Blood & Lust [Book Two of The City of Eternity Series] [✔]

2.10: Internee

I gave myself a minute to adjust. 

It could only be a minute, that much was decided, because I was immediately, painfully aware of how desolate this situation was. My senses awoke at a desperately slow pace, each one taking its sweet time to understand what was currently happening. My brain, on the other hand, cared not for the situation, barely struggling to comprehend any of what those senses had managed to grasp.

That, I had to owe to the pulsating headache that was raging in my skull, pounding against the side of my head and demanding my attention. This was not helped by nausea that was clawing its way from my stomach to my throat, burning each nerve as it screeched its painful reminders of the drugs plaguing my system.

I took a calming breath to try to allow myself to take stock of my situation, tightening my palms around the arms of the wooden chair I was tied to. Beyond the entrapment of the blindfold, I had to imagine I would still find myself in a swarm of darkness, not a smidge of light penetrating through the fabric.

As I nudged my head to the left, I noticed that the fabric around my eyes wasn't as tightly tied as the one that had been forced around my mouth and was currently burning the inner corners of my lips. After a few movements, the thin fabric gives way, falling to my lap. I felt a tinge of regret in doing so, feeling several pairs of eyes land on me from each corner of the room. I can't help but shift uncomfortably under the hidden gaze of a concealed enemy.

I swallowed down my nausea, gazing around the room as I did so to try and find as many ways out of this situation as I possibly could. The little light that is in the room is filtered in through the small window on the left wall highlighting the door in front of me; scrape marks lining the surface. It was clear whoever has been a visitor previously, has desperately wanted to get out. Those same marks seemed to be apparent on every wall segment that I could lay my eyes on.

I swallow as the murmurs in the distant corners of the room begin. The substantially shrill, yet unintelligible words are being spoken from each direction from multiple people, but seem to be unable to meet and agree with my ears. I can now see that my mouth has been covered with a bright cerulean fabric, tied tightly behind my head. As I moved my head to feel out the room, I could feel the back of my hair being twisted into the knot in the fabric; an intense ringing pain flooding my mind. My instinct was to yelp in pain, but I knew any protests for the current situation would fall on deaf ears.

What I had failed to acknowledge was obvious. My eyes were completely blocking out the very obvious thing in front of me. The figure of a man that I couldn't comprehend being there. The figure of a man that not a single part of me believed could be the culprit behind me being here. But maybe that's why I was trying not to see him at all.

Every inch of my sight is taken in by his auburn eyes, and the piercing on his right eyebrow glistens as it reflects what little light was flowing onto his face. My eyebrows had raised in recognition before I had understood who was sitting in front of me; cross-legged on the top of three stacked wooden crates, lingering in a heavy awkwardness. The dark curls that covered his forehead solidified the man I knew. Ruben was carefully gnawing on his cheek; the eyes that I'd taken a firm mental image of fluttering away from mine - looking anywhere but at me.