Chapter 53
CHAPTER FIFTY-THREE
ROWAN
I lost my voice fifteen minutes into being sliced apart. All the screaming caused my throat to become raw and sore. Now raspy cries and weak groans are the only noise I can make. Braum and Vick keep it up long after I can’t.
My ability to fight ebbed away after another fifteen minutes into the gleeful mutilation of my face. The pain made me violently sick and too weak to fight. Not that my fighting consisted of much. With my arms bound and trapped in a fucking straitjacket, I was pretty limited.
And I lost consciousness within ten minutes of these two fucked up doctors stitching my flesh back together with a needle and thread.
In the depth of the dark abyss I float in, I swear I can hear Everly’s voice calling to me. Begging me to help her. The volume of her screams makes it sound like she’s right beside me. More than anything, I wish I could help her. She finally needs me, and I’m failing her by lying here, helpless.
It can’t be long after passing out that I come to. As the room comes back into focus, I find the two masked doctors getting to their feet, my blood still glistening on their gloves. My face feels funny. Swollen for sure. But also tight and uncomfortable.
They started cutting from my upper right temple, slashing diagonally down my face to the bottom of my jawline on the left.
They cut my brow, the bridge of my nose, my cheek, and my lips.
The slice was so deep I could feel the cartilage in my nose falling open.
They repeated the motion, starting at my left temple and slicing diagonally the other way, creating a massive, thick X.
From there, they proceeded to make cuts haphazardly all over my face.
Some deep, others shallow. A few were made in a straight line, others were jagged zigzags.
I can’t conceive how someone could go through as much pain as I did and still live.
These doctors went out of their way to make me look monstrous.
Braum’s father was right. I wish they’d have just chopped off my fucking head rather than leave me like this.
I don’t need a mirror, I can feel the disfigurement of my face.
My perfect fucking face isn’t perfect anymore.
There wouldn’t be enough plastic surgery in the world to fix something this horrendous.
Any chance at getting a modeling gig after this has been shot.
My looks are gone. My career is down the drain, but crumbling pieces of my life don’t just stop there.
The items I’ve been so proudly hoarding—the pieces that make up The Collection—are probably gone now too, already set ablaze in the middle of campus.
I don’t even have my room to go back to—I’ve been banished from Barrington Regal House.
Hell, even my court would take one look at me and my situation and scatter to the wind, leaving me to suffer in isolation.
Even with all that stacked together, there’s something far worse I have to accept.
The devastation currently taking root in my psyche intensifies when my thoughts turn to Everly. If I ever see her again, she’ll have to see me like this. Bile climbs up my throat. How could I ever expect her to look at me and want me? Who can love a monster?
The skin between my shoulder blades twitches as the itch that’s been incessant since I first woke up in this wretched room tries to take precedence. Everly. Even in this fucking state, I crave her. I need her. But like this, I’ll surely never have her.
The itching intensifies.
Lost in a fog of pain, I can only stare as one doctor reaches into his jacket pocket and pulls out a syringe.
“What the fuck is that?! What are you going to give him?” Braum demands. “Tell me!”
I’m surprised when the doctor answers.
“It’s a shot of antibiotics. He’ll need another one in twelve hours,” he says. It’s the first time either one of them has spoken to us—not that I care. “This should keep any bacteria from festering and spreading for now.”
He bends down and shoots it into my arm. The liquid is strangely cold despite having been in his pocket for who knows how long.
“That’s it, you're done?” Vick rumbles.
“We’re done with him ,” the second doctor says with a snicker. “Now it’s?—”’
The roar that erupts sounds like it belongs to something demonic.
The sound is so jarring, it drags me out of the fog of pain.
My head jerks up off the ground in time to see Vick get to his feet—his straitjacket falling to the ground in pieces.
His arms and neck are bulging with muscles, and vein pops from beneath his skin from the strain.
Whoever found us mid-orgy must’ve shoved our clothes back on because Vick’s wearing his outfit from earlier this evening, though now it seems tight as his body appears to swell in size.
With a crazed look in his eyes, Vick charges toward me.
No, not me—the two masked doctors. They hardly have time to scrabble back before he descends upon them.
He grabs the face of one, pulls the doctor into his body, then spins him around.
His arms come around the doctor’s neck and without hesitation, he snaps it.
The motion is so smooth I would bet money he’s killed someone like this before.
Vick’s moving before the first body even hits the floor.
The second doctor screams as he scrambles toward the door.
Before the man can lift his hand and knock frantically against it, Vick jumps him.
He grabs the back of the man’s head and slams it into the door.
He does this over and over, not holding back as he uses all his strength.
The man’s face is caved in and unrecognizable by the time Vick lets go of him.
I’d gasp, but my upper lip is stitched weird, making it uncomfortable to move my mouth much. Instead, I just stare at the bodies around us.
“Damn it, Vick!” Braum shouts, his voice unsteady. “When did you realize you could break out of your jacket?”
Vick doesn’t turn to face us. His shoulders heave as he breathes heavily, staring down at the dead man before him.
“Ten minutes ago,” he growls after a moment.
Braum sputters before he manages to get out, “Then why didn't you think to step in sooner?!”
The sound Vick makes sends a chill down my spine.
It’s a type of displeased growl that belongs to a predator.
If I wasn’t already terrified of facing reality looking like a monster, I’d be afraid of the monster standing before us.
Vick turns around slowly. The tension in his body doesn’t lessen as he faces us.
His eyes slide over me—his pupils so blown there’s no color left.
When he’s done his inspection, Vick’s mouth pulls up on one side in a wicked looking sneer.
“Why would I do that?” He asks, his voice deep and gravelly. “I like the way they’ve made Rowan’s outsides look like his insides.”
I flinch as my heart sinks further in my chest. My eyes drop back down to the floor as defeat weighs down on me.
“What the fuck is wrong with you?” Braum demands, clearly not reading the danger in the room. “You should’ve helped him sooner, then maybe we could’ve figured a way out of this room faster. We need to get to Everly before?—”
“If I had acted sooner, those stitches would’ve been incomplete and he’d be without any antibiotics,” Vick cuts Braum off coldly as he turns his hateful glare toward him.
“And while I don’t give a shit if he dies, Everly would.
So shut the fuck up, unless you can tell us how to get the fuck out of here. ”
It hurts to cringe, the stitches pull painfully at the ruined flesh.
“It doesn’t matter,” I mutter, closing my eyes. “I-I can’t leave this room—I’m too hideous. Just fucking kill me.”
Vick huffs as he turns back to the door. “Your pity party is going to have to wait until a more appropriate time, Rowan.”
Pity party ? It’s easy for him to say. He wasn’t just fucking tortured.
“Help me get out of my jacket,” Braum snaps. “I have an idea how to get out of the room.”
“Then tell me,” Vick demands. His hands skim over the door frame, as if searching for a key or a weak point.
Braum’s growl isn’t nearly as impressive as Vick’s. He’s too refined to properly debase himself to make a sound like that.
“Not until you free me,” Braum counters. “You’re not getting out of here without us.”
“I’d come back,” Vick promises mockingly. “If only to show Everly you two were still alive.”
I can’t help it, I chuckle. The lightness of the sound doesn’t reflect the grimness that spurs it on.
How did Braum and I end up here? With our fate in the hands of the madman we tormented for nearly two years.
If I didn’t know better, I’d say this was karma.
I open my eyes to stare at the man I’ve hated for so long.
“I wouldn’t want you to come back,” I rasp. “Everly wouldn’t want to see me anyway. Not like this.”
The itch beneath my skin begins to overpower the pain in my face at the idea of remaining behind and not getting to hold Everly again. I shift slightly, wiggling like a dying worm on the ground, unable to scratch any other way.
“I’m pretty sure Everly’s the only person in the world right now that could look at your face and not throw up,” Vick snaps. “I know I’m having a hard time keeping my last meal down.”
“Enough of this!” Braum shouts. “Everly needs all three of us right now, so stop fucking playing around, Vick, and get over here to help me out of this thing.”
With a heavy sigh, Vick actually turns and walks over to Braum.
I close my eyes as he works to get Braum’s jacket off.
When they’re done, both are suddenly over me.
My eyes flutter back open as their shadows descend.
I grunt as Vick grabs the front of my straitjacket and forces me to sit upright.
When my chin drops to my chest, I can see blood— my blood—has soaked the front of the white material.
Braum moves behind me and works on the buckles to release me.