37. Chapter 37 #2
The axis of my world tilted, and I couldn't get the words out. I needed him, even cold, unfeeling and calculating as he was. Bound on this bed because of my lies, it was his callous comment that undid me the most.
"Don't."
"This isn't a collaboration." Ray thumped his fist on the wall.
Jonah picked up the knife and held it out. There was a tremble in his fingers.
"I know a place." His low voice flayed me.
"Please, no." My voice cracked.
They blindfolded and bundled me into a car. The drive was long, and I listed to the side, my forehead cracking against the window.
"Don't get marks on Betty, please," Ray snapped.
"Where are we going?" I kept the tremor out of my voice.
"You'll see."
I had enough time to stew in my regrets. My hands were tied, and so was I.
My ass was asleep by the time Ray and Jonah got out of the car. Beck shifted next to me.
"What are you hiding from me, Little Liar?"
"Trust me," I begged, rather than lie again. The blindfold was wet against my eyes.
He had a plan. That was all this was. He wouldn't really let them put me somewhere I couldn't breathe. I focused on taking deep breaths and settling the fire of adrenaline in my veins.
Ray pulled me out, and his hand squeezed my arm so tight I stumbled. He whipped off the blindfold, and I blinked against the darkness. Jonah held a torch and shone it into a hole in the ground. There was a shadow of a building behind him.
"Where are we?" I coughed.
"This is where the Orazios are buried." Jonah shone the torch over headstones in the distance, including the fresher one for Antoni Orazio. The air smelled of fresh-tilled soil.
A chill froze my spine. I chanced a look at Beck, who brought his arms up above his head and swung them down until the zip ties broke.
"Don't move, Beck. We're not done with you," Jonah warned, pulling out his gun.
Ray shuffled me closer to the lip of the grave, and Beck did nothing.
"Please don't do this. You don't understand…"
Ray brushed my hair back and made a soothing noise. Incongruous with his coal-black eyes.
"Are you scared, baby?"
"Can't we talk? Please." Fear gripped me from the shadows, and I couldn't speak further, but I mouthed my distress, keening with frantic terror. It made no difference.
"The time for talking is past." Ray pulled out his knife.
"Wait, wait." My beg cut through the dark. Ray sliced through my ties and clenched his jaw.
"I really loved you, you know."
My heart clenched, and I reached forward and snatched the knife. It shook in my sweaty grip.
"Not as much as I love you." It was on the tip of my tongue to spill all my secrets.
I wanted it to be a balm over the shadows carved into their faces.
"Don't do something stupid," Jonah warned.
I lifted the blade and turned it toward myself. The dark hole flickered at the edge of my vision. I couldn't let them put me in there. I might not come out sane.
"There is nothing you can say to make us believe you, Lara, Lyra, fucking liar." Ray snatched my wrist. "You'd have to cut your tongue out."
"What about a compromise?" My lungs burned as I poked out my tongue.
The blade was sharp, and it burned as I carved three lines in the flesh. Tears dripped from my jaw. I was desperate and not thinking straight. They wanted my blood. I'd give them a taste, wishing I could fit their hand between my ribs to hold my heart.
Lies tainted my tongue, but the scarred organ in my chest thumped with honesty.
"Put her in. Maybe it'll encourage her to be truthful for once." Jonah scoffed, and his cruelty cut me deep because I understood where it came from.
The tear in his heart wouldn't accept anything less than my ruin. They all craved it, even Beck. Ray's hold tightened around my wrist. He flicked a look at the knife clutched in my limp hand. I didn't want to hurt them any more than I already had.
"Don't fight." Beck clicked his tongue, waiting patiently beside the dark hole.
He didn't feel terror, so he sat almost lazily while Jonah paced around him. His nonchalance choked the fight out of my lungs. The cuts on my tongue burned like blisters.
"Are you going to let them do this?"
"You have secrets. The dark will root them out, Little Liar."
Beck tilted his head, searching for a reaction he wouldn't find. A desperate sob clawed at my throat, but I swallowed it. It scraped all the way to my stomach and simmered.
"Why? Why are you doing this?"
"I didn't think you'd love them. I never thought you'd actually want to keep them." Beck flicked a furious look at Ray and Jonah.
Anger surged, rough in my veins. "If you can't have me, no one can? Is that what this is?"
He tilted his head, and I truly saw how deep the dark nothingness went in him. "They have people who love them." He waved dismissively in Ray and Jonah's direction. "I only have you."
"Not anymore. You're a monster."
His lips flattened and he paused, but he shook his head. "I warned you. You're mine forever, Little Liar."
"Little Liar, how perfect, he really knows you best," Ray spat through gritted teeth, and he snatched the knife. He tossed it to the side with a grunt.
"Enough. Put her in the goddamn hole," Jonah kicked up a spray of dirt.
My vision turned to pinpricks as they hauled me up, and I fought until my heart raced and pulse whooshed.
But it made no difference. Ray shoved me into the coffin-shaped hole.
I didn't have time to brace, and the ground rushed up to meet me.
My skull bounced off the dirt, and my frantic thoughts rattled like rocks.
The tiny gashes on my arms blistered with sharp heat.
But it was the dwindling light that stole any semblance of logic from me.
Like an eclipse of ruin. I whimpered as Jonah and Ray taunted from above.
The jagged lacerations on my tongue made it sound like a gurgle.
"Enjoy being in the dark, Lara."
"We'll come back soon, see if you're ready to talk."
I didn't know who spoke. Their voices draped on me like spiderwebs.
Trapped.
Stuck.
The air in my lungs turned thick, and I panted in the near darkness.
For the second time in my life, I found myself in a dark space, with no way of escaping.
The earthy was dry, and dust clawed its way inside my nostrils like an enemy.
I didn't want to open my mouth. Like the darkness might slip through my clamped lips and blow me up like a balloon.
I also didn't want to give the men above the satisfaction of hearing me scream.
But terror clanged around my skull, fighting for exit, tearing a path through any logical thought.
I was going to die in the dark, and they didn't even know the truth.