They Are Monsters (Deathless Trilogy, #2)

Chapter Four: Room 6

He's hunched over, his hands together on his knees, which have stopped shaking at the sight of me. He's wearing fancy clothes I've never seen him in before: a shiny navy blue suit, the jacket unbuttoned to reveal a white button down beneath it, and a loose gold tie hanging between his thighs. His sunshine eyes smile at me.

He springs to his feet, I drop Frankenstein on the table by the door, but neither of us say anything. I'm angry and confused, and as much as I want to yell at him, all I can think to say is, "We were born for each other."

His eyes fill with tears and he sighs in relief. "You saved my life. You saved all of our lives." He steps closer, examining my face. "You're burned. How do you feel? I can get more ointment if it hurts."

He turns to head into the adjoining bathroom. "Stop," I say, and he spins back to face me, "It doesn't hurt so much that I can't hold you."

"Okay," he says, his voice cracking with tears. All the time and space between us fades to nothing until we're wrapped in each other's arms. I'm about to ask where he was while I was in the cell, when he says, "I'm sorry I didn't get you sooner."

"I want to be mad at you," I say. What I don't say is that I can't. It feels too good being back in his arms.

He moves his hands from around me to my cheeks, and smooths his thumb over one of my scrapes. My skin burns beneath his hands, but I don't stop him. I've waited months to feel his touch again.

"I can't believe you're actually here," he says, which sparks my anxiety.

"Can I see your arms?"

He smiles and lifts his sleeves. His honey brown skin is as it always has been: Smooth and clear. I run my hands over his forearms, and I ache to hold him and kiss him again, like I did in the bunker. But I fall from my daze. I need answers. "Why couldn't you get me?" I ask.

"I woke up this morning from the knock out gas. I never meant for you to be in there for 3 days."

"3 days?" It felt like weeks.

He takes my hand and leads me to sit on the bed. I want to slap his hand away and yell at him, but our fingers fit so perfectly together, it feels like a crime to untangle them now.

I take a seat beside him on the gold and cream bed, and finally take a moment to breathe in the room. Burgundy carpet flows under my feet, and the color creeps up onto the walls, outlined in cream and gold trim. A crystal chandelier hangs over us with sculpted shards of crystal, like daggers suspended from the fixture's gold arms. The walls are lit with faux golden torches, whose light burns like fire against the red walls.

It's a room of beautiful death.

"We have to get out of here," I say.

I expect him to tell me no, to say what he always said when we played soldiers: "You don't know why I fight!" The silly phrase from when we were kids, probably taken from a melodramatic story of knights and warriors, now makes a perfectly acceptable response.

"You're right," he says, "but we can't."

"Why?"

He takes a breath. "They told me if I didn't follow through with a project, they would have you killed. I had to sign a contract that I would finish it, or they take you. I can't leave before it's finished." He squeezes my hands and the tears form in his eyes again. "I am so sorry. I had no idea it would get to this point. I thought we would just find one another and leave, go back home."

"Me too," I say. "We were so naive." I feel a tickle in my throat. A new emotion arises—sadness—so I try to clear it away. "But we don't have a home anymore. At least I don't."