trust that what I had to offer her would be enough for her to overlook who I was.

My eyes close.

Coldness spreads across my back, and it's almost blissful how it numbs the rest of the injuries on my body. I welcome it. A swift death by cold is better than rotting away wherever they leave me. A pathetic end to a man so many claimed was great.

The coldness doesn't retreat; in fact it seeps from my back to my shoulders and laps at my arms⁠—

Wait, what is that?

In an instant, the darkness in my mind recedes and the cold jerks me back into my body with the harshness of a slap. At some point in my delirium, the men drove me somewhere and deposited the car into water. Water that's slowly seeping into the trunk from my right and flooding what little space I have left. It's bone-chilling and my teeth immediately start to chatter, but something about it awakens the very last sliver of energy I have left.

"No!" I won't die like this. I won't drown in the trunk of a fucking car.

Lifting both my heavy arms, I slam my hands against the trunk lid as hard as I can, sending shocks of pain skittering around my wrists and down my forearm. The lid doesn't budge and the water rises. Another slam, then another and another. Over and over I slam my hands against the lid but nothing changes. It doesn't magically pop open. I don't gain the strength to punch my way out. Cold water laps around my body and stings my wounds with an eye-watering sharpness, but the pain rapidly fades in the chill. I can't catch my breath, and the last slam of my hands is too weak because they collide with nothing.

Nothing?

The stars are back, glistening above me as water washes across my face and mouth. Voices yell, water sloshes, and then strong, warm hands clutch at my arms and drag me upward. I'm hauled up, and more hands join the first ones, catching my arms, my back, and my legs. Hard plastic seals over my mouth and a rush of oxygen suddenly sends my sluggish heart into a frenzy.

"He's alive!" someone yells. "Quick! Over here!"

I jolt in the hold of these men until I'm set down on something warm and soft, then a face appears over me. A face highlighted by the rhythmic flash of blue lights… a face I know so well.

"Pierce?" Moses presses a warm hand to my cheek. "Pierce?"

I try to speak but the plastic over my mouth catches and I can't get my numb lips to work.

"You're okay," Moses says breathlessly as swathes of blankets descend on my body. "Didn't expect to find you when we tracked that necklace, but you're alright, Pierce. We've got you."