25. Toothless Venom
25
TOOTHLESS VENOM
RIOT
My mind is not Krypt’s. It’s not a vault, impenetrable and fortified. It’s weak, full of insecurities and buttons that are easily pushed when my authority is questioned. It’s a burning pit of shame. Knowing I’m here, captured and useless, is the biggest letdown of my life. What will the boys think? What will Director say? I told you so. I can almost hear him laughing at me.
But Soren got out. So I smile to myself, knowing I’ll at least be his hero. He’ll fucking remember me now, long after I’m dead, eternally suffering through his gratitude for my sacrifice. The thought makes me smile wider, knowing he’ll hate me for it as much as he’ll thank me for it. Well, fuck you, sweetheart. If I can’t be there to taunt you in the flesh, let my actions taunt you forever.
“Why get it?” the man who has been with me since yesterday asks, nodding at my naked body. “A tattoo that signifies exactly who you are. Seems stupid to me.”
I won’t go out silently. I’m not a ghost, and I really do love the sound of my own voice, so as long as I have the wherewithal to use it, I will. “You’d get it if you knew what it was like to be a part of something. You fucks are all just brainwashed, inbred fools. Following the big guy’s lead just because he told ya to. Fucking rats in a lab, man.”
The back of his hand cracks across my face. It stings like a bitch, but I laugh harder, spitting blood at his feet. “Sore spot?” I ask, licking my bloody lips, wishing I could still taste Soren there. “It’s alright. You can admit it to me. I won’t tell anyone.”
I’m naked, hanging from a chain attached to the ceiling. My arms are above my head, long gone numb, and my toes are barely touching the ground. It’s not as fun to hang when Soren isn’t around to be beautiful while dying. They’ve asked and asked questions, but I’ve managed to keep my replies sarcastic and witty despite how dark my mind is turning. The torture methods will intensify soon, so I might as well have my fun while I still can.
“Riot,” he reads my name from the base of my tattoo, walking a circle around my body. “You pick it because it sounded cool?”
“Earned it because of who I fucking am.” I grin wide. “Imma call you Puppy.”
“Why?” he indulges me.
“Because you pace around in a damn circle like a dog trying to find a comfy position to sleep.” I cough, spitting more blood. “We getting on with this, or do you just like staring at me naked?”
His smile is almost as cocky as mine, far less charming, though. “Very well.” He releases the chain holding me up, giving me enough slack to stand properly. My ankles haven’t held my weight for the better part of a day, so they give out as soon as I plant my feet on the ground. The man catches me, sliding a wooden chair behind me and pushing me to sit on it. Breathing a little harder, I shake my head to relieve the dizzy spell, trying not to show how badly my arms hurt as the blood rushes through them.
“Ever been tortured before?” he asks as a second man wheels in a trolley of goodies. “Something tells me you have.”
I have in training, but I’m still scared. I slap a smile on my face and admire all his tools. “Oh, that one looks fun. What’s it do?”
He picks up a pair of long tongs, snapping them in front of my face. “Just a basic pair of surgical tongs. They’re usually used up the nose, down the throat, or, in your case, on the teeth.”
Fucking awesome. Just what I need, a few dental extractions. This’ll be fun. “Don’t fuck up my face, man. It’s my panty dropper.”
“I’m sure it is.” He nods, snapping the tongs again. “Who were you working with?”
“Not a very good team player. I work alone.”
“Where is your partner?”
“My fuck buddy, you mean? Probably back home, fucking someone else.” The thought brings a bit of jealousy to my mind, fortifying some of my strength.
“Your work partner. Where is the blond man in the blazer?”
Hopefully back in Moros resenting me for saving him. “I’d never work with a guy in a blazer.”
“Why are you in our city? What did you come here for?”
“Took the tour. Nice place ya have here if dictatorship and a bunch of sheep are your thing. Though, I gotta say, not near enough nightclubs.”
“Or cemeteries,” he adds, proving he knows all about Moros.
“Exactly.” I wink at him. “Cemeteries are fun.”
From behind, my head is strapped to the back of the tall chair, and I’m so out of it that I didn’t even realize someone else was here. A second later, as I’m struggling, a device enters my mouth, and I scream through the pain when it’s cranked open, forcing my mouth wide.
“These are fun, too,” he says, snapping the tongs one more time.
I’m pinned back as they enter my mouth. I’m afraid. I like pain, but not this kind of pain. I don’t want him to see my fear, so I close my eyes and breathe through my nose, reminding myself that it’s worth it. Soren got out. Soren got out. Soren got out. I’m the hero of his life. That’s all I need to know.
“We’ll start with the back ones. They bleed the most.”
I shake all over when the tongs scrape against my molars, and I hyperventilate as anticipation builds. Squeezing my eyes closed, I recall the way it felt to kiss Soren yesterday. Timid and soft and vulnerable, I just had to fucking kiss him one last time, and I’ve never been so grateful that I gave in to my impulse. He kissed me back so hesitantly, so sweetly, I never thought him capable of it.
I scream and feel my eyes roll back, head buzzing and dizzy when he yanks a tooth out. Blood fills my mouth and drips down my throat, my eyes doing the same down my cheeks. Breathing hurts, the air too much for my exposed nerves, and my body wobbles on the chair, light-headedness abrupt and overwhelming. When he removes the device keeping my mouth open, my jaw already aches as it closes.
I force myself to laugh, despite how weak and pathetic it comes out. “Thanks. Been having trouble with that tooth.” My words are slurred and garbled by blood and pain, but they’re audible, and that’s all that matters.
“You’re welcome,” he says calmly, setting down the tongs. His smile is as pretty as Axel’s, but his face is nowhere near as ethereal and defined. He’s a rugged man with a soft voice, deceptive because of how he looks and sounds. His timbre doesn’t match his rigidity, and his smile doesn’t match his morals. Maybe we have that in common. “Anything else giving you trouble, Riot?” he asks. “I’m more than willing to play doctor.”
Blood floods down my chin when the strap releases and my head falls forward, the dizziness slowly fading. “Fit as a fiddle.”
“Hmm,” he muses, pulling up a second chair to sit in front of me. “What did you steal?”
“My pockets were empty, weren’t they?”
“Indeed. Who were you working with?”
“Lone wolf.”
“Do you have a diagnosis?” he asks instead.
“ASPD, I’m told, but doesn’t always fit now, does it?” I swallow blood and wince when I press my tongue to the hollow in my mouth.
“How so? Your superiority is showing even now, despite how inferior you currently are.”
My superiority will always show because that’s who I am, but I did something selfless when I’m notoriously selfish. Sure, I did it to have something to hold over Soren for the rest of his life, but I still did it. Psych told me that I’m manipulative because I have a gnawing need to always get my way, no matter the consequences or morality of it, but when I took the fall to let Soren escape, it didn’t feel manipulative. It felt right, and I’ve never had a good sense of right and wrong.
“I’m still superior,” I tell him through ragged breaths. “You think you’re gonna get something out of me, but all it’ll accomplish is wasted time. Which means I’ll still win, even if you kill me. Might as well get it out of the way now so you can go back to your suburban lifestyle under your Reaper Corp rule. Fucking pathetic, all of you. You know you have no power in this place, right?”
“Power comes from where we wield it,” he says. “And I’m currently wielding it over you, so I do, in fact, have power.”
When I clench my jaw, my mouth sings out in pain. “Good luck holding onto it.” This is all just a new game. One where he’ll try to get me to crack, and I’ll win by resisting him. I might not have my brother’s vault-like mind, but I do have a god complex that refuses to let another man get the better of me. If I can live through torture, it’ll give me one more thing to brag about.
Sounds almost perfect.
* * *
Not so perfect anymore.
I’m down three more teeth, lost a few fingernails, and my lungs gurgle every time I try to use them, full of water that hurts to cough up. My eyes don’t see much anymore, and my bodily functions are no longer under my control. But the worst part is my mind.
It’s gone.
Not because he’s broken it, but because he poisoned it. Somewhere between the loss of the third tooth and the slices all over my chest and back, he placed something on my tongue. The taste of it barely registered through all the blood, but it didn’t take long for my mind to wander off, hallucinating a whole world that scares the fuck out of me. The music is so loud and the lights are so bright that I can’t even escape into my mind, and my eyes are being pried open by a device I already ripped out once and regretted immediately.
“How’s the zoo?” Leigh, the girl from the plane, asks.
Her tutu is black now, but she’s wearing rainbow unicorn ears and a horn, king cobras tattooed all over her tiny body. Her eyes are three times as big as they were the first time I saw her, but she’s still the same curious kid.
“I think I’m one of the animals,” I tell her.
“Which one? A velociraptor?”
This isn’t a dinosaur zoo, but I wish it was. At least a raptor would kill me faster. “An ostrich. Head’s all buried in the sand.”
“Well, pull it out,” Leigh says. “He needs you to be alive when he gets here.”
“Who?”
“Your boyfriend. He wants to hold your hand.” Her giant eyes turn speculative, like she’s listening to something I can’t hear. “And kill you.”
“He’s not coming,” I tell her while something burns behind me. On me? The pain registers, but my mind never rights itself. I think my back is on fire. “He got out.”
Leigh laughs really hard. Almost like Soren laughs when he’s on the brink of death, except her laugh is higher-pitched and twinkly.
“What did he steal?”
I tune that voice out and watch Leigh’s cobra tattoos slither up her arms and shoulders. “Told you I’m goth.”
“Yeah.”
“Who were you working with?”
I wince at the man’s voice, knowing it doesn’t belong in my colourful world with the goth girl.
“He is coming,” she tells me, her voice visual as soundwaves. “And he’s angry. Like that scared kind of angry that makes him look like poison.”
Poison. A thought finally registers, a failsafe I actually put into place. How long has it been since I dropped that gifted vial into the water system? The Harpy has ideas, and she wanted to test them before implementing them in Moros. I smile, clearly remembering Menace slipping me the vial before we boarded the plane to Reaper City. At least I did something right.
I straighten in my… midair. There is no chair anymore. No floor or sky or walls either. Just empty space with soundwaves in colourful echoes and a goth girl covered in tattoos. “I’m the king cobra,” I tell her instead. “My bite can kill.”
“I know,” she says, looking at me like she knows what I did and is gleeful about it. “But be careful. Your hair is pretty, but it’s not king cobra pretty, so they can still chop off your head. Your poisonous bite might kill you instead.”
I frown, not liking that she doesn’t think my hair is as pretty as the cobra’s crown. I’m better looking than a fucking cobra.
“Tell me what he took, or you’ll no longer be Vile House!” The man’s words are punctuated by more burning, a scorching heat eating at my back.
“I got the tattoos,” Leigh says, showing me. “But yours are disappearing.”
“No,” I mutter, infuriated in my colourful world. My Vile House tat? Gone? Burned off? ”No!”
“Tell me what he stole, and I’ll let you keep the tattoo!” he shouts right in front of my face. But I can’t see him. All I see is Leigh as she twirls, dancing with cobras and unicorn horns.
“Lie,” Leigh says, giggling. “Lie. Lie. Lie! Buy time.”
“Your breeding program records,” my mouth says, even though Leigh’s lips are the ones moving.
There’s a pause in time. Pain goes away and my head clears, but nothing clear comes of it. Leigh waves at me like she’s going somewhere, and I reach out to stop her.
“Please, don’t go. Stay.”
“I don’t like the zoo. Too many animals in cages. You need to break out.”
“I’m trying! Help me!”
“He’ll help you. The scared angry one. He’s almost here.”
“Leigh?”
“Ostrich?”
“Show me your purple tutu. Let me see it one more time. My brother…”
Her tutu turns the purple of Krypt’s mask, and with the change comes clarity. Calmness. A visual reminder of what I have to live for. I might be selfish, egotistical, and cruel, but Krypt is an exception to all my instincts. Unfortunately, the scared, angry one is, too.
“Bite!” Leigh shouts at me. “Your venom is working!” She vanishes into the nothingness, and with her disappearance, the brightly lit room with blaring jazz music comes back.
“Breeding program records? Why?”
His hard face and pretty smile are right in front of my swollen, pried-open eyes, demanding answers to lies. Somewhere deep inside me, there remains a well of pure entitlement. I knew it never went anywhere, but I couldn’t fucking find it. Now I smile because of it. Toothless and mostly dead, I show him my bloody remaining teeth and laugh in his fucking face.
“My venom is running through your city now, asshole. Game fucking on.”
He leans back. “What? What venom.”
I hiss through the gaps in my teeth, letting my hair go wild, real king cobra style. Thanks, Leigh.