|| Inevitable ||

XVIII

Clea's first mistake was calling me by my name. Her second one was thinking it could ever be a good idea to turn her back on me.

In that moment, when my hands wrapped around Clea's neck, I felt alive again. There was an unmistakeable buzz in my ears as I crept up on her, knowing that she was completely helpless to my incoming attack. She was at my mercy.

I wouldn't hurt her. I just needed to use her to escape.

She struggled a bit when she eventually came to. Help. Help. Help. She screamed out in breathy cries. It was no use though, not with my hands wrapped around her throat and the loss of a loved one still burning in me. Now was the time to escape, more so than ever.

Sweat slid down my back and between my eyes. The salt pooled at the corners of my lips, creeping into my mouth as I heaved Clea up the stairwell. Each step groaned beneath our collective weight and I prayed to anyone that would listen that no one heard us.

It would have been a far better idea to wait for her to wake. But hardly a reasonable one when all my mind howled for was survival.

When she did wake, it was with a startling cry. 

I shove my hand over her mouth and retrieve the tile piece from my pocket, holding it up to her slender throat. She goes still. "Do you want to die?" I whisper at her ear. Clea shakes her head furiously; mumbling pleas into the harsh lines of my palm. "Then keep quiet and we can both get out of this alive." 

That time we were in the dining room I remember her calling out to me. I remembered it so clearly and yet nothing clicked. I was always moving too fast, thinking too fast to care about the little things - like a perfect stranger knowing my name.

She's working with that monster, obviously.

I didn't mention my name to the women at that table. All I could think about was trying to get us free and figuring out his next move. Clea grows quiet in my arms. She stands in front of me, her back to my chest, as we around each corner - a human shield for my protection. "You work for him," I speak as softly as I can.

She nods.

"This whole time?" Another nod. "And that back there, was that some kind of ploy? A game?"

She creases her delicate brows, and then shakes her head. Interesting.

I ask the next question that comes to mind: "Are you a prisoner, too?" The woman casts her gaze away from me and towards the floor. She wants me to think: yes. To look into those crestfallen, honey eyes and see innocence. Clea had helped me at that dining table, been a sort of calmness amongst all the hysteria. She was a good actress.

And maybe that look would have worked on someone else, but not on me.

The sharpened edge of the tile presses into her neck, cutting enough to draw blood. "Bullshit. How long has it been since the labyrinth?" I ask, my eyes burning and watering at every light we pass. I breathe a little easier as each step we take moves us further away from the old stairwell leading to my cell.

"A month, maybe." My eyebrows scrunch together. That can't be right. I squeeze her arm, pressing for something better than that. A muscle flexes in her jaw. "He doesn't tell anyone about you, so don't expect me to know the intimate details of your imprisonment here. We don't know where he keeps you, what he does to you - nothing." My knuckles go white. "I only knew where you were because..."

"Because of what?"

"Because I was given that information. Exactly as I said."

I exhale my frustration. "Who told you about Neve?"