The Touch of Salvation

20: Daylight

TW: Mentions of rape

GOLIATH

We both perk up as they return. He nears her, a hand gripping her hair. "You're pretty."

"I want to be very clear," I say as dark as obsidian. "you are going to die regardless, but if you rape her, I will rip your intestines out and feed them to you."

I can hear his heartbeat pick up. He believes me. Good, he should. Because I was going to kill him; it was just a question as to how and when. I've been thinking about it since being here. I've been fantasizing about it.

"Can I offer a piece of advice," Lux says. His hand grips her hair and she grins at him. "Don't fuck with House Dae."

His laugh echoes through the cell.

"Bring the light out," she says softly, almost like she's singing it. "Bring the light out. Bring the light out." Again and again, she whispers that sentence until finally, seconds later, the entire cell rattles from external force. Her voice grows louder, tauter, more ferocious.

The man steps away from her, quaking almost as much as the cell. Droplets of water plummet to the floor. Dust and cement rattle from the walls. And then, the world falls. Literally - the walls collapse and in the midst of the havoc of dust and brick, Adalind stands.

She's the brightest thing I have ever seen in my life.

And she's pissed.

Her hair is up which is an unusual sight. Almost as unusual as the pants she wears; she's in moradarthian leathers, I realize. A cloud of yellow white circles her palms. She'd torn down the entire building with little effort it appears.

"Do you want to know the crazy thing about reality," she asks. Her voice is still as delicate as a butterfly. "None of it is real."

And then he's cowering before her, pleading her to stop - to make it stop - to get out of his head, to let him go, that he didn't mean it, that he'll do better. He's screaming and crying and wetting himself as Adalind stands perfectly regal before him, her expression unwavering.

I realize that whatever he sees, whatever he feels, is in his head... yet it feels so real to him that he forces his head against the ground over and over again until he bleeds until his skull is breaking into fragments until he's dead before a woman that never even touched him.

"We need to get out." Daario flys over the rubble. "Now." Lucian appears next to Daario, already going to Lux. Daario comes to me.

"It's an entire ring of trafficking," I say.

"I know," Daario says.

"No, we can't leave. We need to end it- end them."

Daarios's hands find my shoulders as she frees me from the cuffs that bound me for weeks. "We have, Goliath. We have."

A palm strokes my cheek and my eyes fall on the woman before me. Her eyes hold such emotion I can hardly fathom anyone ever feeling so strongly for me. She's so gentle with me but her eyes hold my attention. Her hands gently fall onto my shoulders.

She doesn't realize how fucking close I am to dropping to my knees and worshipping the ground she walks on.

Her brows furrow. "You're cognizant," she says as if she can hardly believe it.

"I've been through worse."

I try not to see the way she winces. She reaches for my hand to tug me away from the rubble when Lucian stops her.