Chapter 25 ution
“F uck!”
I desperately search the door for any areas of weakness, my strongest coils sweeping out and over the seams. They attempt to grip and pull, but the door isn’t budging and I realise this is ultimately a dead end.
Until the door begins to open, swinging with a hard clash against the wall, and I come face to chest with a guard clad in black tactical gear.
“Secure the prisoners, use any force necessary,” he orders and a flood of guards enter.
One instantly reaches for the girl, but before he touches her, my power surrounds her, pulling her back with me down the corridor.
“Run!” I shout. Her eyes locked with mine. She hesitates for a second and I consider putting power into the word but when my eyes change, she quickly turns and sprints down the corridor and away from me.
I turn back to the guards. There’s three in the hallway with me and I have no idea how many are behind. My power coils out around me, they’re barely formed, fragile mists, but they’re there.
“There’s two guards unconscious back there, do you know what they’ve been doing down here?” I direct at the guards. Their faces are hidden behind visors and their bodies are tense. “I’m sure you do, but, clearly, you don’t give a shit, right?”
“Prisoner, lay face down on the floor or you will be detained by force.”
“They’ve been assaulting her and who knows what else, are you fucking listening?” My anger seeps out, tinging the words and causing the red lights to flicker. “She’s just a kid!”
“Prisoner is resisting, use force to detain.”
The second they step forward, my power coils around the closest guards and flings them into the ceiling. Their bodies crash back down instantly with loud groans.
“Take me and the girl somewhere else, another prison, let me speak to the Council!” I shout, watching more guards entering, seeing those on the ground and stepping tentatively towards me. “Get the enforcers for fuck's sake!”
When I say that, the first guard, the one at the door, steps forward. He’s large, domineering and his power pulses from him in thick waves. “We follow Lord Prospero’s orders; he has ordered that you remain detained until your execution tomorrow morning.”
Execution.
“My execution… Tomorrow morning…” I repeat the words in a murmur. I expected to be severely punished but I somehow thought I could—that maybe it would… the word ‘execution’ makes my entire body freeze.
“No one will help you here,” he states, the words final as an invisible force wraps around my throat.
My coils hit out at the guards running towards me, flinging them into the glass walls causing prisoners to silently cheer, but the grip around my throat intensifies and soon, there’s one constricting my chest too.
I fight the darkness encroaching my vision but my lungs are beginning to burn and my coils, eventually, fail me.
I’m slammed into the ground. I feel my lip split from the impact and blood trickles over my chin.
The guards take ‘use force’ to the nth degree.
With his invisible hold still around my throat and chest, I'm shackled to the ground. Then I’m being lifted, turned and slammed into the floor again. The little air I had in my lungs forced out by the hard impact and the back of my head slams into the ground. My teeth clatter and bite my tongue. Hot blood instantly pools in my mouth and I gargle, choking, as a storm of blows begin.
Ribs, stomach, chest, all the vital organs being targeted by kick after kick, a few punches to my head that I try to fend with the small coils I still have. Normally, I'd have them all on the floor pleading for mercy, but I'd used too much of my injured power too soon and that word was still permeating all thoughts.
Execution.
The pain is excruciating, almost similar to that of the barrier’s burn, but it's also familiar.
I'd never received a beating like this in the five years I remembered, but my body seemed to. It flinched and coiled, predicting what would come next. I had some combat training to become security at 'The Inferno', but nothing that would prepare me for this onslaught from trained, armoured guards.
When I think the pain can't get any worse, when blind spots float across my eyes, something sharp is jabbed into my spine and my coils of inky mist evaporate all at once .
"Enough, her power will be subdued until the execution but we're not taking any more risks. I want her confined, tied and collared." His voice is just an echo now, I'm barely conscious as I feel myself being dragged down the corridor, the smearing of my blood contaminating the once yellowy floor.
I'm dead weight as the guards drop me to the ground of my cell, pieces of bed frame still scattered. The two unconscious shifters removed.
I watch, unable to move, barely breathing, as they bring in chains, cuffs and an item I don't instantly recognise.
They waste no time threading the chain through a small, metal hook in the ceiling, something I hadn't even noticed when I first entered, it made sense now. My arms are pulled tight above my head, I think my shoulder dislocates but the pain is mind numbing now.
I'm dissociating but fight to remain present.
I feel something being wrapped around my wrists, my stomach, my ankles, a heavy weight which pulls on my wrists and makes the throbbing of my shoulder explode but I can't even scream in this state.
Then, a guard kneels before me, his gloved hands holding a new object. A large, metal circle with a heavy hinge. He slowly leans forward, my sluggish gaze watches as he opens the object and places it around my throat.
When it clicks into place, there's a moment of tension, the guards all pause, then spike, after spike, after spike pierces through my throat. With my remaining strength, I pull at the chains confining me and attempt to scream.
The second my lungs fill with air, the spikes elongate and the pain stops me from breathing.
"If you try to make a sound, even a whisper, this will sever your vocal cords," someone says, as darkness covers my vision in the physical form of a thick cloth that smells of mould and blood.
“Sir, at this rate, the prisoner will bleed out before the morning.”
“It can’t be helped, she attacked two of our own, nearly killed them.” There’s a soft hum of agreement, someone even laughs, and with that, I hear footsteps leaving the cell.
Something slots into place. Then there's silence.
Utterly deprived of all my senses, I hang. Bloody and raw.
There's so much pain in so many places I can't form logical thoughts, the fiery fluid running through my veins numbing almost everything now, except the pain .
This can't be it. This can't be how I die. Hung up like a scrap of meat waiting for a butcher.
But I have nothing. No power. No strength. No one.
Who knows how long I hang here but at some point, my desperation reaches new limits. If this was it, if this was really how I would live my last few moments on earth, I had to try something, anything .
They’d all be so disappointed if I didn’t at least try.
I could almost picture Alexis’ face in that moment. Her wide, lilac gaze searching mine, her brows furrowed angrily as threats roll from her tongue about how if I died here, she’d find me in the afterlife and nag me for eternity. It almost makes me smile.
I try to take a deep breath but feel the spikes humming in preparation to move deeper and stop. Instead, I try to ground myself. I focus upon the feel of my scrapped knees skimming the floor, my nails digging into my palm, the metallic tang swimming in my mouth, the sound of my dripping blood.
I try to remember how I did it that night. At the club.
How I called to them.
I try. My Goddess , do I try.
Mentally, I ask, scream, beg, cry. I say so many things in those minutes I don’t even realise I’m crying until the sound of my dripping blood is added to by tears.
Nothing.
This cell, my restraints, the poison running through my veins, has completely cut me off from everything.
Everyone.
Even them.
I’m truly alone.
An empath’s nightmare finally come true. This isn’t like the last time, trapped in my room, this is true loneliness.
Hopelessness.
Nothingness.
A desperate, numbing, deadly cold cycle which adds to the tears falling.
I’m begging anyone now, anything that can hear me, to end this. To end the pain. I’d rather be killed at the hands of Ezekial than be left like this. At least I wouldn’t be alone.
End it.
But the dripping of my blood and tears is the only thing I hear.
Please. End this.
My tears eventually stop. Time has continued.
I hang .
I’m numb to any emotions now, but the blood continues.
Slow, steady drips which I count. Each drop louder than the rest, louder and louder and louder.
Louder.
Please.
Louder.
Please, help me.
Louder.
I'm sorry.