I didn't know how we got out of there. The basement--the cellar that I hadn't thought I'd be getting out of--the place where I'd had all of my hope slowly withering away--the darkness that had confined me for hours and days and maybe even weeks.

I still didn't know how long I'd been trapped there.

It had felt like a lifetime. It had felt like punishment for things that hadn't been my fault. For things I never did.

It was cruel, but maybe a sickening relief on its own, when I felt my mind slowly shutting down and shutting out all that was around me--the voices, the footsteps, the blinding light of the afternoon sun, the loud car tires on gravel--all of it except for the sole surety beneath the grip of my fingertips. The way I clung to Ryder was a monstrous need within me, a scream stuck inside of me, a need so horrifyingly hollow that it scared me.

I knew I should let go in the deepest corners of my mind--the part of my mind that wasn't overwhelmed by all of it. I knew I should. But there wasn't a possibility right now, I think, where I could.

Not even when there was a car door being pulled open and there was Ryder right there with me, leaning low to place me inside, but I couldn't let go. I physically couldn't. My hands clutched the back of his neck, a lump of incredible fear forming in my gut when even the possibility of mere inches between us crossed my mind.

"I'm right here." He told me, whispered into my ear again and again, his hands finding me again, insistent and gentle and the only thing keeping all of my jagged and weak parts together. He held me close. "I'm right here, querida."

There were tears clogging my throat, but I had my eyes squeezed shut so tightly, afraid of the light even though I knew I was beyond relieved to be out of that place. I just couldn't compartmentalize it all in my head. I just didn't want to right then. The noise--all of it--was too much.

"Breathe." Ryder's lips traced against the shell of my ear, muffling the noise that had me crumbling, making something out of this horrible mess feel right again.

I inhaled shakily and pressed my face against him. I was safe. Maybe I was safe?

Time went on for everybody else and for me, but I didn't notice. I was out of that place where Santiago had kept me, and now the seconds passed into hours and I wasn't even aware.

Not until I made out a few words from a conversation that wasn't being directed at me.

"No puedes estar haciendo esto!" I made out the voice that I think was Rafael from the front seat. He wasn't being loud, but the urgency in his voice was...alarming. "Tenías un acuerdo con Dacio."

Ryder stiffened beneath my touch. Or, I think, it was me who tensed as slow trickling awareness crawled back into me. My fingers ached with the tight grip I had on him. And my mind--

Dacio. I knew that name.

Ryder seemed to pull me closer, fingers carding through my hair, curling almost unconsciously over my ear, almost as if he didn't want me to listen. As if he didn't want me to worry?

"Not right now." He murmured to someone, not me--to Rafael. "I'll deal with it later."

There was a beat of tense silence. "How much later, Ryder?" Rafael sounded upset--worried--devastated.

Dacio, my mind kept replaying the name in a loop. Again and again and again. Until there was a phantom touch over me that wasn't Ryder's--that felt like it was Santiago's, I was sure--until I could hear his voice in my ears and in my head.

"We're okay." Ryder pressed the words against my hair--safe, warm, reassuring.

Were we?

•••••

Loud. Loud--everything was too loud. Deafening gunshots and my ears were bleeding. There was too much blood--copper and rust and scars on my hands. Was it my blood? Another gunshot rang too close to my ears. Chains tightening around my wrists--my neck--my throat. I couldn't breathe. I couldn't--

"Alice." There were hands suddenly grabbing my own, my wrists, and not chains. Fingers wrapping around the bruised skin where chains had been. A hold that wasn't familiar. Was I still chained? "Alice, hey. Stop."

I had my eyes open too fast, too sudden, and the onslaught of light and fresh air that didn't smell like cement--the unfamiliarity of it all had me stop breathing entirely.

"Hey, hey. Querida. It's okay. You're okay." Ryder's face entered my vision, hands holding my own, face marred with a deep frown. "Take a breath for me. Come on."

It was shaky and short, the first few inhales and exhales that I tried. But then he helped me sit up and when I slowly made out the bed I was on--the room I was in--it felt easier to continue breathing then.

I dragged my gaze away from Ryder's face, towards my hands and the bandages on my wrists. Suddenly, the white guaze felt like a burn on my wounds. I couldn't--I needed them off--I didn't--

"Did you..." I tried to speak but my voice felt torn. My hair fell over my eyes until Ryder let go of one of my hands to push a lock so gently--cautiously--behind my ear.

"What is it?" He asked me.

I looked up, at him and in his eyes. "Did you do these...bandages?"

He glanced down. "The nurse did. I watched the whole time."

I lightly traced the white guaze over the wrist that Ryder still held.

"How do you feel now?" He asked me and I could see it in his eyes then, the restraint--the tightness in his voice. The holding back.

I opened my mouth to tell him I was okay, but the remnants of the nightmare--the memory still clung onto me.

"The nurse... When was I at the hospital?" I didn't remember a hospital. I didn't remember any nurse. A wave of nausea suddenly seemed to claw up my insides.

"You weren't." He gently traced my knuckles with his thumb. "I called for a doctor right here. I know you don't like hospitals."

I don't, I wanted to agree, bring some semblance of normality between us. I looked up instead, at the room that was familiar because it was Ryder's. I'd been here before.

"Querida."

My throat squeezed in warning. "What..." I spoke. "What happened to him?"

That had him finally looking away from me, down at our hands, jaw ticking angrily as he let silence fill in around us. He didn't reply. I could see him seconds away from snapping.

"What happened to Santiago?" I asked in a small whisper.

One second. Two. He didn't look at me when he said, "he's dead."

Of course, he was dead. He'd known it himself with this sick clarity that he'd be dead soon. That wasn't what he'd been afraid of. Letting me go without my end was what he'd been afraid of.

"How did you find me?"

This time, he didn't answer me. I saw him evading the question. Saw him deciding in that instant that since he wouldn't lie to me, he shouldn't answer.

I felt him let go of my hand.

"Do you think you can manage to eat something?" He asked me.

I stared at him, at the unanswered question that had left my lips, at the tense air around us. He'd deliberately not answered.

Dacio, Rafael had said. I knew now who that was. Ryder's dad.

It was horrifying and slow, the realization crippling me in that moment. The remembering of all that Santiago had told me about Ryder's father. The words that Rafael had spoken in the...in the car ride here.

He was here. Was he?

I opened my mouth to ask him, felt the dread of it all clouding my insides, but nothing left my lips. I couldn't physically touch that topic right now. It was horrifying how I didn't even have control over my mind anymore.

"Querida?" He asked me, still so gentle.

I squeezed my eyes close and shook my head. All of me ached in that moment. "I'm not hungry."

The distance between us--the sudden rift that maybe I'd created between us with my questions--disappeared, just like that. Ryder was there, right there, hand carding into my hair and holding the side of my face.

"Tell me what's wrong?" It broke me, hurt me from the inside that he was asking it from me. He wanted me to tell him all that hurt inside of me, but I was too afraid. Too scared. "Where do you hurt, querida?"

Everywhere, I wanted to say, but couldn't when I saw the pain and anguish--regret mirroring in the blue of his eyes. He blamed himself. He shouldn't be blaming himself.

You said you'd keep me safe. You promised, was what I'd cried out over the phone call. Of course, it had been me throwing all the blame at him. Why wouldn't there be regret swimming in his eyes right now?

I stared up at him, at the flicker of his eyes as they roamed around my face, searching for pain--for the amount of hurt I wasn't ready to speak about. I wanted to reach out and touch him, slide my fingertips around his neck--the side of his face, but I was afraid the miserable running thoughts in my mind would hurt him too.

"You won't leave me, will you?" I asked him in a whisper. Giving a louder voice to it would break me, wouldn't it?

He stared at me. He stared at me too long. "No."

It hurt to speak, to think of all the worst things that could still happen.

"Promise me, please."

A flicker of something in his eyes that was maybe heartbreak. He leaned close and tightened his hold on my face, placed a kiss on the corner of my eye where a tear had escaped without me knowing.

"I promise."

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good news or bad, but there're only a few chapters leftttttt!! Xx