2. Riley
RILEY
Corrado’s yells grow more distant and then disappear with the clank of a door.
That leaves me alone in a cage with the Necromancer. As soon as that realisation fully sinks in, my ribs solidify in place. My lungs won’t expand, not even by a fraction.
I can’t breathe.
Aron releases his hold on me. I should run. I should at least try. Even if there is nowhere to run to.
But I can’t.
I’m suffocating. My vision is clouding. There’s drumming in my ears.
I’m back at all the sites of his tableaus, their stench coating my airways. They flash before my eyes like a sick exhibit of all the things he could and likely will do to me.
Then I’m back in my nightmares, where he’s holding me captive, where he has me tied up and spread-eagled, and he’s carving me up and peeling layers of my skin off, snapping my bones and pulling my organs out of me. Where he’s slowly turning me from a person to a prop.
And then I’m back here in the present, which really is just another nightmare, except I cannot wake up from this one.
Right when I think I’m going to pass out, my stubborn diaphragm lets up. I inhale with a loud, wheezing gasp. But I don’t feel any better, nausea sweeping through me. I bend forward with my hands propped on my knees. I gag, and then I gag again, my mouth watering with acidic saliva.
I stay that way, focusing on my breathing, and as the coils in my belly ease up, so does the humming in my ears.
“You’re going to barf?” Aron asks me without any compassion. “You wouldn’t be the first, you know. Nor the last.”
He’s leaning back against the bars, tattoos crawling up his crossed arms and the side of his neck, the bulging muscles threatening to rip the black fabric of his T-shirt. His shoulders are broad, and the bulk of his body is lean and sculpted. Strong, fast, completely lethal.
Words jam in my throat, and I only shake my head in response, straightening back up slowly and hesitantly.
With a malicious smirk plastered on his face, that bastard is looking more entertained than I’ve ever seen anyone.
“Why does your boyfriend call you Wolfie?” he asks.
“He’s not my boyfriend.”
“Whatever. Why?”
“Why do you care?”
“I don’t. I was hoping a bit of chitchat might stop you from puking in my cell. But we can just get on with it if you really insist.”
As if on cue, something rumbles ominously in my abdomen, and I sway on my feet. I sigh resignedly.
“It’s because of my surname. It had several meanings depending on where you lived. In some of the old languages it meant ‘belonging to a bull’. In others, ‘belonging to a wolf’.”
My anxiety flares, so deeply ingrained into me that even in a rebel holdout I’m half-expecting to get arrested and sent for “patriotic awareness therapy”, or worse, for not scrubbing anything that existed before the Continuum from my memory.
“Naughty, naughty girl,” Aron trills. “Careful with talk like that. I’m told the mustards give a mean slap on the wrist for this.”
“Mustards” is an insulting nickname for Continuits, people working directly or indirectly for the Continuum’s regime. People who are required to wear the Continuum’s uniform. Its colour is supposed to be golden, but there’s a thin line between golden and ... mustard yellow.
“That’s one way of putting it,” I scoff.
“Anyway. Are you going to resist me? Fight me?” Aron’s voice sizzles with twisted anticipation.
Anger buzzes underneath my skin like rushing fire ants.
“No,” I tell him firmly. “You said you’d enjoy that. I’m not giving you the satisfaction. We both know you’d win anyway.”
He pushes himself off the bars—fast, like a big cat pouncing—and takes a step towards me. Instinctively, I take a step back, crouching. He chuckles darkly.
“Oh, Riley, are you going to plead with me then? Are you going to beg?” he croons melodically.
A vicious grin carves itself into his face, tugging at a corner of that infuriatingly sensual mouth of his.
“Would it work if I tried?”
“Not a chance,” he assures me grimly, his features hardening. “Take your clothes off.”
I whimper, my recurring nausea the only thing that’s stopping me from crying. I groan.
“I’m not a patient man, Riley.” That relentless voice is invading my ears, my mind, my soul. “Do as I say, or I’m going to hurt you. I’m going to hurt you a lot.”
I breathe loudly through my nose, then open my eyes to meet his intent ones.
“You’re going to hurt me regardless,” I point out, my voice shaking.
He just shrugs, not contradicting me. Everything inside me tightens.
This can’t be happening. Anything else but this.
“Do you really think it’s smart to make me repeat myself, Hotshot?”
Please let me die. Please let me die now. Please.
“Give me a fucking minute!”
My body feels shapeless, heat and cold crashing through it in waves.
“I have. And now you’re seriously starting to piss me off. But maybe it’s my fault.” He steps closer to me, advancing upon me, towering over me. “Maybe I just haven’t motivated you properly. Do as I say now, or I’ll hurt your boyfriend and make you watch.”
“He’s not my boyfriend.”
“Does that mean you don’t care if I hurt him?” He raises his eyebrows at me knowingly.
My mind goes into overdrive, its cogs spinning frantically without rendering any coherent thoughts, any strategy, anything resembling a way out.
Something in my expression seems to answer his question because he nods curtly, satisfied. “Just as I thought. I’ll start by breaking his fingers one by one for each time you make me repeat myself from now on. Is that clear?”
“Y-yes,” I reply, my teeth chattering. “D-don’t.”
I close my trembling fingers around the fabric of my top and tug it over my head.
“There you go. Good girl.” Aron’s voice drips with sarcasm.
I undo my belt and let my trousers slide down to my ankles. Mechanically, I step out of them and my shoes.
“See? What a good fucking girl.”
“G-go fuck yourself.”
“You know.” His gaze sweeps over my body slowly, drinking in every inch of me. “After, I just might. But you’re not done yet.”
His words throw me off. Even if I can’t pinpoint what, something’s not adding up. But I’m too panicked to figure it out.
I drag my sports bra over my head. Drop it to the ground.
Aron’s eyes are on my breasts. He’s biting his lip and hardly even blinking.
It’s getting impossible to breathe again.
The walls are closing in.
“Don’t make me say it, Riley.”
My vision blurs, the pressure in my temples rising with rushing blood.
Corrado. I must do this.
I yank my panties down. Then I cover my chest and my crotch with my hands as if he hasn’t seen all of me already. I hang my head.
“Excellent.” The bastard rubs his hands. “Now, hold on to the bars and bend over. Legs apart.”
“W-what?”
“Do you want me to repeat myself?”
Corrado!
“N-no. No!”
“Then do as I fucking said.” There is thunder in his eyes, his voice hard like a falling hammer.
I walk around him on unsteady legs, grit and pebbles cutting into my feet, each attempted breath dying in my throat with a choked rasp.
The iron bars are cold and rough with rust. I grip them hard, my knuckles white.
I look to the ground, and I keep getting closer and closer to it as I step back, my head coming level with my hands, my back straight, and my ass up in the air.
All of me exposed to him to do with as he pleases.
“Legs further apart.” I do what he wants, my lungs searing with the lack of oxygen, my heart beating painfully against my ribcage like a trapped bird. “That’s it, there you go.”
The only person in the world I hate more than him is myself.
Because it always ends up like this, always.
I never resist. A part of me dies each time I quietly allow men like him to use me without resistance—like a thing deserving no respect and no autonomy.
The part of me that felt good inside her own body.
The part that liked looking at herself in the mirror.
The part that could feel happy to be alive, even in a world like this.
No matter how slowly, how agonisingly, it’s a good thing he will kill me soon.
Because this is different. This is worse.
He is the Necromancer. Not just some military thug who ran out of call girl money a little too soon before payday, and I happened to be around.
This is targeted. He doesn’t just want a woman.
He wants me, specifically. He isn’t after my body.
He is after my soul, or what’s left of it, and I feel it in the marrow of my bones that I’ll emerge from this a walking corpse.
I’m covered in cold sweat, goosebumps erupting all over me. I sway, nearly toppling to the side, but a large hand grabs my hip, steadying me, holding me in place.
I groan, but the sound abruptly turns into a sob when I finally start crying without knowing I was going to. I don’t try to stop, though, letting my tears fall to the ground with faint splats.
“Don’t you faint on me, Hotshot. Not worth it. This will only take a minute.”
His words confuse me, but I have no time to dwell on them because from behind me comes a sound that makes my blood run cold.
The sound of a condom wrapper being ripped.
I howl. There is no point in hiding my fear from him. My lungs finally expand, air rushing in. I’m crying, loudly and messily, snot oozing out of my nose in transparent ropes.
When he first breaches my entrance, I think at first that I must have gotten lucky, that he has the smallest, thinnest dick of all the dicks in the world. But then I realise that it’s not his cock between the lips of my pussy. It’s his finger, covered in the condom.
He is slow and careful, almost gentle. His touch skates over my front wall, and an involuntary shiver runs through me. He reaches deep, his warm, balled fist pressing hard into my flesh on the outside. He glides from side to side, exploring. He grumbles with satisfaction and then withdraws.
“What—”
I yelp as his finger slides into my other hole, just as deft, purposeful, methodical. Its intrusion is invasive, but not painful.
“Fuck,” I gasp, swallowing my tears.
Once again, he reaches as deep as he can go and then withdraws.
“Okay,” he says nonchalantly.
I can hear him peel the condom off behind me and then move further away from me. I stay frozen in place, my breath ragged and my heart rate still rapid as I process what just happened.
“Much as I’m enjoying the sight of your cunt more than the sight of your traitorous face, you can stand up now.”
I snap upright, wiping the mess off my cheeks. He’s picking my scattered clothes off the ground, bundling them in the crook of his arm.
“What the fuck was that? A fucking cavity search?”
I stare at him open-mouthed as he scoops up my discarded underwear.
“Usually an unpleasant necessity.” He shrugs with a wicked smirk. “But clearly there are exceptions.”
“What the fuck did you think I had in there?”
“Oh, you’d be shocked.” He grimaces in emphasis, almost amicably, like he’s forgotten all about who I am for a moment.
No way am I giving him that moment.
“Is that what you do in your spare time here? Poke around people’s assholes?”
He laughs, shaking his head. “Nah, I have men for that. But I already told you, Riley. You’re special.”
“Lucky me!” I retort. “Why? Why would you make me think you were going to ...” I trail off. “Why make it so difficult?” I ask even though I don’t need to; I know exactly why.
To mess with my head. Prolonging and frustrating a fear is often worse than fulfilling it. A bastard like him would know that too well.
“You never asked what I was going to do. If you want to assume the worst about me, that’s your choice. Usually the right one, I’ve got to say. But again, there are exceptions.”
With a smug smile, he marches out, shutting the cell door behind himself.
“Hey, asshole, what about my clothes?”
I step as close as I can get to him, my chest pressed against the bars. His eyes drop to my breasts, irritation flickering across his features briefly as he drags his gaze back up to my face.
“Ah, well, normally, I would let you keep those. But you threatened to hang yourself with them. No way in hell am I giving you the chance.”
I open and close my mouth in a quick succession without making any sound, like a fish tossed ashore.
“You can’t leave me here like this!” I finally manage to force out, horrified.
“Can’t I?”
“No! It’s too cold!” I protest, realising only then that the tip of my nose is numb.
“Tough.” He shrugs, turning to walk away.
“You son of a bitch,” I spit out. “Keep telling yourself you’re doing this for freedom or justice or whatever. But really, you’re doing it because you’re enjoying it. You’re just a sadistic, degenerate piece of shit, nothing more.”
“No.” He tilts his head slowly. “No, you’re wrong about me,” he sneers at me, his lips curling over his teeth, his eyes oozing with simmering hatred. “I am traitors’ reckoning. And you, Hotshot, are a fucking traitor.”