The Cage (Book 2)

Stay With Me

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Stay With Me

I cried out as the pain lanced up my side where the snake had bit me. It was like I'd been stabbed with a hot spear that had pierced through and twisted around my guts. As a result, my insides felt as if they'd been set on fire. Tears pricked the corners of my eyes, and I couldn't hold them at bay.

Having accomplished its mission, the stupid snake slithered away to the beach, seemingly headed for the for the ocean.

"Shit." Schneider was upon him in an instant, cradling his face. "Where did it bite you?" he demanded, his thumbs wiping away the tears from my cheeks. Was I seeing things or did Schneider look particularly ashen-faced?

I opened my mouth to tell him the pain was emanating from my side and a strangled gasp came out instead. So this was what they called blinding pain. It was certainly crippling, and it was even making it hard to speak.

Not waiting for me to provide him with an answer, Schneider squinted his eyes in the darkness, trying to locate the bite on my body. He immediately found it, leaning in to inspect it closely.

"I'm not sure if that snake is venomous. But judging by your condition... Fuck. I need to get you to the prison pharmacy now."

That was all the warning Schneider gave me before he scooped me up in his arms, bridal style. He carried me in a way so that my injured side wasn't the one pressed against Schneider's chest.

The journey back to the prison he'd escaped was a blur.

It was rough, Schneider being made to traverse uneven terrain while carrying me. Halfway there, my vision started swimming and my brain started feeling as if it were on fire, making me suspect I'd been bitten on the head rather than on the side. Not long after, black spots started appearing in my vision.

I stared up at Schneider's face, noting the hard lines and the desperate yet determined look in his eyes. They were the brightest I'd ever seen them now, even brighter than a few moments ago when he'd found me in the tree. It had to be emotion that changed them.

Was the bite making me hallucinate or did Schneider look worried for me? Surely not... But he did look incredibly worried, terrified even.

"Julian, it's going to be alright." Schneider's reassuring voice that was tinged with a note of panic sounded like it was coming from a very far away place, its faint echoes reaching me moments after I saw his mouth open.

For Schneider to sound panicked, I had to be fucked...

I wanted to reach up a hand and touch his moving lips so that I could feel them against my finger pads, but the pain had all but paralyzed me.

Soon, I couldn't even keep my head from lolling to the side. Schneider's face disappeared from my vision as my head dropped to the side.

"Julian, can you hear me?"

Even with my spotty, blurred vision, I spotted the island's only structure. We were approaching it from the side, it seemed. From this angle, the building looked truly colossal.

"Don't lose consciousness, you hear me? Stay with me. Julian, stay with me!" Now he sounded truly desperate. And even farther away. The black spots expanded and filled most of my vision until it turned completely black.

I wanted to tell him that I couldn't even if I wanted to, but my mouth stayed shut.

****

Cade stepped into my cell carrying my food tray with the doctor-prescribed food.

"More hospital food?" I grumbled, slowly sitting up in my bunk bed. A dull pain throbbed in my side where the snake had taken a bite, but other than that I was beginning to regain my strength. It had already been a week, so it was about damn time. "I'm starting to miss the five star meals."

"This is five star hospital food." Cade said with a slight grin, amused by my aversion to the bland meals I was being fed while I recovered.

"There's no such thing."

He placed the tray on my lap and unveiled today's breakfast.

Sure enough, my breakfast for the sixth time in a week was porridge, a bland assortment of fruits, plain yogurt and orange juice.

"Bon appetit."

I looked up as Cade was turning around to leave and said, "He still won't come see me?"

Cade sighed, then turned to look at me. This was always an uncomfortable topic of conversation for him, and I got the feeling he was meaning to flee my cell before I could ask this question. It was something I asked every day since I was bitten and rushed to receive urgent aid in the prison pharmacy. By the time Schneider carried me through the pharmacy's door, I was unconscious. When I woke up a few hours later, my bite wound had been treated and Schneider was nowhere to be seen.

Upon seeing the answer in Cade's face, I huffed, feeling both helpless and exasperated. "He can't keep avoiding me forever." Well, he could, actually. In my bed-ridden state, there wasn't much I could do. And even if I could, I wouldn't know where to find him. "How am I supposed to thank him for saving me if he keeps avoiding me?" For saving me yet again, this time from my own folly.

"You gotta understand you put him in a difficult position by escaping."

"I know, I know-"

"No, you don't know."

At Cade's tone of voice, I promptly shut up. There was something he wasn't telling me; I could see it in his face, in his sour gaze.

"Schneider's leadership is being questioned. They're saying if he can't control his bitch and keep her from escaping, he can't control this prison."

"What?!" 

*~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~*

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