26. Chapter 26
Chapter twenty-six
Stone scraped. Chains clanged. A rasping cry filled the mildewed air.
Darkness.
Lux pushed herself to her elbows, a hammer relentlessly pounding against her skull. Had that Shield felt like this, a side effect of the potion? Or had they beaten her for the scratched eye and bruised shin?
Her throat was parched, her back sent painful spasms of molten heat through her core with every breath, yet she forced herself to sit, resting gingerly against the crumbling stone.
She couldn’t see anything. Perhaps a faint outline of her hand in front of her face? She wasn’t sure. It hurt to open her eyes anyway and she let them slide closed as she focused on the rest of her body instead.
Aside from her back and head, the only thing that irritated her now were her cracked and swollen lips. Lux fantasized of a cool drink of water, imagined it sliding past them, down her aching throat.
What was he thinking? Doing this to her? She glared beneath closed lids. She would demand to speak with the mayor. Pound on the door until they obeyed. Though first, she would have to find the door. No—first she would have to convince her muscles to support her. They didn’t appear in a very amiable mood right now.
Lux unclenched her fists, her chest tightening instead with a familiar ache. “Help me.” The whisper didn’t leave her side, blanketed by stagnant air.
A key scraped and clicked within a lock from somewhere in the distance, and she opened one eye as yellow light crawled through the widening crack. It flooded the space, the door pushed wide, only to be shuttered behind the form of a man.
“Sleep well?”
The familiar voice sent ice skittering over her skin. She shut him out, retreating once more into the dark. She couldn’t fight him. She could barely move.
“I didn’t take you for the type to give up so easily. I’m disappointed. I like the ones that fight the best.” The voice was closer now and her eyelids twitched. A rough hand cupped her cheek, a cold finger running across her bloodied lip. “Pity.”
His hands moved beneath her arms as he hauled her up. Her legs buckled, but when he held fast, she felt her muscles begin to obey. At last, they ceased their spasms and supported her weight.
“If you can’t walk, I’ll throw you over my shoulder. Your choice.” The voice slid into her ear, and she staggered forward. His oily laugh echoed against stone walls, and he let her go.
Lux squinted against the lantern shining through the narrow doorway, but she didn’t look away. One. Two. Three. She counted her steps. Just one more. Just one more after that. Her back screamed at her to fall to the filthy ground and cease these repetitive, worthless movements, but she couldn’t heed it.
Not when she could feel the beast’s breath against her neck.
Triumphant light caressed her skin at the same moment a gloved hand clamped down on her arm, forcing her to follow its ascent to hardened features, reddened gouges along one cheek. He smiled beneath a bandaged eye.
“This way, girl.”
The brick tunnel loomed. The shadows created from the lantern-light twisted the length of it, making it bend and warp. Or perhaps that was simply a lasting effect of the potion. She allowed the uniformed man to lead her forward, taking shallow breaths against the pain.
“You’re awful quiet. Head hurt? I’ve been there myself.” His hand came up to squeeze behind her ears, and she gasped. He laughed again. “You know, you probably deserve this more than anyone I’ve done this to. For some time anyway.” He shrugged, enjoying the sound of his own voice. “The mayor won’t mind. If fact, he’ll thank me. He’ll thank me for breaking you, just a bit.”
Lux trudged on.
She questioned what Shaw had said. She didn’t hear any—
Screams. They ricocheted through the air, pummeling into her, and her heart flew into a wild pattern. Guttural. Agonized. Tortured. Then, light. It beckoned ahead, calling to her with a false sense of hope.
For once, she yearned for the darkness instead.
The Shield pushed through double doors where the resulting brightness blinded her. Her head pounded harder. Vomit threatened its way up her throat.
Though it wasn’t her pain this time that caused it.
A bone-chilling scream filled her ears again, and Lux couldn’t look away from him. The man strapped to the table. So much white: the table, the sheet, the surgeon’s coat, the linens he used to sop away pooling blood.
“The body has always intrigued the mayor. He used to use cadavers, but we’ve found a better method. It loosens most tongues. If they survive, that is.” A low chuckle filled the air between them, and when an exceptionally large clot of crimson fell to the stone with a splat, Lux emptied her stomach along with it until she wheezed. Tears tumbled down her cheeks.
The surgeon glanced up from behind a blood-splattered white mask, only to resume his work as if she didn’t exist. The prisoner appeared to have passed out. Either that or he’d died from shock. With blurred eyes, Lux watched a scalpel slice deeper into his insides.
Her feet grew roots as the guard at her side rocked on his heels. Eager. The surgeon crudely stitched the man’s abdomen closed, a thick needle and even thicker suture. Once complete, he reached forward. Felt for a pulse at the neck.
He didn’t find it. But his eyes did find Lux’s. They creased at their corners.
Tossing off blood-soaked gloves, the surgeon strode to a table, selecting a vial. Moving back to the body, he procured a new scalpel. Longer, but thinner. It flashed beneath rows of lamplight.
Peeled back eyelids revealed fixed pupils, staring forever upward. Lux gasped, horrified, as the scalpel sliced deep into one then the other. Thin, watery liquid trickled from the wound. The surgeon waited for it to slow and then pressed a vial to the incision.
The Shield dragged her around, hauling her into another room. One much darker, but much less terrifying. For Lux knew she didn’t imagine the gleam of silver as a thick substance oozed from the body.
The mayor had, indeed, learned to harvest lifeblood.
And so had Shaw.