The Jackal (Black Dagger Brotherhood - Prison Camp 1)

“Shower,” she said. Mostly because she didn’t want to talk to anyone and figured it would buy her some time alone.

She didn’t want to speak. She didn’t want to eat. She just wanted to lie down.

Posie took her to the bathroom. Opened the door. Pointed to the tub. “Bath.”

“Shower.”

“No, bath. You won’t be able to stand up in the hot water for long.”

When Posie forced them inside and shut the door, Nyx shook her head. “I can do it. I don’t need help—”

“You must need to pee.”

Nyx blinked. Looked at the toilet. Wondered if she could remember how one worked.

Strange, she didn’t recall how she’d gone to the bathroom when she had been down below. She must have gone. She just couldn’t remember how or where.

She couldn’t remember whole parts of the experience beforehand. Just like she couldn’t remember much of her time in the farmhouse. It was as if she had a drape of amnesia over everything that had ever happened to her.

“I’ll start the water.” Posie pointed to the toilet. “You sit there.”

As her sister didn’t budge, Nyx murmured, “You’ve changed.”

“You’ve been gone for a lifetime, as it turns out.”

As they stared at each other, Nyx thought, Shit, the young pretrans. Posie had not only had to deal with that death, but also with the fact that she hadn’t known where Nyx was.

“Grandfather told me,” Posie said. “Where you went. Did you find her?”

Nyx slowly shook her head and braced herself.

“Well.” Posie turned to the tub and started the water. “There’s that then.”

“Are you okay?” Nyx asked.

Posie bent down and put her hand in the rush. Then she adjusted the hot side. “I’m worried about you.”

“I’m fine.”

“I don’t think you’d tell me if you weren’t.” Glancing back, her sister nodded at Nyx’s clothes. “Do you need help getting undressed? And sit down on that toilet now.”

“I will. But I’d like a little privacy.”

“I’m checking in on you in five minutes.” When Nyx tried to talk, Posie put up her hand. “Just stop. I’m not going to argue with you about common sense.”

Posie went to the door. “Five minutes. And if you lock this door, I’m going to get grandfather’s axe and chop it into kindling.”

As her sister quietly shut things behind her, Nyx stared at the panels. There were two towels hanging on a rod, and for a moment, she wondered what they were there for. Turning to the sink, the two toothbrushes in the stand caught her eye. With a shaking hand, she touched the grip of the pink one. Of Posie’s.

She remembered putting her toothbrush in her backpack.

So naive. So incredibly naive.

Posie wasn’t the only one who had aged a million years in such a short time.

Nyx lifted her eyes to the mirror over the sink—and gasped. A stranger stared back at her, one with dirt and mud and blood on her face, in her hair, down her throat. Her eyes seemed like they’d changed color, and there were deep hollows in her cheeks that had not been there before. She looked as though she had been to hell and back.

With a shaking hand, she touched the wound on her temple—and then noticed her chipped nails and the raw places on her wrists.

Where had the cuffs gone, she wondered. She’d had them when she’d emerged from underground.

As her arm started to tremble, she lowered it and leaned into the basin.

Where was Jack? Had he found his young? Was he still alive?

With painful clarity, a memory of her male, with his long hair loose around his muscled shoulders, his brilliant blue eyes heavy lidded and looking at her, came to the forefront of her mind. The image lingered, tangible as a living, breathing thing, as ephemeral and heartbreaking as a ghost—

Dripping got her attention and she glanced over her shoulder.

The tub was starting to overflow. How long had she been staring at herself?

She reached to the side and cranked the faucets off.

That was when she looked down at herself. Her tunic was covered with mud and blood, just like her face. As it was damp, the folds were cold, and as she peeled the thing off, the smell of the prison entered her nose.

The knocking on the closed door made her curse. “I’m just getting undressed. Give me a damn minute.”

That’s right, she told herself. Come back from the brink of death . . . to bitch at your sister like it was business as usual.

Posie’s voice was strident. “Five more minutes then.”

Nyx shook her head as she started to undo her pants. When her back let out a holler, she twisted around to inspect the damage. The bruising from when she’d landed after the explosion was extensive, the purple patches up at her shoulders and down on one hip.

She thought about her strangling the Command, those cuffs wrapped around the female’s throat—and suddenly she remembered. Her grandfather had taken them off. In the car. He’d gotten behind the wheel, leaned into the passenger seat, and she’d heard something like change rattling in a pocket. Then he’d turned and told her to put out her hands.