A Web of Steam & Puppet Strings (Sevastyan #1)

Chapter Twenty-Four

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

I gasped awake.

The sleep snapped from my body when I found my cheek against the hard concrete, body crushed by a weight on top of me. By another body. My chest heaved for air, as if I had been struggling for hours, my muscles burning and my leg seething, sweat coating my face.

The confusion cracked with panic. An infantry of boots marched past my face, but when I twisted as much as I could, I found my blindfolded inmates weren't leaving the Chambers. They were returning. The maimed Doors stood open, allowing everyone back into their rooms.

"Sev?" Aris. He was the one who had pinned me. "Are you normal again? Can I let you go-do you hear that?"

Screaming.

A girl shrieked and shouted at the top of her lungs, somewhere at the back of the line. Standing at the lever was Rurik, dressed in his golden armor, looking away with a grimace on his usual stoic face. He wouldn't even meet my eyes.

Aris climbed off of me. I swore he had kicked me in the ribs a few times, or at least headbutted the wind from my lungs, but as I shifted to regain some composure, I stole a glance of his face. And did a double-take.

Fear.

His bright eyes were round with horror, and he pushed off the ball of his foot as the Doors grinded shut. I grunted and squirmed and used the wall to drag myself up, until I could balance on one foot. The height gave me the vantage point I needed. Aris hadn't made a run for the Doors, but for the two men-one of which was Maksim-who dragged a thrashing and shouting girl whose flesh was the color of the whitest sand. The remnants of an elegant evening gown, now torn and destroyed and splattered with blood, clung to her slender body. Her chest, face, hair and arms were bloodied as well.

It was Anastasya.

He grabbed the hysterical girl by the arms as the final two men turned into their own rooms. The Doors sealed and darkness collapsed on us. Aris conjured up the Spirit from his veins, flooding the corridor with a gentle light. "Ana-Ana, it's alright, you're all right. Are you injured? Does anything hurt?"

They knew each other.

Her saucer eyes regarded him, recognized him, but the terror never left her face. She peered down at her hands, and the breath she sucked into her lungs stirred the stale air of the entire corridor. "B-Bath....Wash, I need to w-wash...get this off. It has to come off."

"Fine. I've got you now. This way."

He escorted her down the hall. I couldn't keep up with my hand against the wall as I limped along, and I wasn't sure how she could keep up either in the mousetrap of her shredded dress. Neither of the two tossed me even a glimpse as Aris guided her to the left, towards the men's shower room. It took days and months and years before I finally pushed open the door after them, into the room where a sheet of icy water soaked her through.

Her eyes remained wide and wild, seeing things I didn't want to imagine. She breathed so hard and so deep that her ribs pushed against the unyielding boning of her dress. The light of her own Spiritual power graced her flesh like sweat, dribbling down to her fingertips in rivulets.

A sob broke her lips and she gritted her teeth. Her shaking hands tore at the bodice of the gown. When her fingers refused to work, she froze the water at her feet into knives that scissored the air and sliced at the silk and knotting of her corset, tearing and ripping herself free, as if breaking out of a shell. She splattered the glowing yoke of her Spirit in all directions, where it faded like gobs of mist. Beside me, Aris glanced at me, the panic still clear in his face, before he made for her.