#scoooooop

She's not sure, at first, if those are meathooks, holding him up. But it's just handcuffs, buried so deep in the swollen, bleeding mass of his wrists that the metal is barely visible.

He can't be alive. He must have breathed his last in the days between Taryn's scry, and the arrival of rescue. A hair's breadth from escape. 

Taryn has the same thought, because the first thing she checks is his pulse. 

She's so fierce and fearless, even here in the gruesome heart of enemy territory. No hesitation, while Cora stands frozen. 

She keeps seeing fresh details in the horror. Places where pus seeps from open wounds. Suggestions of bone pressing against the underside of taut, bruised skin. The distended lumps that she can only guess are the toes of his grotesquely swollen and misshapen feet. 

“Cora.” Hushed voice despite the spell that protects them from being heard. “Hold him up while I break the cuffs.”

Cora’s hands shake weaving the spells. One to keep him from falling, and another to support his arms as Taryn cuts through the metal.

He stirs, as Cora’s magic takes his weight. A weak shudder, a rasp of painful breath. One eye is swollen shut, the other lid flutters. His lips move, but whatever he tries to say is lost as Taryn casts a hasty silence over him. 

"Have you got him?" 

"Yeah."

Up close, the rancid stench of infection is overpowering. Cora tastes acid bile in her throat. She swallows, and keeps swallowing. She refuses to be that person who pukes at the sight of torture.

The guy – Connor, his name is Connor – convulses when Cora tries to lower his arms. Every part of him moves wrong and Cora fights another wave of nausea. 

She's causing so much pain just trying to move him and she wonders if it wouldn't be kinder just to end it here. 

"Clock's ticking," Taryn reminds her. "I know."

There's no helping it. She has to ignore the way he twitches and tries to scream into the silence. 

She gathers him into her arms like an oversized child – her magic still taking his weight so that he barely weighs a thing – holds his head against her shoulder as if she could possibly comfort him through this agony, and follows Taryn's lead.