Chapter 30
“Stand down, Richmond. I’ve secured a buyer for Miss Rose.”
Maximus’s voice crackles through the air, and Richmond replies with a curt “Yes, sir.”
His warm palm flattens against my skin, the touch slick as it travels up my spine through the river of red.
“Such luck you have, whore. Just as I was about to slice the dragon from your skin, I’m pulled to heel.
” He leans in close, hot breath moving over my wounds as he speaks reverently.
“If I thought I could get away with it, I’d finish the job.
I’m damn near certain the sight of your tattooed skin dangling from between my fingers would have made you weep with despair. ”
He’s not wrong. I’m barely hanging on to consciousness, but that would have broken me. A sharp-tongued response is there, waiting to lash out, but I hold it back. At least, I think I do. I’m so far past the point of exhausted, I doubt the words would come even if I forced them.
He moves around me, bending his tall stature to my eye level as I struggle to find the energy to keep my falling eye lids open.
I may be a wallflower, but even pretty things can bite back.
Just ask Stacey Briggs. She thought she was queen shit.
That she could get away with humiliating me at the Spring Fling dance in ninth grade.
A few eye drops in her unattended morning hot chocolate sent her into a coma.
She didn’t die, but she also didn’t return to school.
No one knew it was me, so I considered it a win all around.
Digging deep into the well of my carefully crafted personality—the one that refuses to break no matter what’s thrown at me—I gather the strength I need.
It’s what I pull from when I feel like I can’t go on.
When life is a chore and death seems like a release.
But I won’t give anyone the satisfaction of getting the better of me.
Whether they know it or not, I know, and that’s all that matters.
Dragging that resilience up from the bottom of the pit, I lift my eye lids.
Richmond’s excited gaze meets my exhausted one, silver eyes glinting in the fluorescent light.
“These are really mucking up my masterpiece,” he says, slipping his fingers into the waistband of my blood saturated shorts.
Slowly, he peels down the last layer of protection I have.
He plops them into the pool of red, letting them absorb the carnage.
Then he stands to his full height. Raising the dripping garment above my head, he wrings out the blood.
I snap my eyes shut, protecting my vision, as the chilled viscous fluid soaks my hair. Red drips off the strands, weaving another pathway of crimson across my skin.
Richmond repeats the process twice more, waiting with bated breath for me to beg him to stop.
I won’t.
He huffs, dropping the shorts with a plop. A tiny seed of satisfaction takes root, sprouting too quick for me to control. A smirk pulls at the corner of my lips.
Cool air moves across my cheek, giving me enough warning to brace for the strike before it connects.
Richmond’s ginormous palm collides with the left side of my face. He’s slapped me so hard it’s sent me spinning. The chain winds up, tightening the binds around my wrist. The tension pinches and rips my skin, sending new trickles of crimson down my arms.
My hair whips around me as the chain unwinds. “Hmm…” Richmond purrs. Patiently, he waits for my tether to stop twirling, then he approaches.
He drags the cold blade across my cheek.
My breast.
My thigh.
What the fuck? He’s supposed to stop.
“One more, Maxxy boy. Just one more,” he murmurs to himself, slicing me across the abdomen as he crouches. Grabbing onto one of my knees, he holds me still.
His finger drags across my frozen skin, an annoyed huff shooting out of him. The hot air warms the apex of my thighs, and I tense in terror. “Don’t flatter yourself, I have no interest in tainting myself.”
I should be insulted, but I’m relieved.
Richmond’s touch vanishes, and I listen to the unnerving sound of plastic crumpling. My eyes refuse to open even though I need to know what’s coming next.
“You’ll have to look sometime, it makes no difference to me when. You can’t avoid it.” His steps carry him back to me, the sound ratcheting my fear impossibly higher. I try to heave in a deep breath. Anything to ease the speed of my racing heart.
Standing behind me, one of Richmond’s hands ensnare my throat. The fingers of his other hand push into the slice in my abdomen, making the wound flow with renewed vigour.
“Shhhh…” he whispers as I cry out in agony. “Don’t move. You probably only want me to do this once.”
He moves around me like liquid, his finger sliding easily this time as he writes filth upon my skin.
Taking his time to make every letter known to me, even with my eyes shut.
Following the flow of his finger, I know “worthless” is written down my leg.
“Slut” is scrawled across my groin. “Trash” is written across my hip.
As he holds my jaw firmly in his grip, “Toy” is written across my throat.
I force my eyes to open, witnessing Richmond seemingly entranced.
Stepping back, he observes me, an air of pride swirling around him.
When my vision refocuses, I crumble ever further. Behind Richmond, lining the length of the wall in front of me, is a floor-to-ceiling mirror. The tarp that was concealing it now lies in a crumpled heap on the ground.
Other words mar my pale skin, and I wonder if I blacked out as I don’t remember half of them, or the smiley face upon my abdomen.
Pulling out his phone, Richmond snaps picture after picture, the shutter sound echoing through the room.
“You may be my best work yet,” he says.
I don’t reply.
Slowly he circles me, recording the state of my body.
“Now, Richmond.” Maximus’s voice booms through the room. Clearly displeased with his order being ignored.
“Fine,” he grumbles like a child that’s just been scolded.
The video clicks off, and Richmond pockets his phone. “Someone will come for you…eventually.” He chuckles beneath his breath as he crosses the cement floor, black tactical boots scuffing loudly.
My withered body sags as the closing lock scrapes into place. The horrific sight looking back at me awakens a churning nausea in my gut. Not that there’s anything in my stomach to lose.
I can’t stop the shiver that overcomes my naked body, but I stuff down the tears starting to well up.
I am not what they will make of me.
I can endure whatever they throw my way.
The lights click off, and silence engulfs me.
Encased in darkness, exhaustion quickly pulls me beneath sleep’s surface.