He latched onto her with his mind. Those beautiful eyes. Her big heart. Her silky dark hair. Her soft, brown skin.
Fight. Survive.
That’s what he’d told her to do. That’s what he had to do, too, no matter what they did to him.
Kuti stood a safe distance from Malik’s feet, talking to one of his henchmen. “Go get his wife now. Captain Bello thinks she’ll tell us what we need to know when she sees him burning and hears his screams.”
Kristi.
Bello was right. She’d spent her entire life fighting to end suffering. She had such a big heart. If they roasted him, it would break her—and Malik wouldn’t blame her for a moment. Hell, it might break him, too.
He closed his eyes, fought to slow his breathing, to breathe the pain away.
Smoke.
His eyes flew open, and he looked down at the pile of kindling and wood below his feet, thinking they must have lit it. But they hadn’t. The kindling and firewood remained untouched.
A man ran in, shouting and gesturing. “The hallway is on fire!”
“Go get the woman! The Kings will kill us if she comes to harm. I’ll find the captain and make sure he’s safe.”
The two men ran, leaving Malik hanging—literally.
Had they said the building was on fire?
Kristi.
They had her locked up somewhere, her wrists bound. She might be trapped and unable to get out.
Malik needed to get down. He needed to find her. But any movement at all made the pain unbearable. If he could get his leg over the bar…
He tried, almost passed out.
Smoke poured into the room from the door and from a ventilation shaft in the far wall. Then he heard coughing, and the metal screen that covered the ventilation shaft fell to the floor.
“Kristi?”
She crawled out, coughing, her face and clothes filthy with dirt and dust and smoke. She ran toward the wall where the rope that held him was tied off. “I’m so sorry, Malik! I’ll get you down.”
She lowered him to the floor.
His feet touched the floor, and he sank to his knees, his legs weak. He had to tell her, to warn her. “Go. Leave me. Run.”
“No!” She came up behind him and began cutting the ropes that bound his elbows, words spilling out of her in a panicked rush, punctuated by coughs. “I found a utility knife … and cut through the ropes. There was a ventilation shaft … and it took me a while to find my way around. I saw whisky … and I got some of our things and then made my first Molotov cocktail.”
Her words didn’t make sense to him.
She’d broken free and started this fire? A Molotov cocktail?
Okay, he was hallucinating. She wasn’t here at all. That’s why his shoulders and arms still hurt so fucking much.
He blinked, tried to make the hallucination go away, but when he opened his eyes and turned his head, she was still there, talking and coughing.
“I saw they were going to burn you, so I had to create some kind of distraction. I think I ….” More coughing. “I think I inhaled too much … smoke. Will you be able to walk? I’ve got morphine.”
“No drugs.” They would fuck up his mind even more, and he was clearly losing his shit. “I’m seeing things. You’re not really here.”
“Yes, I am.” A soft hand against his cheek. “I’m here, Malik, and I love you.”