I stared up into Steele's eyes, knowing exactly what I was asking of him and yet not at the same time. I could see the confusion on his face, but also a hard determination I had seen time and again while teaching him my language; this time, however, there was an intensity unmatched by any other time we had spoken.
"Anything," he said firmly. My mind was racing so fast. Any coherent thought that came to me was instantly blown away by the next. Between me trying to calm my breath and these racing thoughts, I barely managed to form words.
"My daughter, Steele. She's in danger. A-at least, I think she is," I began. "There's an Orion who was spotted near the town where she is in Creewood. They're telling people to shelter in place. I… I… I… don't know what to do. She could be fine. She could be in terrible danger." My throat constricted. I couldn't breathe. I choked on another sob.
"My baby…" my voice didn't even sound like my own. It was hoarse. It barely carried into the air. "My little baby. I… I don't even know if she's okay. She… she could be…" Dead. My mind added the word savagely. I leaned into Steele's hand again, holding it tight as if I were clutching my daughter to my chest.
That same sinister part of me began it demeaning taunts. It was that same subtle tug that had kept me timid for all of my life. It was the same voice he filled me with. It was a voice I thought I had finally managed to banish when I let Steele in my life.
What kind of mother leaves her child with total strangers?
I'm a good mother. I thought this over and over again until the voice pried at my confidence.
You left her. You left her alone.
I had to. It was the only way…
She's dead. Dead and rotting because of you.
No. She's okay She has to be. My arms were shaking with how tight I was clutching onto Steele.
She's gone, and you'll never see her again.
She's okay… please… just stop… my baby…
I wonder if she even remembered you in the end… you didn't deserve her. It's better this way…
"Raina."
The Orion's omnipresent voice yanked me out of my head. I opened my eyes and instantly met two comforting violet orbs. When did Steele lower himself to my eye level?
"Terrilyn is going to be okay. I will make her okay – safe."
How… How did he do it?
How did a being who used to terrify me now make me feel safe? Like anything was possible? How did the sinister shadow get blown away with a few simple words?
Warmth surrounded me as I was suddenly very aware that Steele had closed his hand around me entirely. It was a tinder, gentle grip that let me shift while staying locked in place in the crook by his thumb.
There was a look in his eyes. Conviction. Sincerity.
"Trust me?"
I couldn't help but let a tear-stained smile flicker onto my face as I recalled the same two words I said to him so long ago. With a sniffle, I echoed the phrase.
"Trust me."
Steele gingerly lifted his hand with me entwined in his grip out beyond the ledge and closer to his chest. He carefully rotated his hand, so I was not perched on his fingers and, instead, laid in his palm. The world spun for a moment as I looked out across the cavern and righted myself. Despite the frigidness of the cavern, the encompassing warmth Steele's grasp provided soothed my quickly fraying nerves.
The softness, the delicateness, he showed only moments ago took an instant turn as he shifted within the cavern where he had been imprisoned. He wrapped one of the chains around his free arm and braced himself with his feet against the cave wall.
Even in the dim and fading oil light, I could sense the Orion's true strength. His body was poised, charged and taut like the string of a bow. I stared up into his violet eyes, swearing for only a moment they possessed an illumination of their own.
In one swift, lightening quick motion, he thrust himself backwards, back crashing against the stone. The sound rattled me to the core, as if I were standing in the clouds as a clap of thunder pierced my ears and sent chills through my entire body. I twisted around in time to see the chain restraining his right arm pulling free completely limp from its place in the wall.
Steele wasted no time transferring me from one hand to the next to repeat the motion and free his left arm. I fell for just a moment, letting a faint yelp escape me, as he dropped me the few feet as his fingers curled upward to protect me.
I watched, filled with awe, as the largest pieces of metal we could manage were torn from the wall as easily as pulling the stem from a flowering fruit. I gazed up at the Orion in a daze when I noticed his chest heaving and a dark liquid dripping from his wrist. I looked to the shackled wrist so close to me only to see blood gushing from beneath the metal.
"Steele!" I shouted instinctually, now filled with panic. "Steele! You're hurt!"
"Trust me," Steele grunted through gritted teeth as he began pulling at the chain on his neck, forcing his fingers beneath the metal. I covered my mouth with my hand in a poor attempt to hide my mortification. Why was he bleeding like this? What could have… then I saw it.
The cuffs containing his wrists were barbed and spiked on the inside where the metal met his flesh. Had they always been that way? I now suspected yet another reason why Steele endured his captivity and made no attempt to escape.
My exhausted eyes overflowed with tears once again as Steele tore the collar free from his neck, fingers and neck bloodied and glistening in the torch light. Was he really prepared to do anything? For me? I was hurting. My chest felt like it was being crushed by a mountain.
I wanted my daughter safe. I wanted Steele safe. To get one, I needed to hurt the other. Why? Why did it hurt so much?
The jolt of his hand under me snapped me from my daze as Steele began moving his back against the stone.
I didn't realize my breath was coming in quick, shallow breaths or that my body was trembling violently like a frayed leaf in a windstorm from every sense I had being overwhelmed by everything happening all at once.
I was reeling – and Steele noticed all of these things before I did. He stopped his efforts immediately and brought me up to his eye level before giving me a smile of reassurance.
Steele paused just for a moment to reach up with the tip of his finger and brushed it against my shoulder as he caught his breath. Up and down. His finger trailed along my spine. I closed my eyes and tried desperately to remember if I'd felt this sensation – this security – before.
"I… I'm sorry," I said. "You're hurt again… because of me." I couldn't help but think of the lashes and cuts he received when I fell from the ledge; the first time he saved me. Steele's fingers stopped, now firmly pressed against me.
"Raina," he said, his voice coaxing me to open my eyes to see him. "You hurt because of me. You spend your life to teach me your tongue. You are… Koova ka'non psion… Koo'psion friend. Anything, Raina."
In that moment, that very moment, I didn't need to understand what he meant by his words. It was the look in his eyes.
I knew that look. I had seen it in a man once before in my life when he meant everything he said.
Love.
Perhaps it didn't mean the same thing to him as it did for me, but the look was the same; and that felt like the world to me.
The time around us held still…
…and yet continued far too fast.
I could hear the Lock whirring into action. Steele, hearing the same, protectively curled his fingers which began to eclipse my view of the ledges behind me. The determination I saw in his eyes before returned as his gaze flicked between the ledges and me.
"Guards…" Steele growled. He looked at me again. "You trust me?" There was no question, no doubt, in my mind.
"Trust you – always."
Steele wasted no time. The hand that so carefully cradled me drew into his chest and pressed me close. It was now or never as I heard the Lock hit the based and footsteps pounding toward us.
What had I done?
~~~~~^*^*^*^~~~~~
I could hear them coming. I knew we had no time left. My arms ached and stung from being torn by the shackles that had burdened me for so long. I knew Raina must be terrified, jostled around the way she was. I could only hope I had done enough to reassure her that I would do everything – anything – to make her and her daughter safe again.
I knew the cavern seemed inescapable. There were no apparent holes or accesses to the outside world that had forgotten me above. The guards who worked to secure me today weren't here when I was locked away. They didn't remember. They didn't know; but I did. I remembered. They brought me in, and I was taking me out.
On those frigid nights, one wall was drafty and wet. It was thin. I pressed my shoulder to it and pressed. Almost immediately, the wall began to give.
"Orion! Cease! Or we'll fire!"
I heard the guards shouting and the clattering of spears and shields. I leaned harder, hearing the cracking earth giving way beside me.
"ORION! STOP!" The guards shouted again. I backed up in the confined space, what little I could, and stared at the wall.
"Open fire!" I held Raina closer to my chest and averted my gaze as I felt their spears and bolts gain purchase in my flesh.
Now.
I summoned the strength I had almost forgotten and lunged forward.
There was a cacophonous crash as the earth crumbled and burst outward from the force of my impacting shoulder. The earth crumbled and collapsed, leaving part of a hole to the outside world. I glanced down, ensuring Raina was unharmed, as I clawed at the dirt.
Safe. She was safe.
Another round of bolts and spears were unleashed, but few gained purchase in my body as I crouched and pulled myself through the hole. There were shouts coming from inside, but I couldn't worry about them now.
In fact, I allowed myself a single moment as my fingers sank into the soft topsoil of the surface to realize that, finally, I had that one chance to earn my freedom; that it was mine for the taking and nothing was going to stop me from fixing all the wrong I had done. I let new life fill me with that first breath of air from that wretched cavern.
It was time.