26. Liliana
H e gives me a week. One week.
And then I’m dragged out, pulled from my cell, and I try to prepare myself for the next round of this horror show.
To my relief, we don’t go up, we don’t go out, we walk down the corridor so at least we’re not going back to Oblivion, though I doubt whatever is coming will be any less unpleasant.
When we enter the room, I freeze, staring at the man strapped into the chair, then back at the psycho holding my arm.
Is this real? Is this happening?
“What is this?” I ask, my voice sounding strained from lack of use. My tongue is not exactly healed but it’s less swollen, and I’m at least able to eat properly, which on some level is a blessing.
“Don’t you want to know who set you up?” Magnus murmurs into my ear as I shudder at our proximity. “Don’t you want to look at the man who told us exactly what you were up to?”
I gulp, staring at Saul, not believing a word of it.
As our eyes connect, I feel a flash of guilt that I haven’t even considered what might have happened to him. After all, we were meant to meet and he was a no-show. I knew the Brethren had something to do with it. I knew it, and yet I never questioned if he was okay, if he was safe, not once after they caught me. No, instead I focused on myself like the selfish arsehole that I am.
“An, An, Ana,” Saul stammers, no doubt taking in the state of me, though he looks just as bad as I do.
“Not a word,” Magnus snaps, cutting across him.
I take a step forward, seeing all the bruising, all the ways in which he too has been beaten and tortured.
“What have you done to him?” I gasp. His shirt is torn, hanging limply from his body. His hair is stuck to his head from both grime and sweat. I know I’m hardly one to talk but he absolutely stinks.
As I get closer, I turn back to face Magnus. What is he trying to achieve with this? What’s the point in showing me this? Does he think this will cower me?
“You don’t get it, do you?” Magnus taunts, keeping his eyes on me. “You don’t get it at all.”
“Get what?”
“He loved you. And he hated the fact that you rejected him.”
I shouldn’t blush. I have no reason to feel shame, and yet that memory comes back; waking up, realising what a stupid mistake I’d made, fuelled by one too many drinks, and the awkwardness of having to sneak out. Of having to creep out like I was some teenager. And then we’d bumped into one another at work and the look he’d given me, oh I’d tried to ignore it, I’d told myself I was reading too much into it. He was a nice guy. He meant well. He was harmless. He didn’t like me like that. I was imagining it, seeing something that wasn’t there.
But he’s looking at me now, staring at me.
My hands go up, covering myself.
I’m just as naked as ever and I hate how exposed I feel in front of them both, but for some reason it feels worse that Saul can see all of me, that he’s looking at all of me.
It feels like two worlds collide. It feels like something explodes. Something cataclysmic goes off.
“It’s not true.” I cry. “It’s not true.”
I know it isn’t. My friend wouldn’t do that. He wouldn’t betray me like that. He wouldn’t fuck me over when I needed him. No, my friend would have helped. Did help. He did everything he could, but the Brethren got there first.
Magnus lets out a laugh. It’s sharp, twisted, it echoes around us both and Saul flinches as if that sound means more than just derision to him, too.
“He did it, pet.” Magnus states. “He sold you out. He handed you over and then demanded recompense. He wanted to profit from your demise.”
“No,” I gasp. It can’t be true. I refuse to believe it. I refuse…
Magnus shoves a phone into my face, hits the play button and with one hand he wraps it around my throat, holding me in a headlock as he forces me to watch the security footage.
It’s all there. All in grainy, horrific detail. Saul offering me up like a piece of candy. It feels like my world shatters. What little hope I had left seems to die. How could he do this? How could he betray me like this?
“He did this to you.” Magnus murmurs. “He wanted you to suffer. He wanted you to pay.”
I shake my head, I jerk violently against the arms that hold me, but he doesn’t relent. No, instead the bastard tosses the phone away and starts to undo his trousers .
“No,” I shake my head as if I have any control. No, not here, not like this.
“He’s the reason.” Magnus says kicking my legs wider, like I’ll just take this abuse.
I lash out, trying to fight him off and he’s quick as a flash, using his foot to take out my ankles. I slam down onto my knees and he’s there, behind me, holding me down as he lines himself up.
“No,” I gasp, shutting my eyes, refusing to acknowledge that this is happening. That any of this is real.
He shoves himself into me, pressing all his weight onto my hunched over body. With his hand he grips my face, forcing me to look up, to stare back at my betrayer. Back at Saul.
My body has somewhat healed from its last assault, the pain is there, but it’s muted, as if my nerve endings are all getting used to the brutality, as if they’re adjusting too.
“He did this.” Magnus whispers into my ear as I begin to hyperventilate. “This man. He’s the cause of all your pain.”
I let out a scream, I dig my nails into the concrete, feeling the way every single one snaps off. What I wouldn’t give to turn around and claw the man’s eyes out, but he holds me too tightly. He overpowers me too much.
“How does it feel, huh? How does it feel to watch me fuck her?” Magnus taunts. “Her cunt feels so good, so tight.”
I gulp, I swallow back the bile. Repeating over and over that I won’t let him win. That whatever happens I won’t do that.
He groans again before running his tongue along my skin. “So fucking delicious,” he murmurs. “Tell me, Saul, when you fucked her, did you get her off?”
Saul shouts out something incomprehensible. I doubt he’s defending me, though I doubt he gives a fuck about what is happening beyond the damage to his own ego.
Magnus grabs my breasts with his free hand, pinching them, rolling the nipples as I jerk .
“Did you suck on these? Did you feast on them, huh?”
Saul shakes his head, but I can’t tell if it’s in answer to his question, or simply him trying to deny that any of this is happening.
And my shame multiples as that memory comes back, as that awful, pathetic drunken evening stirs. I don’t even know how I got so drunk, how I ended up at his in the first place. It wasn’t like me to behave like that, it wasn’t like me to be so stupid or so reckless.
“Did you fuck this pretty mouth? Did you shove your cock down her throat?”
He doesn’t wait for a reply, instead he pulls out, forcing me up, and before I have a moment to even catch my breath, he forces my jaw open and rams his cock in. My tongue is still swollen and there isn’t enough room, but he clearly doesn’t give a fuck.
No, this is about proving his dominance, proving he’s got one up on Saul, and degrading me all at the same time.
I can taste myself.
I can taste my blood, and his precum, and all of it.
I start gagging and he groans, slamming harder so that his dick slides down past my tonsils.
“Such a good girl.” Magnus compliments, holding my face, brushing his hand over where my hair once was.
Tears are streaming down my cheeks, all I can do is take ragged breathes through my nose but each one is filled with his smell, his musk, his odour.
He starts fucking me harder, moving my head back and forward so fast I keep smashing into his pelvis.
And as he comes, he groans out as if this was the best damn blowjob of his life.
His come spurts down my throat, it hits my stomach, and I swear I’m going to wretch, but he holds me there, forcing me to deal with it, forcing me to swallow down the bile and, only when he’s certain I won’t puke, does he let me go .
I stumble back, almost falling right into Saul, and it’s a miracle that my legs manage to keep me from doing so.
But he did this, the man in front of me. He gave me up, he told them where I was. The betrayal feels so much worse than I could have imagined.
Saul drops his gaze, shaking his head. “It wasn’t… It wasn’t…”
“Wasn’t what?” I scream as I scramble to my feet. He did this. He’s responsible.
He looks up, stares right at me as if I’m a ghost and not a real person at all. “I want my silver,” he suddenly says. “I want my silver.”
He repeats it like a mantra. Like it’s supposed to mean something. Perhaps he has gone crazy, perhaps all this captivity has made him mad.
That same cold laugh rings out again.
A flash of something catches the limited light and I see as Magnus tosses some coins right at the bound man’s head.
“Here you go.” Magnus states, as though Saul can use it to buy his way out of this. “All thirty pieces.”
He’s pitiful, a snivelling, pathetic excuse for a person as he jerks in the chair. His hands flapping wildly like he’s forgotten his arms are tied down.
But any ounce of sympathy I had for him, any ounce of concern is gone.
He did this, he did this to us both.
“Kill him.” Magnus whispers the words into my ear, acting every inch like the psychotic devil on my shoulder.
I gulp. I stare wide-eyed at the man who helped destroy me.
“Kill him.” Magnus urges. “He’s the reason you’re here. He’s the reason you’ve been beaten, whipped, raped. All of it is because of him.”
Tears start to stream down Saul’s face. He’s muttering something that’s too incomprehensible to understand, but as it turns into a yell, I can make out every awful syllable and my stomach turns once more with bile.
“I loved her. I loved her. I loved her.”
He keeps saying it. Over and over.
My fists clench. My jaw tightens. I need him to stop. I need it to stop. I need everything to just shut up.
“Kill him.” Magnus says again. “Make him pay.”
I can’t think. I can’t even see. Everything seems to flip in my mind and nothing makes sense.
Nothing is logical.
“I loved her.”
My hand grips the blade, but I don’t know when the hell I got hold of a knife. Why would I be given a weapon, anyway? I stare at the metal, stare at my reflection in it. If I were smart, I would bury this deep into my stomach. I would slice my chest open and end this on my terms.
“I loved her. I loved her. I loved her.”
I snarl, shutting my eyes, raising my hands to my ears, needing those words to stop.
“Kill him.” Magnus repeats. “Prove that you are like me, prove that you are just like me. Let your hate out. Let your anger out. Fucking do it.”
I can’t. I can’t.
“You were tortured. Beaten. Raped.” Magnus states. “He did that. He ensured that would happen. He led you to the slaughter…”
Something snaps. Something twists.
I scream out, matching the high-pitched noise ringing in my head and I launch myself. My arm slices through the air, I’m slashing, cutting, butchering the man before me.
Blood covers my body, blood fills my mouth, and seeps it into every pore.
But I don’t stop .
I just keep slashing and slicing until my arm grows too heavy, until my exhaustion takes me, and I collapse into the pool of it congealing at the dead man’s feet.
My chest heaves, my breaths sound like they’re catching in my lungs.
“I loved her. I loved her. I loved her.”
I know the words are gone. I know I’ve silenced them forever and yet they keep repeating in my head, over and over.
“I loved her.”
“You didn’t love me.” I shout, even though he’s way past hearing me. “You never loved anyone but yourself. It was your ego I bruised, not your heart.”
A hand settles on my shoulder. Another grapples the blade from me before I can do anything more with it.
I deflate as I realise I’ve just missed the only real opportunity I had to escape. That Saul wasn’t the threat, Magnus was. I should have attacked him. Taken him out. Killed him first and left Saul here, while I made a run for it.
Once more, my stupidity hits me like a tidal wave.
But I had to do it.
I had to get that pain and the anger out. Saul betrayed me. He set me up, lured me in and left me to the vultures.
I’m helped to my feet. Magnus brushes the smear of blood from my eyes and, for a moment, he looks at me not with derision, or lust, but with pride.
As if I’ve done something he’s actually pleased with.
“Come,” he says, taking my arm, not giving me the opportunity to do anything but obey.
And he leads me not back to my cell, not to the room where he delights in torturing me, but up a set of stairs into what must be the main part of the house.