Chapter 24
DOVE
Everything hurts.
It’s not the first time I’ve been tortured but in my fifteen years away from this world, the techniques of surviving are lost to me.
I can’t distance myself from the men who enter my cell and taunt me while I’m hanging by my wrists from iron cuffs that slice into my skin.
I can’t fight back when they ball their hands into fists and beat my naked body like I’m nothing more than a punching bag.
I can’t stop their hands from wandering when they secure manacles around my ankles and chain them to the ground so I can’t curl up to avoid their blows.
I can’t turn my mind off when their disgusting fingers wander between my legs and they whisper in my ear that the only thing stopping them from raping me is because Caterina hasn’t come yet.
I pray she never comes.
Time becomes impossible to track.
Sometimes I pass out from pain and wake up being doused in buckets of cold water.
Other times, exhaustion drags me into restless nightmares where all I dream about is Alex lost in the city and ending up dead to something he can’t protect himself from.
He’s smart.
He’s capable.
I spent years of his life teaching him how to survive on the streets under the guise that we were poor and could lose our house, just like how I taught him to drive in case of emergencies, or safe places to go in case we get separated.
All of it was to keep him alive.
But that’s my job.
I’m supposed to protect him and I can’t do that from a square, dark cell where guards come to work off some pent up frustration while waiting on Caterina.
Caterina Salamone.
For a long time, I wanted to sneak back here and kill her but the urge to end that monster’s life was never stronger than my urge to protect and care for my baby.
If I had, none of this would have happened.
Alex and I would still be living our quiet life, undisturbed and under everyone’s radar.
How stupid of me.
I’m lost in those thoughts when the door swings open for the umpteenth time and I grit my teeth, bracing myself for the next beating that’ll leave me unable to breathe properly.
Three men enter carrying a wooden bench and they set it down on one side of the room, then they swarm me with smirks.
It doesn’t take long for them to unlock the manacles around my wrists and ankles but I drop to the floor like a sack of cement, unable to keep myself up.
Pain radiates through my torso, swelling sharply in my stiff shoulders and I’m unable to hold back a sob as they drag me up and over to the horse.
“What are you doing?” I snarl, doing everything I can to twist out of their grips.
It’s useless.
I’m in pain, my lungs remain raw from smoke that lingers from the fire, and multiple beatings have made even the slightest movements painful.
“Relax,” one man snarls as they lift me and throw me over the wooden bench. “This isn’t for us.”
They secure me onto the bench face down with my arms and legs dangling down to the floor and locked into place with more cuffs.
They rattle slightly as I test their strength and then press my cheek flat to the bench, gazing blearily at all three of them retreating from my cell.
What the hell?
A moment later, heels clack on the stone floor and Caterina enters.
Her floor-length blue dress has been hitched up and gathered at her hips so the fabric doesn’t trail through the blood, sweat, and piss I’ve left on the floor.
Despite her age, she’s rather dainty as she steps from dry spot to dry spot until she’s near me.
“Dove Healy,” she says, spitting my name like a curse. “You should have stayed dead.”
“I tried,” I remark dryly. “Resurrection was never my thing.”
“And yet here you are. I consider it a blessing, really. A gift from Nico, sent beyond the grave so that I can finally give you what you deserve.” She walks closer, then her gloved hand grasps my chin and she wrenches my head back until I’m forced to look her in the eye.
“Don’t worry. I’m not going to kill you. ”
“You couldn’t even if you tried,” I mutter, my voice strained through the angle she forces.
“You’ll wish for it though,” she whispers coldly.
“Fifteen years. Fifteen years I have dreamed of having you in my dungeons so I could give you even a fraction of the pain you’ve given me.
Day after day, night after night, I struggled to believe I’d wiped the Healy stain from this world.
Could it really be as easy as slaughtering and burning every rat in that house? ”
Sharp pain builds in my neck, forcing tears to gather in the corner of my eyes.
With no other sound but her voice, there’s nothing else for me to focus on but the anger in her eyes and the cold lash of her tongue.
“You slaughtered my family,” I spit through clenched teeth.
Caterina leans down. “You murdered my son,” she snarls. “You should have died with the rest of them.”
“I did no such thing!” The lie is so smooth I almost believe it myself.
“Liar!” Caterina yells and she releases me, letting my head drop back down onto the bench.
Then, fire ignites across my back from left to right as Caterina brings down a thin whip across my skin with surprising strength.
It cuts right into my flesh like the flash of a spark and leaves behind burning pain and the tickle of blood rolling down my rib cafe.
I grit my teeth against the pain and press my forehead against the best.
“Liar!” Caterina screams again and the whip bites into my skin once more. “You killed him! I know you did! You murdered my son! Admit it! Admit it!”
Each sentence is punctuated with a strike that adds to the inferno of pain blooming across my back.
Stay quiet.
Another blow cuts low across my back.
He deserved it.
Another across my shoulders, and tears leak past my screwed-up eyes.
He was a monster.
The next blow cuts across the swell of my ass and I clench my hands into fists.
If I give her what she wants, she’ll kill me.
Another blow cuts across the top of my thighs, then a flurry of rapid whips across my back that sends a spray of blood across the back of my neck.
If I die here, I can’t help Alex.
“Admit it!” Caterina screams. “Admit you murdered my son!”
“Alright!” The word tears out of me with a sob and I choke, coughing up the taste of tar once more. “I killed him. You know I killed him. I know I killed him. I did it and I don’t fucking regret it!”
The blows stop.
Relief comes in the form of silence and I close my eyes again until Caterina’s hand sinks into my hair and wrenchs my head all the way back.
Something cold and sharp presses against my throat so I snap my eyes open and gaze up into her twisted, warped, furious face.
I swallow and the blade presses a little firmer against my throat.
“I know,” Caterina says softly. “I always knew. I just needed Felix to hear it.”
Felix.
I glance around the room but it’s impossible to see anything other than stone walls and a dark ceiling.
Our eyes meet once more and the truth I see there makes my heart sink all the way down into my gut.
He’s somewhere listening. He heard it all.
I briefly close my eyes and sink into the heat of agony swirling across my back, then I open them and glare up at her.
“Nico deserved to die,” I spit at her. “He was a monster who came from a monstrous family and my only regret is that I didn’t kill you at the same time.”
Caterina laughs suddenly and she leans down until we’re face to face.
“Does the confession feel freeing? Hmm?” She uses her grip on my hair to shake my head slightly.
“I also came here to tell you that I’m going to find your son.
And when I do, I’m going to do to him what you did to my son.
And then I’m going to play with him until he has no idea who you are and then I’ll bring him in here and I’ll kill him in front of you so that you get to experience even a fraction of the pain you put me through. ”
Pain and fury, unlike anything I’ve felt before surges up through my chest and chokes me from the inside.
Sirens blare in my mind while a cold, unrelenting fear grips my racing heart.
Not Alex.
He’s too good.
He’s too pure!
I wrench my head around and my teeth snap an inch from Caterina’s wrist as she jerks it out of the way just in time.
“I’ll kill you!” I snarl, wrenching myself against my bindings and barely feeling where metal cuts into skin.
“I’ll fucking kill you, Caterina! You fucking monster, I’ll kill you with my bare hands! ”
“From there?” She snorts. “I fail to feel threatened.” She moves out of my view and her heels clack away toward the door. “You should have stayed dead, little Nightingale.”