Chapter 99 Broken

Chapter 99 Broken
Jacob's Pov

Both hands came free at ten forty-three.

I stayed perfectly still in the chair. The guard was due in less than three minutes. I kept my arms behind my back, controlled my breathing, and waited.

Violet watched me from the bed. She said nothing. She had been tracking the guard rotation with me for the last hour.

The door opened. The guard swept the room with his eyes. He left.

I stood up.

"The door bracket," Violet said immediately. "Right side of the frame. Near the top."

I crossed to the door and ran my palm up the right side of the frame. The bracket was there. Old metal, stiff, but functional.

"It opens from inside."

"Yes."

"Two fighters in the corridor," I said. "You saw one move toward the stairs in the vision."

"I saw it but I don't know exactly when it happened."

"We wait for it."

She nodded. Then her breath pattern changed. Both hands pressed flat against Eli. I returned to the chair position and watched her work through it. Forty-five seconds. When it broke she exhaled slowly.

"Two minutes thirty," she said.

"Very close."

"Yes."

I stood near the door and listened. Two sets of footsteps. One stationary near the door. One further down the corridor.

Then the further set began moving toward the stairs.

I slid the bracket. The metal scraped. I pulled the door open.

One fighter. He turned fast. His face shifted from confusion to reaction in under a second.

I closed the distance and hit him once. Hard. He went down but not silently. The sound carried.

The second fighter came from the staircase at a dead run. Three seconds of corridor between us and he covered it fast.

We collided against the wall. He was stronger than his build suggested. Properly trained. We exchanged strikes. I landed two clean ones but he caught my jaw with something heavy and my vision blurred briefly.

The far corridor door burst open. Two more fighters came through it.

Four to one.

I kept moving because stopping was not an option. One blow landed on my shoulder. I returned it. I put one man on the ground.

The remaining three hit simultaneously from different directions.

I went to one knee. A strike to the back of my neck drove me lower. My palms hit the floor.

They had my arms before I could push back upright.

I was hauled up and walked back into the room.

Violet was standing in the doorway. Both hands gripped the frame. Her face was pale and tight.

"Jacob."

"I'm all right."

She looked at my jaw. She looked at the blood there. She did not look away.

They pushed me into the chair. New rope. Tighter than before. Both wrists were bound and my right ankle was secured separately to the chair leg.

The fighter nearest to me checked the knots twice without looking at my face.

"Don't do that again." He said it without heat. A statement of fact.

They went out. Two sets of footsteps settled in the corridor instead of one.

Violet got back onto the bed slowly. A contraction caught her halfway through and she went still, pressed down with both hands, and breathed through it. When it passed she looked up at me.

"Are you actually all right?"

"Jaw and shoulder. Nothing that changes what matters."

"The ankle rope is new."

"Yes."

"Can you still work it?"

"It'll take longer than the wrists. But yes."

She pressed her forehead into her hands and closed her eyes.

"Jacob."

"Yes."

She lifted her eyes to mine. "I should have believed you sooner. About the letters. About the border. I held onto doubt longer than I needed to."

"You held onto it exactly as long as made sense given everything Eric put in front of you. That's not something to apologize for."

"I still am."

"Don't be." I kept my voice steady. "Save your energy for what's coming."

She almost smiled.

"How long on the ankle?" she asked.

"Fifteen minutes. Maybe less if the knot pattern matches the wrists."

"What happens after?"

"One ankle free, two wrists still tied, two fighters at the door," I said. "It's better than where we were twenty minutes ago."

"That's one way to look at it."

"It's the accurate one."

She pressed her hand against Eli. He pushed back strongly.

"He's not waiting much longer," she said.

"No. Neither are we."

Eric came in at eleven.

He looked at the blood on my jaw, looked at the tighter rope arrangement, then sat beside Violet's bed and spoke to her without acknowledging me.

"Helen is coming at eleven thirty."

"You keep saying that," Violet said.

"Because it's still true."

"Tell me the part that comes after Helen." She held his gaze. "You keep leaving that out."

He said nothing.

She nodded slowly. "That is the answer. Every time you don't answer, that is the answer."

"It's not that simple."

"Then tell me which part is complicated." She shifted against the pillows. "Because from where I'm sitting it sounds clear. Eli arrives. Helen says he's stable. Forty-eight hours. Clean exit. No trail."

The room went quiet.

Eric looked at her carefully. "You heard more than I understood."

"The wall between this room and the sitting room is thin," she said. "You should have that fixed."

He leaned forward. "If you cooperate, this moves smoothly. Eli goes to people with real resources and stability. People who understand what he'll become."

"He is not a future asset." Violet's voice was completely level. "He is a person. My child."

"He can be both."

"No." She shook her head once. "He can't. And you know that."

Eric's jaw tightened.

"You've made this more difficult than it needed to be," he said quietly.

"You made it exactly this difficult when you made the decisions you made," Violet said. "I'm just the one who found out about them."

He looked at me then. Long and measuring.

"I want to ask you something," I said.

He waited.

"Six months of Violet's predictions winning every engagement you entered. Every territorial gain you made came from what she could see. You built your entire regional reputation on her gift."

He said nothing.

"Did you think at any point," I continued, "about what she might see if she ever looked in your direction? She's been looking at fighters and battle formations for six months. What did you think would happen when she turned that toward you?"

Eric stood up. He looked at Violet one more time. Something moved across his face that I couldn't fully read.

Then he walked out and locked the door.

I started working on the ankle rope immediately.

"Twelve minutes," Violet said.

"Eleven."

"We don't have eleven minutes."

"I know." I kept the movements small and consistent. "I'm working faster."

"Jacob."

"Yes."

"When this contraction passes," she said, "I need to tell you something."

"Tell me now."

"No." She pressed her hands down. "After. When I can think clearly."

I waited. The contraction moved through her. Longer and stronger than the previous ones. When it broke she exhaled in a slow, controlled breath.

"I've been running visions through Eli," she said.

I looked up.

"For the last hour. He's the clearest connection I've ever had. Whatever I can usually see, it comes sharper through him. I've been using that."

"What have you been seeing?"

"This room. The next time the door opens. Eric's right shoulder has a weakness. He overextended it eight weeks ago and it never healed properly. He favors his left side without realizing it."

I stared at her.

"There's a four-second window," she continued. "Between when he reaches for me and when Stephanie moves. Four seconds where I have a clear line to that shoulder."

"You're in active labor."

"Correct."

"Violet……"

"Jacob." Her voice was quiet but completely certain. "They said I would disappear. That is the plan for me. I disappear in the recovery period. So I need you to understand that whatever state my body is in right now, it is better than the alternative they have planned."

I held her gaze.

"What do you need from me," I said.

"Keep working that ankle rope," she said. "And when the door opens, be ready to stand."

"The ankle is almost done," I said.

"How close?"

"Two minutes."

"Then we're ready," she said.