Exported [Book 3 in the Expiring Series]

50 For the Dead

Thank you to everyone who has nominated/voted for my books in The Fiction Awards 2020 and The Readers Choice Awards. There is still time to vote in thefictionawards and for Expiration Date in the second round of ReadersChoiceAward! Thank you!

Iris~~

There's a woman in the cell across from mine.

Her black hair is matted, and her face is red and splotchy with tears.

She wasn't there before I fell asleep. She's must be the Amorians' next victim, just still alive.

"S'il vous plait," she begs. Hands wrapping around the bars, her eyes meet mine. She asks a question in French, and I look to Bently for a translation. He's awake but tucked into the far corner of his cell, his back to the girl.

"Bently?"

"She asked where she is."

"Can you tell her we don't know?"

He scoffs. "Of course you haven't figured out where we are."

My stomach growls in hunger. "Please enlighten me, oh great Bently."

"The catacombs." He might as well be speaking gibberish. "Built to bury the dead."

"I have no idea what you're talking about."

Sighing, he rolls his shoulders back, his bones cracking. "I forgot world history isn't a major part of Elleany's curriculum. Tell me, what does the rebel-education system look like?"

"Bently," I warn.

He rests his head against the stone wall. "The Amoris have remodeled, maybe added their own sections even and would have had to close off other sections to remain hidden from the world. When they caught me, they dragged me down a staircase in that hotel before blindfolding me and shoving me down more stairs. We never left Paris. We should have guessed immediately that they were in the catacombs."

The woman speaks again.

"Bently?" I prompt.

He says something in French offhandedly to the woman and then to me says, "Her name's Ines."

The woman asks another question.

"She wants to know why she's here and who's behind this."

A hand clenches around my heart. Do I instill her with false hope and say we're all nothing more than bargaining chips and have a chance to get out? Do I lie and say I don't know, or do I tell the truth, essentially telling Ines her Expiration Date?

She rests her head against the bar, saying something that causes Bently to swear softly.

"She has a baby and husband."

My heart wrenches in two. "What do we tell her?"

"Nothing."

"Bently—"

"Nothing. You don't tell her it's going to be okay. You don't tell her you're going to get us out because you aren't. And if you do have a chance to escape, you take it. You don't come back here for anyone. You get out and you find Jonas and you tell him where we are."

"The woman—"

"I'm not giving her false hope."

I wrap my hands around the bars and meet her eyes. "Je suis désolé. Je suis désolé. Je suis désolé." I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. Over and over again. I don't know much French, but I can tell her this. "Je suis désolé."