Chapter 27
Chapter Twenty-Seven
WENDY
T he pain never really faded. It dullened from sharp, eviscerating agony to a fire that made my eyes stab with tears and my ribs strain to allow a breath into my lungs, but it never left. I couldn’t track the days. I could have been here weeks. If I’d been smart I would have carved marks into the wall to track the sun’s passage across the sky, but I was consumed with rage and pain and plans, and I didn’t have space in my mind for worrying about the calendar.
Gabrielle and her silent giant had been back twice since the first day, and each time that damn prod shot a higher charge through my body. It was like she was testing how much my heart could handle before it gave out. Luckily for her—and me—my heart was fortified by rage at the thought that she’d done this to my Hook, when he was a fucking child .
I pictured him as a defenceless teenager, sold by his own father, betrayed and heartbroken and terrified. With that evil hag watching with a gleam of enjoyment as he screamed and writhed from the agony of the prod’s charge.
I was done waiting. The next time she and her giant lackey came to torment me, I would kill them both. I’d got enough information out of them, and plenty of intel from my friend in the adjacent room. I knew Aidan Eldrick ruled over the city, keeping them bound by terror and a reliance on his money. He owned most of the properties and businesses, keeping them under his iron thumb. That must be why he got away with human trafficking and torturing a whole underground network of people. The screams never really stopped. They carved through the night when I tried to sleep, and rang out all day. By my guess, there were over fifty people down here, all sold and bought for Eldrick’s collection.
And when the majority of prisoners didn’t measure up to his lofty standards, they were sold on. I didn’t know how Hook had endured this, especially so young. I didn’t know how long he’d been down here or if he’d been part of the collection. I did understand why it had hardened him into the sort of man who’d kidnap a woman every month to pay a debt he’d made in desperation. It didn’t make it okay, and I would put a stop to it. I might have exploded the monster into goop and blackened bones, but it was a god and I wasn’t stupid enough to think it was dead. But we were done sacrificing women. Hook might have been scared when he made the deal, and he’d been backed into a corner for all the years since, but he had me now. I was crazy enough to kill a god.
“What are you planning?” my adjacent neighbour asked with heavy disapproval in her voice. Our eyes locked as I peered through the bars on my door, searching the cold hallway outside for guards or my soon-to-be-dead Gabrielle. “You’ve got that sneaky look in your eye.”
“Me? Sneaky?” I faked a gasp even through the swell of pain coming from my wounds. “I’ve never heard something so preposterous in my life.”
“I’ve never heard anyone use the word preposterous in mine,” she drawled, but her eyes began to crinkle, almost in amusement. She didn’t fool me, though. She liked me. “Whatever you’re up to, keep me out of it.”
“Spoilsport,” I teased, sticking my tongue out, pretending the tiny motion of my head didn’t make my eyes water.
I tugged at the lilac monstrosity I’d been dressed in, pulling it away from the oozing welts left by the prod. I’d kill for a poultice and bandage right now. Literally kill. Maybe Gabrielle was hoping I’d succumb to infection. If so, she’d be very disappointed. I’d been a sickly child, and if infections hadn’t killed me then, they weren’t about to kill me as a fully grown, fully pissed off adult. It was a lesser known cure for most ills—anger. I’d have died a dozen times if I didn’t get so angry that something had the audacity to try and murder me.
I’d die on my own terms, dammit.
“They’re coming,” my neighbour hissed, her face disappearing from view but not before I saw fear bleach the life from her face. She thought they were coming for her. Shit, what if they didn’t come for me? What if I hadn’t done a good enough job goading Gabrielle into hating me? 1
I drew back a step, the space between my shoulder blades tingling, alarm moving up the back of my neck until I fought a shiver. Partly because shuddering hurt like a damn bitch.
I had no weapons but I’d planned for that. I’d planned for everything, I reminded myself. It was all I’d had to focus on, left alone to wallow in gnawing pain and rage at Hook’s suffering. I seethed, and cried, and plotted.
“This will work,” I whispered to myself, edging beside the door, my hands flexing, desperate for a weapon. Soon, I promised them. I was going home, or I was dying here. One of two options. I was no one’s slave, no one’s to sell, to collect. I was Wendy Darling, badass, butcher, and enforcer of the Death’s Right Hand.
“Don’t get yourself killed, girl,” I heard my friend mutter, and then a nearby doorway opened with a rough scrape and a shriek of hinges. My heart threw itself against my ribs. Showtime.
Hairs rose on my arms, every pain sharpening, my body reminding me what would befall it if I didn’t obey its scream of warning. Hell, even if I did obey, they’d stick me with that prod and pump me full of fire and pain and screams. I controlled my breathing with an iron will, my ears picking up every sound, quickening my pulse—the one thing I had no control over.
I ran through my plan three more times as footsteps scraped leisurely down the hall, two sets, both familiar. For a moment all I could smell was blood and burned skin—my own. For a moment all I could taste was copper and iron as my teeth sank into my tongue. I heard my own screams as they tore one after another from me, making me more aware of my body than I’d ever been before. I thought I knew pain before I came here, but a broken nose, bruised ribs, and snapped wrist weren’t the same as constant, methodical torture.
The same torture they put Hook through when he was young, I reminded myself. The captain was mine. Mine to hurt, to torment, to protect, and to love in equal measure.
Oh that was worrying. Did I have feelings for the bastard?
The footsteps neared, dragging me away from those thoughts and back to the present as a shiver skated down my spine. The rattle of my body hurt, piercing every wound until I had to clench my jaw to choke down a sob.
Door, wrist, prod, ribs, I reminded myself, struggling to settle my breathing as they stopped right outside. But who were they here for? Her or me?
The burn on my forearm screamed warnings as I flexed my hands, trying to clear my head, to stay focused on this moment when every torture of the last few days or weeks or years wanted to suffocate me.
Door, wrist, prod, ribs. I could do this.
I heard a key rattle, but it wasn’t in my door. I took a slow breath, biting back a groan at how much it hurt. Well, this is going to hurt worse.
Home, I reminded myself. Home or death.
“Back again, inbred?” I called through the door. “Is your daddy looking for a new plaything? We could be sisters!”
There was no sudden intake of breath, no growling reply, but my senses were so acute that I heard someone shift, probably the giant.
“Change of plans,” Gabrielle said, sending an icy rush of warning down my spine. My hindbrain screamed at me to run but there was no escape.
Every instinct I had shrieked that I was a fucking idiot and I was going to die today. I tried to tell those instincts that everything was going according to plan as footsteps scuffed the floor directly outside the door. But my heart was frantic, my breathing fast, and a cold sweat broke out on my forehead and all the way down my spine.
Every minute of their torture choked me in the split second of the key turning, the lock on my door clicking open. Pain blazed on my shoulder blades, my ribs, my back, my arms, my thighs, my chest, and it took effort to breathe when the door began to creak open.
Door, wrist, prod, ribs.
My hands started to shake, but that didn’t stop me grabbing the door the second I saw the Giant step inside and slamming it into his face hard enough to break his nose. That was the great thing about fortresses like these—heavy doors. Perfect for breaking people’s faces.
Surprised by the pain, he stumbled back, and I shot forward like an arrow, purpose forging the weak spots in my mind. I grabbed the giant’s hand and arm, and snapped his wrist with a move so practised that I could do it even when shaking and weak. The giant roared, but I’d already snatched the prod from where it fell and jammed my thumb against the on switch. How convenient that it plugged in from the hallway, firing up with a charge so powerful it could make a groan man scream the second it met his ribs.
The giant crashed to the ground, clutching his middle, little moans of pain leaving him. Shaking, adrenaline surging through my veins, I turned to Gabrielle who’d paused in the doorway to watch. Lovely of her to let me take her lackey down. She hadn’t taken a single step to help him. Probably didn’t want to break a nail.
“Big mistake,” she said with a light in her eyes that said she was going to love my suffering.
I shrugged, clenching my teeth against a dozen pains that spiked, and waved my prod at her. I’d never settled on a single plan for her—I had too many of them. But first, I wanted an answer to a question that had screamed at me since that first day.
“Did you torture a boy called Kingston?” I asked, my voice as soft as darkness. I took a step towards her, thrusting the prod downward when the giant reached for me. He fell back, howling. I got him in the eye. Oops. I’d been aiming for his hand. His screams cut off abruptly, his body slumping.
“There have been many boys,” Gabrielle replied calmly, not retreating a step even as I neared. Her appearance was as flawless as always, like a sickly child who’s grown up without sun or joy, her black dress doing her pallor no favours. “It’s impossible to keep track.”
I took another step, my anger overriding the pain for a moment as I locked eyes with her. “You’d remember this one. You took his hand.” It could have been lost during the bargain with the sea god, but instinct told me otherwise, and I watched surprise and delight flash across Gabrielle’s face, confirming my suspicions.
“So that’s the captain you keep speaking of?” She laughed, a quiet, grating sound that would star in my nightmares for years. “I didn’t take his hand, but I was there when Eldrick cut it off him. He caught the boy trying to escape. Fool.” Her smile deepened as she gloated, “There is no escaping the collection.”
“But he did, didn’t he?” And now I was the one gloating, creeping closer, my heart racing frantically. “He did escape.”
Her smile grew bigger than mine, stretching the fair skin of her cheeks, making her eyes shine unnaturally. “I wouldn’t be so smug now we have a reason for him to return.”
I blinked. And then snorted, as if pain wasn’t trying to cripple me. “You mean me? Oh, honey.” I pressed my thumb against the prod’s control, turning up the charge to full. “I’m not leverage. I’m a villain.”
I brought my left hand around in a showy, obvious punch and rage entered her face as she twisted to intercept it. Leaving her other side nice and open for the charge I punched into her body, driving every last volt through her ribs and into her body.
Her eyes widened in a caricature of shock, her mouth dropping open, and a moment later her piercing scream shattered my eardrums.
I followed her to the ground, keeping the prod against her side, my teeth gritted against the pain ravaging my own body. I was pushing myself too far, revenge and adrenaline the only thing keeping me upright. But I never moved away, and never broke eye contact.
“Here’s a tip, Gabrielle, for what little good it’ll do you now. Tie down your victims. That way they can’t steal your weapons and kill you with them.”
I watched the light leave her eyes bit by bit until all at once her face went slack, a little line of blood dribbling down her chin. Aww, did I liquefy her insides? I giggled, that sound clearing the way for every manic, hysterical laugh I’d been keeping trapped for days. Or weeks.
“Hey? Mad girl? You wanna stop laughing and let me out?”
I was laughing and crying, on the verge of screaming, but my buddy’s voice knocked me out of the meltdown. I sucked in a breath, my ribs trying to murder me for the audacity of breathing, tears on my cheeks, and composed myself through sheer will. Rage helped. Gabrielle was dead. The giant was dead. My way forward was open.
Aidan Eldrick was next.
I plundered Gabrielle’s body for the keys, hauled myself off the floor, and unlocked my friend’s door. She was taller than I expected, powerfully built with fierce biceps and a face that threatened visceral murder.
“I can’t believe you actually did it,” she muttered, shaking her head as she looked at me. “Do you even know how to use that thing?”
I lifted the prod in my hand, a rush of panic going through me. I quickly turned down the charge to a non-lethal setting. “I’ve been jabbed by it enough times to pick up a few things.”
She laughed, something about her mellowing even if she didn’t outwardly soften one bit. “I’d hug you but we’d both suffer.”
She was right. Just existing was a torture in itself. Add in breathing, walking, lifting my hands… it was a wonder I hadn’t passed out. Hugs were off the menu. 2
“I’m Wendy.” I hung the keys from my other fingers and stuck out my hand. Slowly.
She shook it, slowly, and met my eyes with a violent understanding. This was not done. We’d have to kill our way out of this place. “Laurette.”
“Nice to meet you, Laurette. Let’s kill all these fuckers, free our fellow prisoners, and go home, shall we?”
“My thoughts exactly,” she agreed, her smile sharpening.
I only realised now I said it that every time I used the word home, I wasn’t thinking of the Silver Isle. I was thinking of the Banshee.