Chapter 37 #2
The torturer watches our exchange. “Very sweet. There is a bucket in the corner if you need to vomit, sweetling.” He jerks his chin to the left without taking his eyes off me.
“You know … most prisoners who come back for revenge don’t last long.
I’ve killed three others who tracked me down, thinking they were strong enough, who believed that I hadn’t broken them. ”
“I’m not most prisoners.”
“No.” He looks at the shadows around his wrists.
“You’re not. You were different. More resilient than the others.
” His voice takes on the tone of a craftsman discussing his work.
“You were, by far, the best material I’ve ever had to work with.
The weak ones break too quickly. There’s no artistry in that. But you? You had so much potential.”
My shadows tighten around him, and his breathing hitches slightly.
Good.
I smile. “Shall we begin?”
I start with his fingernails, just as he did with mine. Shadows wrap around each finger, applying pressure to lift the nail from its bed. The first one comes free with a wet, tearing sound.
“Good technique.” His words are delivered through clenched teeth. “Though you’re rushing. You have no appreciation for the craft of torture.”
The second nail follows the first, and his jaw tightens.
“You’re going too fast. The art is in the anticipation. Make them wait between each action. Let them imagine what’s coming.”
Third finger. Fourth. Fifth. Each nail comes away with a small sound, blood welling up in the empty beds. By the seventh, sweat beads his forehead. By the tenth, his hands are shaking, but he doesn’t make any sounds of pain.
“Adequate work.” He flexes his fingers. “Though you are still holding back. I can feel it. You’re thinking too much, and not letting the anger guide you.”
Ellie mutters something under her breath about emperors and the dark side of a force, but I don’t remove my focus from what I’m doing. Instead, I reach for more shadows, and direct them to coil around the heated iron rods in the brazier.
“Ah, now we’re getting to the real art. Heat and flesh. It’s a symphony when done correctly.”
“It has nothing to do with correct techniques. Pain is pain.”
“Everything is about technique. Pain without purpose is just mindless violence. Pain with purpose is art.”
When the shadow-wrapped metal touches his chest, directly over his heart, his body arches. The smell of burning flesh fills the chamber, and finally, he screams. It tears from his throat, and bounces off the walls. The same walls that once witnessed mine.
But he recovers quickly, breathing hard but regaining control.
“Better,” he gasps when the iron pulls away, leaving a perfect circle burned into his skin. “Now you’re starting to understand. But you’re still being too careful, too gentle. You need to hold it in place for longer to achieve the full impact.”
“This isn’t about learning new skills.” I walk away and select one of the whips hanging on the wall. One he used on me, barbed and tipped with small spikes. “This is about justice.”
“Justice?” He barks a strained laugh. “Is that what you’re calling it? You’re here because you need this. Because some part of you enjoyed what happened between us, and you can’t admit it to yourself.”
“That’s not—”
“Isn’t it?” His smile turns knowing, predatory. “Why else would you bring her to watch? Why else make sure she sees exactly what you’re capable of?” He jerks his chin toward Ellie.
“She already knows what I’m capable of. She’s seen me kill before.”
“But this isn’t killing, is it? This is torture for pleasure. Admit it. You want her to see the monster you are. You want her to be afraid of you.”
“You’re wrong.”
“Am I? Then why haven’t you killed me yet?
Why are you taking your time? Why are you savoring it?
” He leans forward as much as his restraints allow.
“Because you learned from me, didn’t you?
You learned what real power feels like. Not this magic you rely on.
But the power to make someone else hurt. ”
I ignore him, and tear his shirt away fully.
The burn mark is already blistering, red and ugly against his pale skin.
I raise my arm and flick my wrist. The first lash of the whip tears across bare flesh, opening a line from shoulder to ribs.
He tries to absorb the pain, jaw clenching that hard I can hear his teeth grinding together.
“Count.” My voice comes out cool.
He glares at me, blood running down his chest, sweat dripping from his brow, but he says nothing.
“Stay silent then. I’ll do it for you. One.” I count for him, the way Sereven counted for me.
The second lash crosses the first. The barbed tips catch flesh and tear, leaving ragged wounds that will scar when they heal. He makes a sound between his teeth but quickly suppresses it.
“Two.”
The third lash opens his skin to the muscle beneath.
“You’re still being too gentle,” he manages to hiss out. “You’re holding back because she’s watching. Are you worried about what she’s going to think?”
“Three.”
“You should be worried. Sweet little things like her don’t stay once they see the truth. Once they understand what you really are. Of course, you could make her stay. Use the fear she’s going to feel to force her to kneel at your feet.”
Four.
Five.
Six.
Each lash tears deeper, blood painting abstract patterns across the walls behind him. By the tenth, he’s cursing me between strikes, his composure starting to crack. By the fifteenth, his voice breaks completely, reduced to animal sounds of pain and rage.
I pause, arm raised, to study his face. Sweat and blood mix on his skin, but his eyes still hold cruelty and intelligence. He’s still looking for a way to regain control of this situation.
“Getting tired? I can teach you how to do it properly, if you like. I keep telling you, technique matters.”
“You need to leave now, Mel’shira.” I don’t turn around.
“No!” Her footsteps move closer rather than retreat. “I said I’m not going anywhere.”
His eyes dart between us, and his expression shifts. Desperation mixes with malicious opportunity, turning into the look of a cornered animal preparing to bite.
“Do you want to know what I think? I think she’s here because she likes it. She likes watching you hurt people. She likes seeing what you become when you stop pretending to be civilized.”
I raise the whip again, but he’s not finished.
“Tell me, sweetling.” His head turns in Ellie’s direction, his voice taking on the same oily tone he used when describing his techniques to Sereven. “Does it excite you, watching him kill people with his shadows? Or watching what he’s doing now? Maybe seeing him covered in blood?”
“Careful,” I warn, shadows coiling tighter around him.
“She’s probably wet from watching you torture me. I wouldn’t be surprised if she starts touching herself while you—”
“Stop talking."
“—gets off on violence, just like you do. That’s why she’s really here. Not for justice, but because your little whore thinks she can watch—”
“I said stop talking.”
“Why? I’d love to have her in my chains.
Do you know what I’d do to her?” He licks his lips.
“I’d strip her bare. I’d brand her from the inside.
I’d make her beg for it. I bet she’d beg so prettily.
I’d carve my ownership into her skin. I’d pull out her teeth, and fix her mouth open so I could fill it whenever I wanted.
I’d chain her in the corner of my workshop, legs wide, mouth open, ready to receive whatever I—”
Shadows explode from everywhere. They slam into him with the force of a battering ram, driving him so hard against the wall that the stone cracks. His screams cut off as shadow shaped claws tear into his throat, shredding vocal cords and windpipe.
The red haze that descends is absolute. I’m not torturing him anymore, I’m destroying him. Tearing him apart with a fury that burns through me like molten metal.
My hand closes around what’s left of his throat, shadows flowing from my fingers into his flesh.
“Say it again.” My voice is barely human. “Say one more word about her.”
But he can’t. The shadows are eating him from the inside, devouring everything that made him capable of speech, of thought, of existing in the same world as her.
His eyes bulge as he chokes on his own blood. I drive my fist into his face, breaking his nose, his jaw, everything that let him speak those words about her. The shadows follow my rage, slashing deeper with every heartbeat, turning bone to powder and flesh to ribbons.
“Sacha!” A voice cuts through the roar of blood in my ears. “Sacha, stop!”
I grab his head and slam it back against the wall. Once. Twice. The crack of his skull echoes through the chamber. Again and again, until the wall is painted red and there’s nothing left to suggest it was once someone’s head.
“Sacha!” Hands grab my shoulders, pulling me back with surprising strength. “He’s dead. He’s already dead.”
But I still don’t stop. Not until the thing hanging from my shadows bears no resemblance to the man who once tortured me. Until every bone that could support the flesh hanging off it is crushed, every organ that could sustain life is destroyed.
When I finally allow myself to be pulled back, my chest is heaving. What hangs from the wall isn’t recognizable as human anymore.
“Are you back? Are you with me?” A warm hand touches my arm, and my head snaps around.
Ellie is standing there, blood spattered across her clothes and face, but her eyes are steady as she watches me. She saw all of it. Every moment of savagery, every second I lost control. Every brutal instant where I became the monster the bastard said I was.
“Sacha?” Her voice is careful, gentle.
“I’m here.” The words come out rough. I look down at my hands. They’re shaking and covered in blood up to the elbows. My clothes are soaked with it. “You should have left. You shouldn’t have seen me—”
“I saw you get justice.”
“You saw me lose control because he insulted you.” I can’t meet her eyes. The thing that was once a man drips blood onto the floor. I watch each drop splash and spread out. “You saw what I become when someone threatens you.”
“I saw you defend what matters to you.”
I force myself to face her, this woman who stood in a torture chamber and watched me tear apart another human being without flinching.
“Does it change things?” the question comes out before I can stop it.
“What do you think it changes?”
I gesture helplessly at the carnage around us. At the blood on my hands, the destroyed remains that once mocked her.
“I didn't just kill him, Ellie. I tore him apart because he dared speak about you that way. Because some part of me has been waiting for an excuse to do exactly what I just did.”
Her eyes search my face, taking in every detail of what I've become in this place.
“He tortured you for days. He's tortured countless others in this room. And when he was facing death, his first instinct was to try to hurt me to get to you.” She reaches up, her fingers tracing the line of my jaw, leaving small smears of blood on her fingers.
“I'm glad you tore him apart. I'm glad he felt every second of it.”
“You're not afraid of me?”
“I'm afraid for you.” Her voice is soft, her hands steady and warm against my face. “I'm afraid of how much pain you've carried. I'm afraid of how long you've needed this and didn't have it. But afraid of you? Never.”
“Even after seeing that?”
“Especially after seeing that.” Her hands frame my face, holding my gaze. “Do you know what I saw when you lost control?”
I shake my head.
“I saw someone who would burn the world down before letting it hurt me. I saw someone who loves me enough to become a monster for me.” Her thumbs stroke across my cheekbones. “That doesn't scare me, Sacha. That makes me feel safer than I've ever felt in my life.”