Shadowed

XXI. Escaping Hell

"Rowan?"

The voice is soft, tentative, but it manages to break through the tangled, erratic fog that has become my thoughts.

I sit up, blinking several times to focus my eyes. 

Fuck. How long have I been out for? 

I've been collapsed on the slab, and the side of my face is sore from being pressed into the rough stone. I peel my right hand back from where it had been tightly clutched to my ear, a desperate attempt to block out the screams, to keep myself present and conscious.

Obviously it didn't work. I let out a heavy sigh and drag myself to standing, shuddering as another scream rips through the air.

I dig my nails into my wrist, leaving moon-shaped, angry marks behind. I won't let that happen again. I won't lose myself.

"Who is it?" I call shakily.

"Drew," comes the voice from behind the door. Relief floods through me. There's no one I want to see more right now.

My fingertips find the cracks in the wall easily the second time, and I shove open the heavy door, throwing my full weight into it. It slides open sluggishly, scraping the floor with a terrible grating noise.

Drew's behind it, his eyes half-closed, exhausted, and a small smile breaks across his face when he sees me.

But it's not the golden smile, the familiar one. It's only an echo of it, and seeing that makes something seize painfully inside my heart. 

We really need to get out.

Drew leaves the door half-open and edges through the small sliver left between the door and the wall. 

"I brought you something," he says, his voice raspy. He holds out a paper plate, piled with a lump of grey, stringlike meat and a heap of small, malformed carrots. He remembered.

"Oh my god, thank you," I gasp. I've managed to ignore the pain in my stomach, pushing it towards the back of my mind, but it still lingers. 

Now, though, seeing the food, it shoves itself forward, sharp and excruciating as ever, demanding my attention.

I wolf down the food with an almost alarming speed. It tastes like nothing. As empty as air. But it does the job to ease my hunger, for now, at least.

Drew sits on the slab next to me, picking at his fingernails anxiously. As I toy with the flimsy edges of the plate, my eyes gravitate towards the scars that cover his hands—angry pink marks that crisscross the skin in a rough, chaotic pattern.

It's a violent tapestry, and though they're healed, they retain a sharp, pointed shape that makes me conclude that they're knife wounds. 

But from what? The same weapon that took his fingers? Something different?

I know almost nothing about Drew, I realize. I know he's fiercely loyal to Abby. They have the look of those who've followed each other through hell and back and over again. He'd die for her, and she for him.

I know he's both quiet and intense. I know he has beautiful blue-green eyes and a smile that makes me hold my breath for half a moment when I see it. 

But I don't know him. His past? His motivations, beyond protecting his sister? I can only guess.

"You're staring," says Drew gently.

My eyesight falls back into focus. I'd been fixed on his mangled hands.

I snap my gaze up quickly, a blush creeping up my neck and onto my cheeks. "I'm sorry."