77. Briella
Briella
“IF I CAN’T HAVE YOU, NO ONE CAN.”
Everything hurts.
My skin feels fried. My dignity shredded.
But all I can think about is the moment Raphael and the others charged into the Circle. Part of me wants to fight Alden. But I’m exhausted. I’m burned in so many places. Sweat coats my skin. My nerve endings are shot.
And I know they’re coming. I just need to survive until they do. Keep breathing. Keep my heart beating.
My vision whirls. My stomach churns with bile.
But terror ices my veins when Alden dumps me into a too-familiar chair.
I find what little strength I can to struggle, but he locks my hands into the cold, metal cuffs on the armrests, does the same to my ankles, then cranks the lever on the side to spread me wide.
It’s the damn gynecologist’s chair. The one they used for their sick experiments. And electroshock therapy.
The air chills my naked flesh, surging ice straight to the bone.
Alden grips my jaw, and I spit right in his face. “I’m sure you must be feeling quite proud of yourself,” he says, lethal. “Reports are circulating of the main dorms burning.”
“Good, you can burn in hell with them.”
“I’ll take you with me, little Bri.” He tilts his jaw, his brown eyes like a falcon in the dive, closing in on its prey. “If I can’t have you, no one can.”
“Spoken like a sick, twisted, impotent narcissist who’s not even fit for hell.” I spit fire, biding my time. Praying they’ll rush in at any moment. “You belong in a void. An abyss where you can’t even hear your own screams.”
Alden simpers, then turns to the side, dragging a hulking machine over like it’s some long-lost lover. It’s old—steel and knobs and worn leather straps—and somehow more terrifying in its age. The rubber bit for the mouth dangles like a predator’s tongue. Wires coil like snakes at the base.
“Do you remember her?” he murmurs as he strokes the device like a pet. “She missed you.”
My blood runs cold. I do remember.
The way it felt when they strapped me down the first time. The burning in my skull. The way my limbs spasmed. The way I screamed until my vocal cords broke.
He flips a switch. The machine hums to life with a low whine that climbs slowly, maddeningly. All the blood leaves my face.
No.
“You’re looking pale, Bri,” he coos, brushing sweat-matted hair off my forehead, then gripping my breast, kneading it hard until I sob. “Don’t worry. I’m not going to erase all of you. Just the parts that don’t worship me.”
His fingers trail down my tear-stricken cheek, cruel and possessive. “The parts that still love them.”
I clench my fists, rattling the cuffs, the cold metal biting into my wrists.
“All that devotion to your sick monsters,” he hisses.
“So pathetic. They’re not gods. They’re broken men, wanted felons.
But I’m going to help you forget them.” He unzips his pants, freeing his raging erection.
“Shock by shock. Thrust by thrust. Until the only name you remember is mine. Until you curse them for the demons they are.”
He leans in, the stink of power and sweat and blood filling my lungs. “And then I’ll bring you to death. And fuck the empty shell left behind.”
The words slam into me like a battering ram. But inside me, something sharp and molten refuses to die. I force a smile through cracked lips. “You’re a coward.”
His face twitches. “What?”
“A weak, scared, little coward. You should be. You feel it, don’t you?
That tremor in your gut. That little voice screaming run.
” I let my head fall back against the headrest, breathing frantic, but smiling like I already won.
“They’re coming for me. The damned are coming. And they’ll damn you to the void.”
His eye twitches again. Just for a moment. Just enough. “I’ll kill them all,” he snarls.
“No,” I whisper, trembling but defiant. “They’ll burn you. And I’ll dance in your ashes.”
He leers down at me. “I’ll kill you first. No matter what, I win. They lose.”
He grabs the mouthpiece and jams it between my teeth, his rage barely contained. But I don’t stop staring at him.
Even as he straps it in place.
Even as the machine crackles.
Even as the sparks begin to dance from the wires.
My last thoughts aren’t fear.
They’re fire. Their faces. Their names.
Raphael. Jude. Vincent. Rory. Seth.
Come get me.
Pain. crackles through my skull like a lightning bolt from the gods.
The shock detonates behind my eyes, a sharp, electrical scream that blinds me in white. My spine bows, muscles seizing, teeth grinding against the rubber mouthpiece.
It’s not painful like a cut. It’s pain that consumes. Burning electric shocks hijack my system.
I lose control until urine leaks down my thighs. I sob around the gag. My dignity dies on the altar of his madness. Nerves fry like wires bursting into flame. My limbs shake uncontrollably. The restraints bite into my skin, but none of it matters.
Because I remember.
The arrowhead. Hidden in my braid. Twisted into the knot above my nape.
Fuck the pain.
I wrench my wrist. Dislocating it. The joint pops with a sickening snap. Agony roars up my arm. I scream behind the mouthpiece—but it works. The bone slips. The hand slides through the cuff, torn raw.
My fingers scramble into my hair. I grab the cold metal,
And I fucking stab.
The arrowhead sinks into the side of his neck. Not enough to kill him. Not the artery. But blood spurts. He staggers back, gasping, hand flying to the wound.
“Little bitch!” he snarls.
I spit the rubber bit out, gasping for air like it’s holy, and fumble with the other restraints. My limbs barely move right. The lock clicks, and I fall forward onto the cold cement.
Crawling. I don’t know where I’m going. I just know I have to get away.
But he grabs my ankle. No. He drags me back like an animal.
No no no—
He flips me onto my back. His face is streaked with blood, eyes wild. One strong hand wraps around my throat and squeezes. The room pulses. Black spots gather at the edges of my vision.
“I warned you,” he says through gritted teeth, wet with blood. “You’re mine. Mine to break. Mine to ruin now.”
The stun gun in his other hand crackles to life.
“No—”
He drives it between my legs. A white-hot bomb explodes inside me.
My scream dies in my throat. My body bucks. My legs jerk uncontrollably as if they’re not mine anymore. I can’t think, can’t breathe. The pain owns every inch of me.
I taste copper. I can’t scream anymore.
Then he flips me over. Grinds the weapon against my rear.
Not again—it fires.
I think my heart stops. I hope it stops. Please let it stop. I don’t care anymore. I need to escape the pain.
My body convulses so violently, all my stomach contents come up, and I vomit until I dry heave. I bite my tongue and taste blood. The pain is obliterating, world-ending. My brain shuts down. My lungs disappear.
Unconsciousness takes the edges.
And then—BOOM. The door slams open.
Shouting. Boots thundering. Hands rip him off me.
I hear Rory scream. Seth roars like a monster as Alden slams into the wall. “Get him off her!”
“Jude—now!”
Hands grab me, gentle this time. A warm cloth presses to my cheek. “Briella—stay with me. You’re safe. I’m here.” Jude.
My body won’t respond.
And then, mercifully—
Black.