50 - DEVLIN

The light assaults my eyes as they fly open, blinking through the pain of it until I see her pacing at the far end of the room.

She stops immediately as I sit up and rushes at the cage, colliding with it roughly, and making the metal bars shaking from the contact.

“What the hell is so special about you? HUH?” She’s screaming at me, but her words aren’t reaching me. I’m not interested in what she has to say, just the way that she keeps grabbing onto the bars in between words.

I watch the way her hair passes through them, angry with myself for how weak I feel, but then she rounds the cage.

My fingers pass over the rough edge of the scar on my chest, and while I’m not sure when my hand got there, I am sure that if I’m strong enough to survive this long… I’m strong enough to survive her.

Pain blasts across my skull as she reaches through and grabs a fistful of my hair, pulling the back of my head tight against the bars. My vision clouds as her fingers curl tight against my scalp and s