Chapter 9
Brooke
Ikeep my gaze locked forward, even though my hands tremble.
Elliot gestures with a casual sweep of his hand.
Asher steps forward carrying a steel baseball bat, cold, heavy, dented with old damage. Knox approaches behind him, holding a set of darts, metal tips gleaming under the firelight.
Elliot clasps his hands behind his back.
“Would you rather, take three strikes from Asher with the bat, or allow Knox to throw three darts into your back?”
My pulse roars in my ears.
The bat means broken ribs. The bat means bruised organs. The bat means the kind of internal damage you don’t get to walk away from. I have already been kicked there once, and I can’t gamble on a second hit. Not with what I am carrying. Not with the only part of Seth left in the world.
But darts will stay on the surface, mostly. Darts will tear skin and muscle. The pain will still be mine, my back, my flesh, my nerves lighting up. But it won’t be a direct strike to my stomach. It won’t be a gamble with the tiny life inside me.
Seth would’ve taken the pain for me a thousand times over. I have to do the same.
Elliot tilts his head. “Choose, Brooke.”
Asher smirks and lifts the bat. Knox twirls a dart between his fingers, like he is warming up for a game at a bar instead of a punishment.
My breath hitches.
“I choose,” I say as my voice wavers, “the darts.”
A soft ripple moves through the room. Shock, a murmur of pity. A flicker of something like understanding from Miles.
Elliot’s smile tightens. “Excellent.”
Knox steps behind me, light on his feet, almost cheerful as he gestures towards the fireplace. Asher lowers the bat with obvious disappointment, like he was looking forward to hitting me.
I stand and walk slowly to the fireplace.
“Face the fireplace,” Knox says.
My legs tremble, but I turn. Heat from the flames brushes my front. Cold dread presses into my spine.
“Lift your hair,” Knox adds.
My hand shakes as I gather my hair and pull it over one shoulder. The exposed skin across my back tightens under the air, every nerve alert and waiting.
“Lift the dress,” he says.
I reach for the fabric of my dress and raise it slowly, fingers clumsy with tension.
The material drags up over my hips and ribs.
My broken wrist throbs sharply in protest, pain pulsing up my arm, but I don’t stop.
Cold air hits my bare skin and prickles along my spine and sides, leaving me fully exposed from shoulder blades to waist.
“Restraints,” he says casually.
Asher grabs a leather strap from a hook near the fireplace, dark, worn, stained in a way that is not heat or decor.
He wraps it around my upper arms and hauls them above my head.
The pressure rips through my broken wrist and makes my vision jump.
Then he kneels and clips my ankles together with a short metal cuff so I can’t brace, can’t twist away, can’t run.
I'm upright, but barely. A single shove would drop me. A single dart would drive into unprotected flesh with nowhere else for the pain to go.
Knox stands behind me, humming quietly, testing the weight of a dart between his fingers like he is appreciating the balance.
Elliot leans against the mantel, arms folded. “Three darts. Consequence of choice.”
Fire heat licks at my front while cold dread crawls down my spine. My heart hammers against my ribs like it wants out.
I close my eyes and try to keep my breathing under control. I do it for the baby. I do it for Seth. I do it for us.
Knox shouts. “Round one.”
The silence before the throw is unbearable, and every sound stretches wide. Firewood pops. Sarah breathes in shallow little pulls. Miles whispers something that sounds like a prayer. My own pulse is pounding so loudly that I nearly miss the motion itself.
A faint whoosh cuts the air. Then the impact lands.
The first dart punches into my lower back with the force of a metal wasp. Skin splits instantly. Tissue tears. Pain flares hot.
A raw and shaking scream rips out of me without permission. The dart sinks deep. The metal trembles with my heartbeat, and blood starts to roll down my side in thick, hot trails.
Knox chuckles under his breath. “That landed nicely.”
I clench my jaw. Breath shakes in and out of me. The restraints dig into my arms every time I try to inhale.
Elliot’s tone is almost bored. “Breathe, Brooke.”
I try. I force air into my lungs and hold it until spots swim behind my eyelids.
In the mirror I see Knox reaching for the next dart. He flicks it once, letting the metal catch the light like he is admiring his own aim.
“Round two.”
He throws harder.
The dart strikes high, just under my shoulder blade.
It goes deep enough that I feel the point scrape against bone.
The agony hits like a burst of electricity.
My knees buckle, but the restraints hold me upright, leaving my muscles to convulse with nowhere to go.
A broken sound tears out of my chest, part gasp, part sob.
Pain radiates outward, searing, numbing, then searing again. My vision goes dark.
Knox leans close enough that I can feel his breath. “That one is deep,” he murmurs. “Do you feel it when you try to inhale?”
My breath hitches in jagged bursts. Each inhale sends shocks up my spine, and each exhale feels like my body is giving up something it needs.
Sophie clicks her tongue. “She’s probably going to pass out before the last one.”
“No,” Elliot says calmly. “She won’t. She knows better than that.”
Knox steps back and rolls the dart between his fingers. “Final round.”
I clench my hands until my nails bite into my palms. Tears slide down my face without warning, not from fear, but from my body trying to survive the overload.
Knox holds the third dart longer. He doesn’t rush. He lets anticipation crawl up my spine and sit there.
Then the air moves.
The third dart embeds itself left of my spine, too close, far too close.
I feel the point scrape between muscle, slicing as it forces its way deeper.
White bursts behind my eyelids. My legs give out completely.
A choked scream tears out of me, held upright only because the restraints keep my arms locked above my head.
My broken wrist jostles and screams with me, sending pain up my arm and into my chest like a hot wire.
Blood coats my back now, soaking into the waistband of the panties I have on. I can feel each drop sliding down, sticky, gathering at the small of my back.
Knox steps around me, admiring what he has done.
“And that, makes three.”
Sophie walks over, crouches, and grabs the end of one dart between two fingers. She wiggles it, slowly testing, like she wants to learn exactly how much it takes to break me.
Pain detonates through my back so violently that I gag.
She smiles. “Careful. I would hate for you to bleed out before the next game.”
Miles surges halfway out of his chair. “Stop, she needs help, just stop.”
“Sit down!” Asher snaps.
Emma can’t hold her tears back anymore. They stream silently down her cheeks as she presses shaking hands to her mouth. Sarah stares fixedly at the floor, jaw locked, shoulders trembling. No one speaks.
I can’t hold myself upright. My legs tremble hard enough that my whole body sways.
Sophie lets out a low laugh.
The restraints are the only reason I haven’t collapsed flat onto the floor. My head hangs forward. Hair falls into my face, and it sticks to wetness I can’t tell apart anymore. Sweat, tears, blood, it all feels the same.
Elliot claps once, bright and cheerful, like he is ending a dinner toast instead of torture.
“That concludes the games for tonight, Asher, remove her.”
Asher unbuckles the restraints. My arms drop like dead weight.
Pain tears through my wrist and my back at the same time, and I collapse to the ground with a broken cry.
Asher hooks his hands under my armpits and drags me across the floor.
My knees scrape the rug, then hit tile, then concrete.
Every bump sends shocks through the darts lodged in my back. Blood smears behind me in long streaks.
The world tilts and blurs as the pain drags me under.
But even as darkness closes in, one thought stays clear.
I am not dying here.