Chapter 190


    #Chapter 190 – Sand in the Hourss


    When Victor opens his eyes, there are spots in his vision. He blinks, trying to get them to clear, but then


    groans with the effort.


    God, does it seriously hurt to blink?


    But then he realizes that it’s not the blinking that’s causing the pain – that the pain was there already. It


    comes, sharply, with every breath, with every beat of his heart, which he can feel pounding in his head


    and his chest and his veins.


    Victor groans again, turning his head to the side, pressing his eyes closed – doing anything he can to


    fight against the pain – anything he can to lessen it, ignore it, move on from it –


    But he can’t – it’s there, in every piece of him. Taking over his body, his mind.


    Victor tries to breathe more slowly, to pull the breath in through his nose and out of his mouth, to form


    thoughts around the pain, or through it –


    But god damnit, it’s everywhere. All epassing.


    He grits his teeth, but can’t help the whimper that escapes through the tiny spaces left between them.


    God, is this what it feels like to die? Is that what’s happening here?


    He hears the whimper again, knowing that it’s him, but somehow – bizarrely – distanced from it. Is he


    dying?


    If he is, then part of him wishes that he would just go ahead and do it already. Because this pain,


    radiating throughout his body and centering itself, sharply, high in his back, just to the left of his spine –


    the pain is just too much.


    No, he thinks, clenching his jaw tighter, finally getting a clear word into his head. No.


    He can’t give into this. Not now, not when he’se so far –


    Not when…


    God damnit, he was so close. So close to her, to his children. So close to having them all back. He


    wouldn’t give in now. There was still so, so much to do. So much to live for.


    Victor knows he has to make a n, has to do something. He had heard Joyce back in the room. Part


    of him – some strange, ever-attentive part – had been listening even as he’d suffered the pain, been so


    close to passing out he was sure it looked as though he was.


    Joyce had said that the Walsh forces still held the house, and that was true. But not for long. Victor had


    left enough of his Beta army outside that the Walsh Betas wouldn’tst long, no matter how hard Joyce


    worked and hoped.


    Victor’smands were strong, his Betas were prepared. Rafe was at their head, and he would be


    coming. He would being at any moment, to break through the final pieces of Walsh’s control and


    take the pack from Joyce by force.


    And there was absolutely no way Victor was going to die before he got to see the look on Joyce and


    Walsh’s faces when he took the pack from them. Takes it from them forever.


    Yes, Victor thinks, a bitter smileing to his lips. That, alone, would be worth living for.


    There is a noise, then, on the stairs, and Victor opens his eyes, trying to get a bearing on his


    surroundings. He’sying on the cement floor of some kind of cell. He looks around, seeing stone walls


    ahead of him, thick with dirt and dust and damp.


    The basement, then – yes, that lined up with what his Betas had learned about Walsh’s house, with


    what Joyce had said upstairs. But Joyce’s words had been fuzzy – Victor can barely remember the tail


    end of the events in the room.


    Perhaps he really did pass out, at the end. He couldn’t remember.


    Victor tries to shift, then, to see behind him where the noise ising from, but the movement is


    agony. He gives a sharp gasp and a little cry and then stops moving. The pain abates, but just barely.


    Still. He won’t be trying to move again anytime soon.


    He listens, instead, closing his eyes again, trying to slow his breathing so that he can hear over the


    ragged sound it makes leaving his mouth.


    Footsteps sound behind him, three sets, he’s sure – two sets in boots, and then another set, fumbling,


    lighter.


    “God damnit,” she growls and Victor’s whole body feels lighter at the sound of her voice. “Get your god


    damn hands off of me, or I swear to god, when we take this pack I will cut them off with a butcher


    knife.”


    Victor can’t help the singleugh that echos through him, but he regrets it, groaning as it twinges the


    muscles around the wound in his back and causing pain tonce through him.


    “Yeah yeah,” one of the Betas replies, dismissive, and Victor hears the ng of keys against metal, the


    creak of old hinges swinging open. The sound of a body shoved, and then her small cry of pain as she


    hits the floor.


    The Betas lock the door behind her, not saying another word as their footsteps fade away back up the


    stairs.


    “I mean it!” she calls after them, and he hears the slight ng of her bars, meaning she’s pressed


    herself up against her door. “y chopsticks onest time, or whatever it is you like to do with your


    fingers, because when I am out of here they are gone –“


    Victor bites his lip, working hard to stifle augh.


    But then, he hears her gasp.


    “Victor,” she whispers, her eyes apparently falling on him for the first time. “Victor!” She says it louder


    now, calling to him. “Are you…are you…”


    Alive?


    His mind furnishes the word for her. He opens his eyes again and takes as deep a breath as he can


    before he responds.


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    “Evie,” he says, the word light against his lips.


    “Oh my god.” The words rush from her in relief and he hears her moving around, the bars of her door


    nging as she shakes them, trying to find any weakness, trying to get to him. “Victor – are you –“


    “I’m alive,” he responds, working hard to control the pain in his voice. To ignore the way it shoots


    through his body with every word. He’d take all the pain in the world, just to talk to her.


    Maybe for thest time.


    Now that he’s awake – really awake – Victor knows that it’s bad. He can feel the rapid rate of his heart,


    the weakness in his limbs. Carefully, he works to wiggle his toes – and he thinks he can do it – but did


    he?


    Honestly, he doesn’t know.


    He is mortally wounded, he knows that he is. He just hopes that he can hold on long enough for Rafe to


    get into the house and get him to a hospital.


    Long enough that Evelyn doesn’t have to sit in the cell across from him and watch him die.


    Victor screws himself together at that thought, determining that he will do everything in his power to


    stay alive. For her. To keep her from that horrible moment.


    He’s going to live, damnit. For her, for Alvin and Ian, for himself, for the life they could build. God


    damnit, but he’s going to live.


    “Um,” he can hear the hesitation in Evelyn’s voice. “How bad is it, Victor?”


    “I’m not going to lie, Evelyn,” Victor says, clenching his jaw as he pauses. “I have to get to a hospital


    very, very soon.”


    “Oh my god,” she says, pressing a hand to her mouth. He doesn’t know how he knows it, but he can


    almost see her doing it. Knows, in his heart, that she’s staring at him, with all the love and fear in her


    body present in her eyes.


    Because they both know that it’s true. His body is still leaking blood. With his back to her, surely she


    can see it pooling there on the cement floor.


    He can be as determined to live as he wants to be. But every drop of blood that drips from him now is


    another grain of sand in the hourss.


    And there is very, very little time left.