The noise sounds again.
“What is that?” I ask.
Hunter doesn’t answer. He’s still gripping me when he begins to sit up, his gaze trapped to the wall across the room, at the thick dark windows looking back at us. The thumps carry on in no pattern. It’s aggressive and loud. Its booms echo through the room, and now all the men are moving toward it, seeming equally confused.
And then it happens all at once.
The doors burst open. A flood of cloaked figures come rushing in. The men in the room don’t fight against them as they push through the crowd, coming straight for us.
I look at Hunter whose face has gone cold. He moves in front of me, seething, “No, don’t fucking do it! I’ll fight—I’ll fucking fight. I don’t want my freedom. I’ll stay! I’ll fucking stay, just don’t take her!”
But they’re pushing him aside, and he’s quaking, shrieking at them. Arms come around me and I’m pulled off the bed and dragged away from him. Facing him, I scream his name, and he looks tortured. He struggles against the cloaked figures as they try to contain him. He knocks a few down, and a couple masks fly off, but more men come at him.
“Don’t take her from me!” he shouts desperately. “Skye! SKYE!”
I fight unsuccessfully against the large arms wrapped tightly around me.
“Fuck you!” I hear Hunter screech now as he races to the windows and pounds at them with his fists. “FUCK YOU!”
The same boom sounds out as he goes berserk.
“I’m going to kill you!” he rages on. "Overseer, I am going to KILL YOU!"
It’s the last thing I see of him before they throw the cover back over my head.