29. 

I don't know where the hollower is leading me. His hand stays tight around my wrist, tugging unnecessarily hard each time we round a corner. But I follow, like an obedient child, my blood thrumming in my veins. The gravity of the situation weighs heavily on my chest. I've handed myself over to them, Elias is alone, I could've signed both our death warrants.

Our shadows stalk us as we go past the library, down the stairs, through the hall. It's only when we reach the top of the staircase leading into the castle foyer that we see another person.

The foyer is dark, lit by a sole lantern strung up along the wall. Outside, humidity hangs in the air, but the castle walls keep it out, instead welcoming a cool draft. The hollower tugs me closer, to the top of the staircase. Two hollowers stand guard at the castle doors, machetes in their hands. Another two stand at the entrance to the hall leading down to the prisons. My eyes flick across their face, panic pulsing through my body. I'm screwed if one of them recognises me. This will all be for nothing if I am not anonymous to them, if I don't manage to escape before Cynthia gets back. Because if they don't know me, she will. And she will kill me.

"What've you got there, Truey?" One of the hollowers asks when he notices us. He steps slightly forward, into the light cast from the lantern. I duck my head so my hair falls across my face. I don't know him, but that doesn't mean he doesn't know me.

"Got a runner," the hollowers, Truey, says, shoving me forward. I hold my breath as all four guards stare at me, waiting for a flicker of recognition, of something. But they all just stare.

Truey grabs my arm and tugs me down the staircase. When we reach the ground, the hollower who'd stepped forward moves even closer. His hair is blading on the top of his head, and deep wrinkles line his face. "Human or creature?" he asks.

I glare at him in response.

"Fine, don't tell me." He steps forward, raising his machete and turning it so the blade glints beneath the light. My stomach twists in knots when he pokes it towards me, but the Truey grabs me from behind as the hollower slices the machete across my upper arm, drawing blood. I let out a sharp cry, gritting my teeth.

"Human. " The hollowers grins.

"Yeah yeah, enough games," Truey says. "I'll chuck her down with the others."

"Don't even wanna go outside and teach her a lesson first?"

"Cynthia wants everything ready for the morning," he says. "All of them." He tugs my arm past them. "Come on."

The hollowers were talking about the next morning when Elias and I were hiding in the cupboard, too. Cynthia wanted things to be ready. But what for? A chill creeps down my spine as he guides me towards the entrance to the training room, behind the staircase and away from the prying eyes of the hollowers guarding the doors. Whatever they have planned for the morning, I can't be around to find out.

The slice on my arm stings as he tugs me down the staircase, into complete darkness. I count each step we take to distract myself. Surprisingly, we don't come across any hollowers guarding the staircase below, and when it widens into the training room, no hollowers jump out at us either. Why isn't this being guarded like the entrance to the prison rooms?

The room is so dark I can't make much out. I squint my eyes. The weapons have been stripped from the walls but the obstacle course remains where it always was. On the ground, bodies huddle together, heads hung. I swallow the lump in my throat, stepping forward as the hollower grunts.

Several pairs of eyes look up, glowing in the darkness. I hold my breath, afraid they'll say something and alert this hollower as to who I am, but nobody so much as breathes. Truey drags me to the corner of the room, next to a hunched over man. He tugs me down and roughly holds my wrists behind my back, securing a thick rope around them and tying it to the leg of one of the obstacles.

He rises to his feet, staring down at me with a sinister grin. "Escape again and you'll regret it."

I don't say anything, lowering my head in submission. After a few more seconds, he turns, muttering beneath his breath before bouncing up the stairs. I count to ten in my head, breath quickening as I wait to hear the door up the staircase slam. Once it does, I shift my body, trying to reach for the dagger in my boot. I don't want to free myself, not yet, when the hollowers could come back down, but sitting here with my hands tied defenceless makes my skin crawl.

"Ouch!" A voice scowls beside me when I accidentally nudge them. The smell of burning flesh fills the air as they curse beneath their breath.

"I'm sorry—"

"Get off me!"

I spin around so fast I accidentally hit their face with my elbow. "Harrison?"

The man twists, a scowl on his face as he meets my eye. It's him—greying hair, hate-filled eyes. Only this time, his eyes widen slightly when he sees me, more with confusion, disbelief, disorientation. He looks around and then blinks, as if I'm a figment of his imagination. Then, he whispers.

"Milena?" he asks. I nod. "You're... how are you here?"

"We got back this evening," I say, "almost walked straight into the village when we noticed something was off."

He stares at me, grey eyes beginning to glow stronger. His face looks sunken in and his skin is dull and pale, like he hasn't had food for a few days. "And Elias?"

"He here."

Harrison's shoulder's sag in relief, hope seeps into his eyes. I never knew how he felt about Elias. He pressed back on every single decision Elias made, he was always extremely difficult, and he sure hated how Elias let me live; but the way he looks right now reminds me of a lost child who's found their parent.

"Never thought there'd be a day where I was glad to see you," he says.

I lean forward, trying to wriggle in the rope to reach my boot. From what I can see, there are no hollowers down here with us. Everyone in the room is chained up, silent, terrified. If I can just release my hands...

"What're you doing?" Harrison scowls. "Stop shuffling, the silver cuffs are cutting into me."

"Sorry," I murmur. "I have a dagger in my boot. I can free us if I can get to it."

"Put your feet by my hands."

I do as he says, shuffling my body along the ground so my foot is by the hands chained around the obstacle course. He groans lowly as he reaches in to grab the dagger. I eye the skin beneath the chains—it's seared off, blistery and angry, oozing with blood. Finally, he slides it out and drops it to the floor. I pull it towards me using the toe of my shoe, managing to get it into my palm.

"Have you got it?" Harrison asks.

I fiddle with it with one hand, trying to put it between the rope and saw it. "I just need to—ouch." The knife stabs into the palm of my hand. "Hold on."

I try again, slicing at the rope till it falls free. Letting out a sigh of relief, I flex my hands, pressing my thumb against the small cut in my palm.

"Here," I say. Harrison flinches when I reach up to touch his hands. "I'm just trying to help you."

"No."

"Your wrists are bleeding, Harrison, if I can—"

"If they come down here and see me trying to escape, they'll hollow me again," he says, voice low. "Don't touch my hands."

I lean back on my knees, staring at his face. He won't look at me, eyes cast to the floor. I've never liked him. Even after it was revealed that I wasn't the one the hollowers were looking for, he was never kind, barely even civil. He still blamed me for every single death. He didn't want me there and he didn't care that I knew it. But looking at him now, chained up and devoid of energy, my chest pangs. There's no fire in his eyes, not anymore.

"What happened, Harrison?" I ask softly.

He stares past me, across the people hunched over on the floor. They're barely moving, and when I look closer, I notice they're all chained, some with rope, to the obstacle course. Have they all been hollowed, like Harrison? Is that why they're so weak?

"They came in the night." His voice is low, emotionless. "There were only a few at first, and we fought back, but then more came and they weren't... we couldn't..."

"You can't win a fight against somebody who can't die."

His body trembles as he draws in on himself. "Some people ran I-I don't know if they got away but they're not here. Those of us who stayed and fought... we had no hope."

"Where is everyone else?"

"Like I said, some ran," he swallows. "Many died that night, on the spot."

"Bastian? Aaliyah?"

"They were here with us first, the soldiers, too," he says. "But they took them to the prison cells. Anytime somebody else here acts out they take them too." He turns to look at me, grey eyes tired. "I haven't seen them since."

A shiver crawls down my spine, hatred threading through my veins. How can Cynthia hate me, call me a murderer, and then turn around and torture people? Something plays in my mind, a question the hollower asked me when I asked him why he still killed us after being immortal.

Why do you set a trap for rats? Because they're pests. And the world would be better without them.

"Have you heard anything about what's happening tomorrow?" I ask.

"Tomorrow?"

"The hollowers were talking about it in the foyer. Something they're planning. It doesn't sound good."

"I.. I don't know."

I curse. I need to talk to Aaliyah or Bastian, or even Malik's guards—someone who might know more. Because Harrison is a shell of the man I remember, weak, void of hope. But they're all in the prisons, and there were two hollowers guarding that entrance. "Do the guards come down?"

"Not often. Three times a day to give us scraps, sometimes more."

"I have to get to the prisons."

"Do you have a death wish?" he scowls.

"We need information, Harrison, something, or we have no hope against them."

"T-there's a passage through the underground," he says, "under the pendulum course. It leads to the prisons." I push to my feet, scrambling over to the course. "Lift the platform." I do as he says, and as he instructed, there's a tunnel leading deep into the earth, a metal ladder leading down into darkness. I take a shaky breath before turning back to Harrison. "Are you sure you don't want to come with me?"

He simply turns away, back to the wall, huddled in a ball. I clench my jaw, trying to look past all the bodies huddled on the floor. I want to free them, to take the chains from around their bodies and soothe their wounds, but Harrison's plea stops me. They'll hollow me again.

I put my hand on the platform, lowering my body into the dark tunnel. A shiver of fear travels down my spine at the ominous bottom, but I shove it away. I grew up underground. The first rung of the ladder is slippery as I wrap my hands around it.

"It's useless, you know," Harrison calls before I can go. I look over my shoulder. He drags himself into a sitting position, wincing as his hands rub against the chains. "No matter what. We can't fight them."

"Eric and Cassia are back. Elias is here."

The idea brings momentary hope into his face, but it's gone like a dying fire. "They're immortal, Milena."

I press my lips together. I want to tell him about the shadow, that there is hope, but I keep my mouth shut. The less who know the better. We can't risk somebody overhearing—the wrong person overhearing. And so I say nothing, twisting my body around until I'm facing the ladder and can't see him anymore. Taking a deep breath, I descend down the rung, into the dark abyss below. 

~

DISCUSSION:

1. Did you expect to see Harrison? If you can't remember who he is, he was the guy in the first book who blamed Milena for everything.

2. Do you think it's worth going to the prisons or should Milena try to escape instead?

3. what do you think might happen next?