killer instinct - || h.s. ||

84

" you're fucking crazy "

---

aurora astor.

Consciousness gradually spills into my mind, and yet again I'm wishing it never came back to me because this reality is far worse.

It pounds like a hammer splintering against my skull. I painfully groan under my breath, pinching my eyes further shut with a strained inhale.

My breathing shallows just as awareness floods my limbs, zoning into the numbness lingering within my muscles locked behind my back pinned to a familiar metal lattice of some sort.

My eyes flutter open in abrupt alarm, nearly choking on an unsteady breath as darkness surrounds every inch of me. It furls around me, seeping deep into me as it begins to haunt me like it did that night on the cold, barren floor of the warehouse — so far from home.

And that's when I realize just where I am: the Pit.

Liam's betrayal floods my mind like a flashback, reeling like a haunted tape working its way through every crevice of my mind until it wells in my throat. It locks itself into the confines of the places that's seen the best and worst of me.

"No, fuck ... no–" I weakly struggle in my own company of the ring's daunting walls caving in on me with every ram of my erratic heart into the cages of my ribs.

But the pressure subduing my mind seems to cascade its effects to the rest of my body, aching through every inch of me.

"Sunshine," a trembling voice faintly pours through my ears beside me, relief and gut-wrenching shock hitting me simultaneously.

Mia.

My heavy eyes, aching from the effects of the blow to the temple from the barrel of that gun, snap to my right to see a cascade of swirling stars. And that ball in my throat constricts just as my chest does, surrendering my stomach to hollow out at the sight of a silhouette.

In just the same position I'm in, but her knees tucked against her chest and her arms bound by the very same zip-ties holding me hostage — preserving every last bit of herself together in that spot.

Her eyelids are deeply heavy from what I could possibly make out in the dark as if she could just surrender to the walls crushing on us at any moment.

She's still wrapped up in her hospital scrubs, her springing curls wrapped in a lazy bun, and my stomach bottoms out at the thought of just how long she's been here.

"Fuck, Mia," I whimper in restraint, "we're going to get out of here, okay? We're fine."

An exasperated groan grates from between my teeth, tugging at the zip ties clawing into my skin long enough for it to settle an ache at my bound wrists.

"I was just leaving work ..." her voice trembles in utter weakness enough to splinter through my facade and shatter my hope entirely. "I was just ... we were going to walk the pier ... and watch the sun come up over the water. I don't know, talk over coffee about his latest read or ... something other than this ... again." Her voice breaks in her own daze, already long-engulfed in the spiral.

My panic crescendos by the second in cadence with her own as she begins to crumble, determined to prove the fucked-up rules wrong for once.

"Mia, it's okay, we'll–" a frustrated grunt puffs from my lips as I attempt to slip my wrists from the ties cinched around me but the task proves itself near impossible. "We're going to be alri–" my hopeless words come crashing to a halt the second the doorway to the ring slams open and the blinding lights flood my retinas from above.