Be Careful When You Bite Me novel Chapter 39

"Damon!" I whispered loudly again," it's me."

Damon lifted his head off the cold ground and pointed his eyes on mines. His used to be bright and golden eyes were now almost pitch dark. I felt my eyes began to tear and quickly blinked them away. I hated seeing him like this more than anything else in the world. He looked weak and beaten and hopeless. He didn't deserve any of this. I felt my chest began to ache at the pain I was feeling from witnessing him like this. I held my hand out to him and he stared in awe," the Volati-" he began, his voice deep and tired.

"Doesn't hurt that much," I replied, cutting him off.

"Holly, your hands-"

"I'm alright, are you?"

He struggled to sit up and I never thought I'd ever see him so weak. He grasped hold of my fingers," how did you find me?"

I smiled almost sadly and shook my head," i-it doesn't matter, we have to get you out of here, there isn't much time."

"I'm sorry," he began," for ever putting you in that dungeon, you should hate me-"

"It's alright," I reassured, "I'm okay now."

"It was never okay, I never felt worse about myself than when I had done that, you should leave me here-"

"Damon stop it," I snapped at him," It's alright, do you hear me?" 

He remained silent and I continued," Xavier and Asia are upstairs waiting for us, we need to get you out now, we don't have much time."

 Damon nodded and took a look around," there's a lever for each cell, somewhere in the corner over there, each cell is numbered, you have to pull down the lever for the Volati and it will turn it off."

"What number is this cell?" I asked," how do I know?"

Damon shook his head," I don't know, can you see numbers anywhere?"

I scanned the barrier of the cell but I couldn't find a number anywhere.

"No, I don't," I looked back at his hopeful eyes.

"You're going to have to guess," he said," go to the levers and see if the cells are numbered according to anything-"

"Guess?" I snapped," did you know Matheos is in here? What if I let him out by accident or someone even worse."

"Holly, breathe," Damon was sitting up almost completely now. Looking at his face was calming me down quicker than I could have imagined. He gripped my fingers in his and spoke words that were as soft as velvet to my ears," you made it this far, you can do this."

I nodded. After sparing him one last glance, I jumped off of the cell and hit the hard ground once again. Well aware of him watching me, I began to make my way towards the lever box when the voice of the girl underneath him stopped me in my tracks.

"It's C 11," she said softly, so low I almost couldn't hear it.

"What?" I asked. I'm not sure if I heard her right. She looked young, definitely under the age of sixteen, still a little girl with straight golden blond hair that ended at her mid-back and big green eyes that sparkled with innocence.

"His cell, it's C 11," she smiled softly revealing the sharp fangs of a faerie before turning away. I nodded regardless in confusion to why she was helping me out and turned away making my way towards the levers.

There were three rows of lists each of them belonging to an individual cell. They were labeled A-C, each letter holding around 60 prisoners. I searched for C and found it on the third row. It would make sense it be C because he was in the third and last row. I remembered Damon telling me something about faeries being sneaky and wondered if I could trust her. I let my finger hover about the lever that read C10. I turned out to face both Damon and the girl. Damon was staring towards me but the girl was still lying down. She didn't look like she was waiting on me to do anything. She could be telling the truth.

I had no idea how I was going to figure out which cell really belonged to Damon but the last thing I wanted to do was to take her word and end up letter her out instead.

I took a deep breath and decided to pause. I needed to slow down my racing thoughts and my heart. I tried to figure out what kind of system they would use to number the cells.

Had they labeled each cell by the order that it was in, Damon's would be C11 and hers would be C10.

What if he was C10 and she was C11 or what if she wanted me to think that?

I was beginning to form beads of sweat at the top of my forehead. I hovered my fingers back over C10. I went over it again and counted.