Twenty-Four
The light of a new world explodes all around me.
I squeeze my eyes shut, trapping in my urge to scream.
My chest heaves.
My body shakes.
Varius was so fucking close to reaching me…
I don’t know what the snake was for, but I know he had a plan to get me out. I was so close to going home.
Gods-fucking-dammit!
A sob of frustration rises in my throat, but I swallow it down, then kick it to death with my will to survive. I can’t focus on close calls, on the hope dying inside of me, on the vortex of despair that just wants to drag me down. I have to block out Varius’ scream. His twisted voice of pain. How he ran so frantically, so desperately across the black landscape, trying to reach me. Trying to take me home.
My lips tremble.
I can’t focus on green grass when I’ve just been pushed back into hel. So I take a deep breath and open my eyes into a squint, the light hurting my brain.
It takes me a second to register what is in front of me…
Then I’m jerking back, my heart hammering, a horrified scream ripping out of my throat. I lunge forward in the next second, rage shoving down my disgust and pain, and I slam into the bars of the cage. “You fucking bastards!”
Everything inside of me is boiling hot, burning away even the pain of my injuries.
I can’t feel anything but a need to kill, to punish these sick fucks. “I’m going to kill you!”
Rudy is lying on the concrete floor, still ripped in half, with his intestines hanging out of his waist and with his legs not far from him. His eyes are wide and panicked, so heavy with guilt and sadness as he looks at me.
But I understand why he pulled me out of his shadows so quickly.
Why he’s already so fucking compliant.
Because they tortured other innocents to get him to break. The garage is full of severed parts and blood trails as they tried to drag themselves to safety. So much pain. So much fear...
“I’m sorry,”
Rudy signs, shaking with grief as I finally look at him. “I tried to kill myself…”
But his magic wouldn’t let him.
My heart twists in my stomach as he turns his attention back to Antonio.
“Let her go,” he signs.
So optimistic even with all the nightmares he sees.
Perhaps he has to be in order to survive.
“Put your hands on the floor,”
Antonio says, his tone flat, like he’s giving instructions over a fucking intercom.
As Eduardo heals him, Rudy spreads his arms out on the floor. Compliant because he knows there’s no way we can fight our way free. Even if he shifts into his shadows, he can’t get out of the ward. If he tries to break it, as I suspect he’s already tried, Antonio will kill the next girl, hacking her into pieces until he stops.
“Rudy,”
I rasp, my heart racing, knowing the pain he’s about to suffer.
There is only one way to contain a witch.
Most use metal gloves or a witch’s chain to bind them.
But these fucking assholes are going to cut off his hands.
They’re not going to just take his magic; they’re going to take his ability to talk.
His chance of reasoning with them. Of soothing their bursts of anger as they torture us.
Then they’re going to kill me over and over again to destroy any soul dolls Khalid tries to make of me, and I don’t want him blaming himself.
I’m an assassin.
A Black.
A Shadow.
I am strong enough to take it.
I will not be the reason Rudy breaks in this place.
“Rudy,”
I say again, clearing my throat and squatting down inside the cage.
He looks at me, his face pale.
Reaching out, I touch his arm. “It’s okay,”
I say as I look into his tear-stained eyes, letting him see I mean it. “You did the right thing.”
He shakes his head, so much guilt in his eyes. Varius would’ve held out. He would’ve listened to that their cries because he’d sacrifice everyone to save me.
But Rudy…
Sweet, beautiful Rudy can’t bear to see anything suffer.
Eduardo picks up his machete and walks over to us. The ward’s about to come down. Then they’ll separate us, torture us. I squeeze Rudy’s arm as tears clog my throat.
“It wasn’t your fault. Okay? They are the only ones to blame.”
He swallows hard as he gives the briefest nods, but he doesn’t look like he believes me. “I tried to kill myself…”
My throat tightening at the idea of him losing himself in here, I squeeze his arm again.
The shimmer in the air disappears. The electrical buzz on our skin, so faint it’s only felt in its absence, vanishes as the ward comes down.
“Don’t give up in here, Rudy. You stay alive. We’re both getting –”
I swallow down a string of profanity as Eduardo hacks off Rudy’s fingers, leaving only the thumb on his left hand. I try to tell myself this is a good thing, that they’re doing this because they want him alive and able to take care of himself, but the twisting knot in my stomach just grows.
Tightens.
Becomes a fucking tumor as Eduardo raises the machete again.
He lets it linger in the air this time.
Drawing out the anticipation.
The torturous wait.
Rudy doesn’t try to fight back at all; they’ve found his weakness, and by the gods, they’ve found mine.
The blade comes down and thwack! It slams all the way through his fingers and into the concrete floor.
Rudy looks at me, craning his neck. A tear runs down the side of his face, but he somehow still finds the strength to smile at me. To comfort me.
I’m okay, he seems to say. It’s not your fault.
But it is my fault. He wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for me.
And I wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for Varius, I think with a burst of rage.
Except...
I look at Rudy’s severed fingers. Having my magic would have made things worse for me.
I couldn’t have killed Grubs.
I couldn’t have even attempted to defend myself in the cafeteria. Antonio would’ve hacked off my fingers as soon as I’d arrived at the school.
Then there would’ve been fourteen men raping me rather than the twelve I culled them down to.
And without my fingers, without any way to actually fight back… I might’ve broken already.
My anger at Varius dwindles at those thoughts, but it doesn’t disappear completely; it sits like embers beneath my skin. Just because there is a silver lining to his torture does not make his betrayal much easier to bear.
“Open the cage, heal her, then stitch him back together,”
Antonio orders Eduardo. The witch hurries to do as he says, and although I want nothing more than to try to kill him while he’s in range, I catch the warning in the alpha’s eyes. Harm him, and I’ll kill Rudy.
I also don’t know if Varius’ brother can survive on his own like this, if his magic will grow him a new body, or if he’ll simply die when his magic runs out. It’s already taxing him greatly, most likely using up all the power he has left. So I can’t risk killing the only person who can save him.
As soon as all of the wounds on my body are healed, Antonio beckons me out of the cage.
“Let her go,”
I say, trying to give Rudy a bit of peace. To let him know that he at least saved this little girl.
Antonio walks her to the door and shows her out. Then he stands on the other side, holding the door open, and pins his gold eyes on me. Come.
It’s time for me to die.
Over and over and over again.
I glance at Rudy. “You did the right thing,”
I murmur to him. “I’m going to be fine.”
“I’m sorry,”
he mouths.
“It’s okay,”
I say. “We’re both getting out of here.”
Feeling Antonio’s growing irritation, knowing he won’t let me linger any longer, I look at Eduardo and growl, “Hurt him anymore, and I’ll find a horse’s dick to fuck that face of yours.”
He glowers at me, but he keeps his cowardly mouth shut.
Moving stiffly across the room, I walk towards Antonio.
Towards my death.
Chin up.
Head high.
Vengeance in my eyes.
I will kill you.
Just not today.