Skylar's POV

I couldn't possibly comprehend how in the absolute fuck did I fall asleep being chained inside that dark cellar. Or at least for the first few minutes right after I was abruptly woken up, I couldn't understand how.

How could I close my eyes even for a second in here?

I was soon broken out of my thoughts when I heard, more than saw, the metal bars creaking as they were opened. And there was someone--a dark figure looming just a few feet away from me.

Someone was here to save me, was the first thought I had, followed by this sudden rush of hope and relief--which was extinguished just as quickly when I heard a grunt and saw the person, the man, heading towards the other corner of the cellar where Rena was.

"What...What are you doing?" I found my voice, raising it in panic as I saw another man standing outside on the other side of the bars, watching, while the first one started to drag Rena out.

And oh god, she was unconscious. Why was she unconscious? And why was her head lolling to her side like that?

"What did you do to her?" I yelled, lurching forward only to be pulled back harshly by the cloth around my neck.

My sudden outburst also earned me a swift kick in the shin as the burly man dragged Rena out.

"Where..." I tried not to hyperventilate, which wasn't really working as my wide eyes darted from one spot to another. "Where are you taking her?"

"Orders to take her out." The man who was standing outside grumbled. I couldn't see his face in the dark, and I probably wouldn't have had anyway even if there had been any light in here. Not when I had a feeling he had a mask on. How did these men know where to go without any source of light?

And then I was pulled back to the man's words. Take her out? I thought as sickening horror filled me up. Kill her?

"No." I shook my head frantically, fingers tugging at the cloth around my neck, feeling it scraping sharply around the skin there until it tore--fell--and wasn't around my throat any longer. I lurched forward once again and tried to stop the man who was carrying Rena like a lifeless object. "No, you're not taking her anywhere! Let her--"

The man hissed and practically threw Rena outside the cell before rounding up on me. "Oh, you've been testing my patience from the very start, you bitch." He growled out, shoving me off with a force so rough that everything seemed to swim around me, even amidst the pitch darkness, when my head banged against the uneven dirty ground.

"I'll take care of her and make sure she doesn't speak any more than she's told to." He was saying. Not to me, a tiny part of my brain registered, but to the other man who stood outside. They were Felix's men, weren't they? "You take that one out to the boss."

They were taking Rena away to Felix, and I was terrified. Trying to sit up on shaky limbs, I didn't get to go any farther when the man came on me once again, grabbing the back of my head by my hair as a sound left my lips--a painful mix between a loud wince and a whimper. The sickening terror was nothing like I'd ever experienced when he shoved me down, and maybe I would've screamed if my face hadn't been pushed right into the ground, his other hand twisting my arm behind my back. I couldn't help but cry out in pain.

I vaguely remembered thinking I'd hit my nose because it smelled like blood. It smelled like blood and dirt and something stale. My head and my heart pounded as I struggled, screams muffled into the hard ground, and I couldn't move. "N-No, get off me! Get off...please!"

"Not so easily." He grunted when I somehow managed to dig my elbow somewhere near his face, which only hurt more since he twisted my arm, even more, keeping it in place by his knee. I screamed into the floor and felt hot, desperate tears trickling past my chin and down my nose. And god, it hurt. Everywhere he was touching me hurt and I couldn't move at all. "Remember the time you fucking stabbed me in the arm? Wanna know what that feels like? Wanna know what pain really is, girl? By the time I'm done with you," he hissed into my ear and I whimpered when he lifted my head just a little by gripping my hair. More tears blurred my vision when I saw what he was showing me. A small, silver blade before my eyes. I scrunched my eyes close and started to struggle even more, desperate pleas slipping past my lips as I tried to get out of his hold. I didn't know how I would manage that but I knew I had to. Get out. Get out. Get out.

"By the time I'm done with you." His knee pressed even more onto the flesh of my forearm. "You'll be so so sorry."

My other arm was trapped beneath me. I couldn't move it even if I tried. I couldn't move. And when I felt the sharp blade digging into my arm through the sleeve of my sweater, bright spots started dancing behind my closed eyelids. I could throw up, yes. I felt sick with horror and dread and the constant, tiring adrenaline.

"N-No, no...please." I cried out, digging my forehead into the ground below, voice cracking with agony.

And then the pain came, the pain that was hot and blinding and the kind that was meant to break you. Everything just blurred. I was screaming, I think--begging him with incoherent pleas to stop, but the knife kept pressing deeper and deeper and the metal was burning. My arm was burning. It kept growing more and more until I could taste the blood.

He eventually let go, shoving me aside as he got up. And I think he spat some more crude words at me as he left the cellar, slamming the iron bars behind him.

I could hear him walking away. I could hear my heart pounding as well, slow and fast and hurting. A dry, strangled sob left my lips as I tried turning onto my side. My tear-filled eyes flickered to the ground near my head and I saw a red light flickering. A tiny dot of a red light.

I blinked and I blinked again as more fresh tears lined up the previous ones. Inhaling shakily and hiccupping, I scrunched my eyes close and felt the wetness trickling down my lashes.

I'd seen that light before. But at that moment, I couldn't care any less.

•••••

Sky.

I groaned and tried opening my eyes. Could I open my eyes if I tried? I wondered. I could, probably. But for one tiny moment, I didn't want to. Because god, this was peaceful. The dark was peaceful for once--when I had no clue where I was or why I was here or what I was meant to be doing.

Everything was just fine.

"Skylar."

I jerked open my eyes, gasping when a searing thrill of pain ran down my left arm. My knees wobbled and I almost fell when I registered that I was standing.

I would've. Fallen down, I mean. But I didn't when I realized that I was standing and leaning against something just fine. Not really leaning, but tied to a hard, concrete structure behind me. A pillar, I noticed sluggishly, behind me. And there was this thick, gnarly rope tied around my waist and the start of my elbows, holding them back against the same pillar behind me.

"Sky." The voice was so full of anguished worry, and I could hear it somewhere beside me. So so close. And so familiar, that for a second I thought I must've been dreaming. "Sky, baby, look at me."

I did look up at him, and then I was moving towards him--or I think I was if those ropes had let me. A relieved, broken gasp left my lips when I saw him. Caden. My Caden.

I must be dreaming.

"Caden." I blinked, and then I blinked again. His eyes were wide, looking so wrecked. Wide and green and so scared as they raked down my face, to my arm or my waist--I couldn't quite tell. "Caden. Caden, I--"

"Don't move." He cut me off, eyes raising to meet mine, brows pinched. "Fuck, don't move. Your arm's bleeding and you'll make it worse."

He was right, I realized as I looked down at the ropes once again. They were mostly digging into my ribs, but also into the flesh of my arm--right where my sleeve was torn and the bloody gash was visible. It was a bit strange that I couldn't feel it. The pain, I mean. I remembered it being intense, agonizing, but not as numb as it felt right now.

It was also a bit strange that it wasn't so dark in here as it had been in that cell.

I whipped my head up and looked back at Caden, a little more alert now. I let my gaze dart around his face, at the large, visible bruise on his cheek and his mussed, dirtied hair. Apart from that, I breathed out, feeling something awful untwisting itself in my stomach, he looked fine. He wasn't hurt.

But, I came to notice a bit belatedly, he was tied to a similar pillar like the one behind me as well. I reached out towards him on instinct, again, and nearly doubled over at the pain that danced across my shoulder. 

"Skylar." Caden gritted out. "Stay still, will you? Please. For me. I promise I'll get you out of here."

He couldn't get me out of here. Not when his hands were tied. Not when, I swallowed in horror, two more figures were tied to a separate pillar each just a few feet ahead of us.

We weren't alone. There were two more people here. And one of them was Blake.

"This is stupid," Blake said and after squinting a little, I saw that he was tied as well and looking rather annoyed. Unlike Caden--who was trying to tear apart the rope--he looked pretty done with his life. "I don't understand what you fuckwits have with tying me up to obscenely old objects."

He looked a little roughed up, but nothing past that. I couldn't really make any injuries on him with the distance between us. And Alexis, who was tied to the fourth pillar beside him, was unconscious.

"Is she dead?" I didn't realize I had spoken until the words left my mouth, echoing in the silence.

Blake looked over at me, scowled, and his gaze darted to my arm. "Not like you will be in a handful of minutes."

Well, at least his sense of bluntness hadn't retired. I don't understand why that alone made some of the tension disappear from my shoulders. If Blake was still in the mood for being sarcastic, maybe this...all of this will be fine in the end. Or, a voice whispered in my head, maybe you're just hoping for a foolish thing.

Caden made a rather growl-like, animalistic noise at that, throwing Blake a menacing glare before going back at the ropes tied around his wrists.

I looked away from them both and around us once again, swallowing past the dryness in my throat, and noticed that it was more like a cave--the place we were in. There was a single wooden crate near the rocky wall on the other side of Caden and Alexis. And the air in here felt colder. Murkier.

I ran my tongue over my chapped lips and looked over at another pillar on the other side of me. This one was empty and not occupied. Alex, I thought and my heart raced feverishly. He wasn't here.

"Felix, you fucking bastard!" Blake shouted. "Why not crawl out of your hiding hole and face us yourself, you coward!"

I winced and Caden's gaze shot to mine, wide and worried.

Felix didn't show up. One of his men did though, appearing out of the darkness on the other end, carrying a limp, unconscious girl in his arms.

It took me a while to recognize her, especially since the last time I'd seen her was in the pitch dark. She looked thinner, much more fragile than the girl who'd hugged her knees like her life had depended on it.

"Rena." I croaked out as the man pushed her towards the pillar on my other side, picking up a new set of ropes and tying her with it.

"Rena?" That was Blake. He sounded taken aback, stunned. I glanced over at him, trying to move as little as possible, and saw that he was leaning a little forward, gaze stuck on the girl beside me. "Fuck." A whisper left his lips.

Caden didn't seem as surprised as Blake, I noticed, which either meant he'd already found out about Rena, or that the anger clouding his brain wasn't letting him think of anything else other than just getting those ropes off.

I eyed his hand behind the pillar and the way he so discreetly was busy trying to untie the knot.

When the man who'd brought in Rena left, Felix followed in soon after.

"Oh, you fucking piece of shit, I'm going to make sure you feel sorry for yourself once I'm finished with you." Blake spat out.

Felix turned around, hands stuffed in his long dark coat as he spared Blake a short glance before walking towards the crate and perching on the side of it. "Funny you say that when you're the one tied up, Blake."

"You," Caden gritted out, "weren't supposed to touch Skylar."

My heart picked up its pace and I pressed my back into the rough, concrete pillar, having this sudden strong urge to just close my eyes. I didn't want Felix to step near me. I didn't want any of his men to step near me. It'll all go away if I close my eyes, wouldn't it? Everything would vanish.

Felix smiled, a flash of white teeth when he looked over at Caden. "I didn't. One of my men did. She's got that feisty streak in her, and it's easier to get mad angry when she doesn't know how to shut up."

I winced again and refused to look over at Caden for reasons that I didn't even want to ponder over. I shifted and the ropes only seemed to dig a little more into me.

"What did you do to her?" Blake asked, staring at Rena. It could've just been the pain clouding my vision that made me think there was some sort of...regret in his eyes. "Why isn't she waking up?"

"She will." Was all Felix said before leaning forward and taking out a black, glinting object from his pocket. I tried swallowing down the sudden queasy feeling when I realized it was a gun. A lock of his perfectly gelled hair fell over his forehead and he pushed it back, dragging a hand through his hair. "Coming back to this tiny little predicament we are in, I'm feeling considerate enough to give you all a choice."

Rena shifted a little beside me and a tiny, almost inaudible groan left her lips. Something wasn't right. My mind yelled at me to look around. Look.

"I'll let every single one of you go if you--" He raised a dark brow at Blake before jerking his chin towards Caden. "--kill him for me."

And then it hit me fast. A fast, surge of a cold wave. Maybe he will let us all go, I thought, but Alex wasn't here.

"No." I blurted out way before Blake could've said anything. "No, where's...where's Alex?" He wasn't here. He wasn't here with us.

Felix waved a dismissive hand in the air. "Dead. Rotting. Had a filthy mouth, that one."

Everything went still for a moment there. "No." I shake my head, stunned, and jerk forward, not particularly caring about the tiny black dots appearing in my vision. "No, he didn't do anything! He wasn't...he wasn't..."

"Not a trustworthy friend though, was he?" Felix leaned back, nonchalant. "There was this...lack of trust between you two. An act of betrayal? He didn't say much, but I guessed if he was so adamant about helping you find me, he must've had something to prove."

My throat squeezed in agony. Hot tears were pricking my eyes and I couldn't think. Alex had nothing to prove to me, I wanted to yell. But would that be right? What did I even know? Had the need to go after that stupid lead really risen by the fact that Alex thought he had something to prove to me?

Had I really just pulled him into all this mess without even realizing it?

"Felix." Caden snapped, pulling his attention towards him and away from me. "This was about me. Let them all go."

Felix smiled again and gripped the gun by the mouth, contemplating. "That won't be much fun," He spoke, at last, giving a brief shake of his head. "No, I need to watch you die. I will watch as one of these, these fools shoot you to death. Someone who loves you. I want to watch the pain in your eyes before your useless little life gets ripped out of you."

I tried tugging on the ropes around me, a tiny pained noise leaving my lips. No, no, no.

"And you think I give enough fucks about him? You think I love him?" Blake asked incredulously. "I'd kill him any given day, you dumbfuck."

Felix sighed. "Yes, I suppose. The entire family was fucked." Then his gaze turned to me. "You'll do it then. I've seen that you love him more than any other person in this room."

Rena finally managed to gain consciousness as she jostled forward until I felt her stiffen, wide rounded eyes flickering from one person to another until they met me. "Felix." Her voice came out hoarse and scared, but not small enough since everyone stopped and stared at her. Except for Alexis, because she was still unconscious. "Felix...what are you doing?"

Blake was staring at her in an oddly bewildered and concerned way. It was strange and absurd to watch him look so cautious. Gentle even, maybe. I'd have expressed my surprise but the room was suddenly spinning.

"I'll tell you what I'm doing, my precious Rena." Felix stood up and walked towards her. Blake inhaled sharply. "I'll stay here, beside you, while we watch Skylar right there pulling the trigger of this gun on Caden right over...there."

Absurd words, I thought and my head tipped backwards. I blinked groggily and tried not to let my eyes close shut. A sharp sting on my cheek made me jerk forward in surprise, only to realize that Felix was in front of me now and he had...yes, just smacked me across the face.

"Don't touch her, you bloody bastard!" Caden yelled.

Rena was crying. Everything seemed absurd and was happening way too fast. And Alex...Alex wasn't here. Was he really gone?

No. No, I knew he wouldn't just leave me. Felix must be lying. Because Alex wouldn't just...he wouldn't just leave me. He was an annoying fuck at times but he wouldn't leave me without seeing me. Or at least...at least a goodbye. Alex cared about me, didn't he?

"I'm not...killing...anyone for you." I breathed out a shaky laugh. "You're stupid if...if you..."

That resulted in him grabbing my throat, a grip so abrupt that I only just saw black for a moment there. Caden was shouting. Felix was saying something to me that I couldn't quite hear.

"...you will shoot him. Or I'll kill you all. Starting with you, you fucking imbecile." He growled at me and his grip tightened a little more on my throat.

"I'm not--" I tried pulling away. "--killing anyone for you."

His fingers dug just below my chin, harsh and unforgiving and a tiny whimper left my lips. The smirk on his lips was twisted and deadly. He turned his gaze on Caden. "Did I tell you that she knew about your dead mum all along?"

My heart rate skittered and I felt my chin quivering, a sob building up in my throat when I couldn't pull away. I couldn't see Caden. God, I couldn't see him but I knew he'd stiffened, stopped yanking on his ropes, and had frozen. Had Felix already told him about his mum? About Aletta? 

"Your dead mum," Felix laughed. I whimpered when he jerked my head towards my right, making me look directly at Caden. I couldn't say anything, and I felt slow tears trickling down my cheeks--pleading to whom, I didn't quite know. The look on Caden's face--the utterly torn look on his face--left me aching. "She knew yet she didn't tell you. How incredibly moving."

Felix had already told him about his mum, I realized. He must have