𝐕𝐄𝐍𝐎𝐌

91| N O V A N T-U N O

ALESSANDRO'S POV

There were no windows, any source of sunlight blazing through the day. It was early in the morning, hours past sunrise yet there was no evidence of time, no sign of what lingered in the outside world.

They kept prisoners underground, sophisticated to death with the little amount of air and oxygen reaching their cages. They treated them less than dogs, he'd told me, explaining more about his own blood.

I've never got to hear his whole story, learn and discover what drove him to be a good one, why he would take such a risk, a crazy and dumb risk just to help us, to show the good in him after living with them for years.

It made me wonder, what could they possibly have done to him. He didn't have scars, he never spoke of his family, there were too many things to assume and imagine but my only focus was the room I was getting close to step by step.

I didn't know how or why I trusted that man's words, how he knew where they kept her and why he told me.

I didn't recognize him. I had little time with light but nothing clicked into my head, telling me, reminding me of a face so broken, marked and cold.

He was old, older than my father and the walls. For some reason, they felt the need to lock him here, long enough, until his death.

I gave my head a quiet shake, pushing away the thoughts. It was only three rooms away.

These cages were covered and built with brick walls and not steel like the other cells. At the very end, with my last count of seven, Akila's room stood ahead of me.

A door. They put it in a room with a door. Four walls and a roof on top of her head, unlike the rest who suffered in the cold.

Surprisingly, the door was u locked but I was no fool. They either knew someone was coming, I was coming or they wanted to mess with her brain, tying her in a room where she could escape yet she couldn't.

My heart ached, not with pain but rage, or maybe both, it shook and shivered against my chest, unable to process the idea of Akila, Akila tied up and chained, tortured, touched.

But there she was, one lamp hung from the ceiling, lighting where they held her as the dark roamed around her, hissing to the air and whatever came close, as if it were protecting her.

I didn't know how big the room was, how some guards found me and called more in. I didn't know and I didn't care. I stared, I buried my eyes on her body, her bloody forehead, her bruised knuckles and dried blood running down her jaw and neck. Her legs were tired, and her hands were together behind her back.

I've seen so much, so much death and torment, so much cruelty and agony. I've felt, I've felt sadness and grief but this, her in that place, in that figure I no longer recognized. The longer I looked, the longer I traced her beautiful face, red and purple, buried in her closed eyes and cheeks.

A part of me broke, a part of me lost and ran away but now, everything was gone, it all faded away once my eyes landed on her, reached for her and she never met them.

I came this way, I sacrificed and was ready to die saving her. I was too late. They had hurt her, wounded her deeply after I promised to never leave her side, I promised she'll never witness this again, she'll never get abused, hit by any set of hands.

Seeing her, watching her, looking for any sign of Akila, the Akila I met a year ago, the Akila who awoke from the dead and Hell just for revenge, to expose blood and dislocate bones.