My eyes cracked open when a gnawing emptiness began to spread in my chest. The hollow hole threatened to swallow everything, including the warmth just behind it.
My hand twitched against the soft yet hard surface that was warming the front of my body while the majority of my back suffered from the chill of the open air. Lifting it, I turned my body to reach for the widened hole in my chest, expecting to find an empty cavity. I suppressed a tremble and released a sigh of relief when flesh stopped my fingers from passing through, but a hiss of pain was quick to follow, making me jerk my hand back.
"Awake?"
I jumped at the rumble that accompanied the voice, sounding against my cheek and the side of my torso that was still firmly pressed against the warm surface under me. My hand dropped back down to push myself up, worsening the pain that I had only gotten a taste of earlier. I didn't make it far before the warmth banding across my back tightened to keep me in place.
"Easy, you're safe now," he continued to reassure, the rumble of his words acting as a soothing force that helped quell the feeling of being... empty.
Safe... the word had me wanting to burst out in a cynical laugh. I have never been safe. Even now, I wasn't safe, it was the bloodstone and himself that Silas was protecting. It should have been enough, but it didn't lessen the sting that the truth held. A sting that only grew as time passed.
A sting that made it difficult for me to lift my eyes past the hair covering his jaw.
His beard had grown, captivity cutting off his access to the scissors he usually used to groom it and the sink he left filled with small hairs for me to find. It felt intentional and like a bigger deal back then, but now that I had experienced real torture, his minuscule efforts to upset me felt childish. Suddenly, he no longer felt so intimidating.
"For now," I managed to correct before a sharp jab of discomfort in my throat had me dissolving into a coughing fit.
He didn't argue.
It was only a matter of time until the mark on my chest was discovered. My torment tonight ended because my body could no longer keep up with it, not because it was over. The mark on my chest was safe from being discovered this time because they were focused on drowning the answers out of me, but what if they decided to switch things up in a way that left me bare and exposed? I didn't know the extent to which they would take things to get answers I didn't have. The ones I did, they didn't want to hear- he didn't want to hear.
Speaking of bare and exposed...
My eyes dropped from Silas's jaw to find his chest bare where my hand lowered to press against it, pain beating to the beat of my heart where my palm lay flat. My eyes skimmed past the glimpse of missing skin on my wrist to widen at the sight just past it.
I tried to suppress the panic that wanted to rise with a reminder to myself of his state when I last saw him, but I wasn't able to keep it suppressed as my eyes wandered. Making their way down the length of his torso, they searched but failed to find a single inch of fabric or string. My gaze continued to skim down over the dip of his hip and carried on to the top of his thigh uninterrupted before lifting to dart up the length of my body, finding it just as bare.
I stood corrected, Silas was still every bit as intimidating as he was when I first met him while hanging from the trees- when naked.
The beginning of a shout made it past my lips as a squeak before I could clamp my lips shut to keep from drawing any unwanted attention. Just the thought of Ezekiel's focus was enough to have paranoia sending my heart racing and my eyes snapping up and around in search of a harsh face with dark slashes for brows and a head full of white locks. It had greeted me more than once after pushing me to the point of unconsciousness. But Silas had never been there.
