Expiration Date (Books 1 and 2)

58 How Am I Supposed To Protect Them?

Jonas~~

My arm feels as if bees are constantly stinging it. Or maybe wasps.

I think I've been here at least a full day, but underground with no clock, it might have only been three hours.

The Amoris are asleep, leaving me to my pain and fear.

I'm their leader. I'm supposed to be able to protect them.

But I've failed them.

There's no bandage wrapped around my Mark any longer. At some point a man came by after Erik and poured antiseptic into the wound without care for accuracy and then stitched the cuts, and based on the spacing of the stitches, the wounds won't be healing well.

Not that I expected anything different. Frankly, I'm surprised they took care of my wounds at all. I don't know how Vienna managed to destroy what was most important without slashing an artery or a vein.

I knew when Andrew tried to kill me that I had messed up as a cousin on some fundamental level.

Erik and I have had our arguments, and I've tried giving him his space when I could. I don't know where things went wrong. Was there a moment where I should have turned left but chose to go right instead?

Can it really all tie back to Molly? His hatred of me?

My chains rattle as I sigh.

I wasn't Preeminence when she died. He acts as if I could have done away with Expiration Dates before he even knew Molly.

We used to be good friends.

Cousins.

Closing my eyes against the pain and surrendering to the exhaustion weighing on me, I bow my head.

I don't know how long passes before I hear the bunker door open, and I force myself to look up. A woman holds a tray of food in her hand. I haven't seen a glimpse of food since I had dinner at the Estate.

"So you're the Preeminence," she says.

I give her a wry smile. "Unfortunately."

She sets the food to the side and crouches in front of me, her eyes narrowed. Grabbing a hold of my shirt, she yanks me toward her. "Good." She strikes her fist against my cheek and my head whips back. She huffs. "That felt better than I expected."

She hits my face, my cheek, my nose, the space near my eyes.

I raise my right arm, trying to block her, but between the lack of nourishment, the loss of blood, and lingering symptoms from the gas, the strength of the shackle and chain is too heavy for me to keep my arm up.

She lets go of my shirt, and I slump. I can feel something wet coating my face. And I know it's not just tears because I feel it on my forehead too.

By now, the Amoris have awoken.

She stands, and I think she must be done with me, but she draws her leg back and drives it forward into my Marked arm.

The pain is splintering, racing up my arm like streaks of a lightning bolt. Crying out, I don't know if the pain is coming from the bone, muscle, or skin.

It's like suddenly being dunked into ice water, like your arm being dragged on asphalt.

My aunt and the other two Amoris plead with her to stop.

She scoffs before throwing a water bottle and a lump of bread in my lap.

My stomach grumbles, my throat aches, but my arm is in too much pain. I can't move it, let alone open the bottle. And even as my stomach trembles with hunger, it wavers with nausea at the thought of trying to get anything down my throat while my face bruises and bleeds.

The woman walks up to Atarns, the male Amoris, and grabs him by the chin. "You're the extraterrestrial trash." Spitting on his face, she punches him.

The force is enough to knock him backward, his chains rattling.

She hits him again.

"Please," I beg, trying to lean forward against the chains. "Leave him alone. If you're going to hurt anyone, let it be me."

She ignores me, continuing to take her hatred out on him. By the time she's satisfied, his face is bleeding.

Dropping the food in his lap, she moves onto my aunt who she strikes her, history repeating itself as I beg for her to stop.

When done, the rebel continues onto the last Amoris, Farana, hitting and hitting and hitting.

"Please. Leave them alone. Hurt me. Just not them." These are my subjects. I'm supposed to protect them.

And I can't.

When the rebel finally leaves, none of us have the will or strength to eat.