Chapter 13
My witch captors shoved me into a van and buckled me in, my wrists burning from the zip ties. I didn’t get a good look at the driver. “Where’s Dom?” he barked.
“Coming. He’ll only be a few minutes,” Avril said, taking a seat on one side while Soren took the other.
“Should we expect trouble?”
“This is Laurent Sarkas, what do you think?” Soren spat.
“This is all a misunderstanding,” I interrupted. “You have to believe me. The vampires took me, kidnapped me. There are people looking for me.” My pleading hadn’t worked before, but I had to try. “Please.”
“Shut up!” Avril slapped me. Stars exploded across my vision as my head snapped sideways, the taste of blood filling my mouth. “Talk again and I’ll rip your tongue out. It would be a shame to waste your screams, but I will if I must.”
These were the people Laurent had handed me over to? I felt the blow of his betrayal anew. It pressed against my chest, making that yawning pit stretch a little wider.
Avril pulled something from her pocket. A vial of blood. I gulped, eyes widening. She popped the cork.
“Work quickly,” Soren demanded. I flinched as she coated her finger in it and began drawing marks on my bare arm.
“Damn it, Soren, hold her steady.”
Soren twisted his fingers into my hair, giving my head a violent jerk.
“Move again, bitch, and I will make you hurt before it’s time.
” I kept my mouth pressed closed and whimpered as Avril continued.
She made several strange symbols, then quickly drew a couple on herself and Soren. “Just in case they try something.”
A few moments later, the front passenger door opened and Dominic slid in. “Drive!”
“Did you give them what they wanted?”
“A bargain is a bargain,” Dominic barked. “What the fuck do I care? Selling out the demons in exchange for a gift far greater?” The van lurched into motion. “Laurent must be loosing his grip.”
“Or,” Avril said, “he’s just desperate to find out what’s happening to his vampires.”
“Or it’s a trap and he plans to double cross us,” Soren growled.
“You took proper precautions?” Dominic looked back at us, eyes darting to my bloodied arms. “Good.”
His hair was closely shorn and his expression was hard, eyes glittering with malice.
The mansion shrank away behind us. Once more, I felt my chances of escape narrowing. How ironic. I’d wanted so badly to leave this place, and now that I was, I wanted to go back.
Just before it slipped completely from sight, I caught movement beneath the cover of trees—a vampire in the shadows. He lifted something to his mouth. A walkie talkie? And then they were gone.
I opened my mouth twice to say something, only to snap it shut. Laurent’s warnings had been frightening, but I’d never quite taken them seriously. I knew without a shred of a doubt that if I spoke again, Avril would do exactly as she’d promised with my tongue.
I squeezed my hands in my lap but they wouldn’t stop trembling.
I tried to distract myself. I started working out differential equations in my head, separating variables, solving for functions.
The same trick I always used when trying to control my thoughts.
I focused on one side of the equation and worked backwards like a puzzle, isolating the variable I wanted to solve for.
I stuck to ordinary differentials. They were simper. I could picture the independent variable x and its derivatives with respect to y—
The van tires screeched. We slammed into something. I was thrown against my seatbelt as several blurs of motion shot around us. “Take her and go!” came Dominic’s shout.
Rough hands grabbed me, then the world was spinning.
I collapsed onto my knees outside somewhere, vomiting.
“Ugh, disgusting.” A booted foot collided with my stomach, knocking the air out of me.
I choked on my bile as I fell sideways, landing in a heap.
I groaned, pushing myself up and wiping my mouth on my arm. Tears of pain clouded my vision.
“Soren, was that really necessary?” Soren didn’t answer. There came a suffering sigh. “Just…get her up. Let’s get her inside.”
“That fucking prick tried—“
“Let’s get her inside,” Avril bit out, “and not talk about it until she’s secured.”
My head swam. My neck screamed in agony. I had probably damaged some of the newly healed skin. When I inhaled—a sharp pain bloomed in my ribs. Were they broken?
Soren clamped his hands around my biceps, hauling me up.
“Please,” I begged. He forced me to start walking.
I noticed the building. It was three stories with a large carport overhang and faded letters that read “Emergency Room.” An abandoned hospital.
The parking lot was dilapidated, cracked with weeds poking through the asphalt.
We weren’t in the city, perhaps somewhere just outside.
It was all I could observe before we were inside.
“If anything happens to Dom…” Avril’s words died, but she looked at me while Soren shoved me along. “You’re going to suffer, you little bitch, you’re going to scream, and I’m going to enjoy every minute of it.”
I choked out a strained gasp, trying to pull free but they were stronger. A few of the lights flickered overhead. I couldn’t do this. I couldn’t!
Pain exploded at the back of my head and the world went dark.
My eyelids fluttered. I gasped, sucking in a breath, consciousness returning in a flood of memories and scenes. It had been a bad dream—just a bad dream. Any minute, Vittorio would knock on my door announcing breakfast.
The back of my head throbbed. I reached for it but couldn’t. I was restrained. Fluorescent lights cast ghastly cool light over the walls. I pulled against my arms, my legs. Nothing. I tried to lift my head. It was strapped down. And I was naked, my clothes stripped away.
I splayed my fingers wide, fingertips brushing the cold steel beneath me. An operating table. Fear turned everything in me to ice.
“Scared, amplifier?” I flinched. Avril’s voice came from somewhere beside me as she moved about the room. I tried to catch glimpses of her. “You should be. I want you scared and in pain. That makes for the most potent blood.”
I tried to speak but there was something in my mouth.
Avril appeared before me. She was ordinary looking, with a plain face and dark blond hair.
What had I expected a witch to look like?
Certainly not otherworldly. Not like vampires.
“Do you have something to say?” She reached for my gag, removing it.
“You’re evil,” I hissed.
“Oh, yes. Quite.” She said it like I’d complimented her.
“Not all witches can stomach the cost of power. Most of them are too soft, too kind, and it makes them weak. But some of us—those of us who have learned how to survive the longest—do so with blood. Not just any blood. Blood taken through pain.”
Everything Laurent had warned me about came racing back. My chest squeezed with the crushing weight of realization. He’d handed me to these people, knowing what they would do.
“Such a pretty thing,” she cooed, running her fingers down my face. A tear oozed from the corner of my eye and slid down my temple. Laurent had been cold, even a little cruel, but it hadn’t made me feel like this. So violated. So terrified. “Maybe I’ll let you keep your beauty, for now.”
She moved away. Moments later, needles were pressed into my veins, tubes, bags to collect my blood. “We’re going to sell it by the vial to all sorts of creatures. But we’ll keep most of it for ourselves. You’re going to make us a fortune, doll face. Not to mention, powerful.”
I squeezed my eyes shut, trying to block her out, trying not to think about how vulnerable I was.
I called up an equation. Y prime equals two x plus one.
Solve for y. Easy. My tremors intensified.
Take the integral of both sides. Now you have the integral of y is equal to the integral of two x plus one dx.
Something was shoved into my mouth. The left side was simple.
The integral of y prime was just y. I lost control of my bladder and wetness pooled between my legs, paired with the pungent scent of urine and humiliation.
This gives two x squared over two, plus x, plus the constant—
My world erupted. Searing, white hot fire slammed into me.
My mouth bit down hard on a strap. The cry that came out of me didn’t even sound human.
My eyes opened wide, fixed unseeing on the ceiling.
I was burning alive. My skin was melting off, my bones turning to liquid.
My mouth finally opened and I screamed. I screamed and screamed, my throat ripping apart.
My body jerked against its bonds. Nothing else existed besides the pain that engulfed me.
Then it vanished and my voice died. I couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t—
“There now, take a breath.” There was far too much satisfaction in that voice, making my stomach churn. I whimpered.
When I looked down, my body was still there, whole and unharmed. She must have used magic, some kind of spell to hurt me without doing physical damage. I caught a glimpse of the tubes, of the bags filled with my blood. I tried to speak but my throat was liquid fire. Even breathing hurt.
Rough hands adjusted the strap in my mouth. “Wouldn’t want you biting off your tongue just yet.”
“Avril! Dom’s back.” I didn’t recognize the voice.
There came a long, drawn out sigh. “I suppose this will have to wait. We can begin again later.”
She twisted a valve on the tubes, stopping the collection of my blood. When she stepped away, I held myself rigid, listening to the sound of her receding footsteps. Then, silence.
This was it. No one was coming for me. I was alone, just like I’d always been.
Alone. Always alone. Always unloved. Rejected. Nothing.
Silent tears pooled in my eyes then slid down my temples.
I cried for the girl who’d never gotten a break—that unwanted foster child who’d been tossed from one home to another, always worthless to everyone around her.
That girl who’d—in spite of everything—held on to the hope that some day, when her life became her own, she’d find a way to claw her way out of it.
I cried for believing I could come away from it.
For believing I’d make something meaningful out of my life.
For believing I could spend eighteen years suffering and turn that around, give myself a life I deserved.
This is where I’d ended up after everything.
Soon, my crying turned to sobbing. I’d done everything right.
I’d fought for every scrap. I’d tried to be a good person.
I’d been mature about getting a good education.
It had all been for nothing. I was still being used.
Still an object for someone else’s benefit.
Still filled with suffering. Only now, it was a different kind.
I’d been so fucking stupid to think otherwise.
A scream, angry and frustrated mixed with my cries. It hurt, but I didn’t care about the physical pain anymore. That wasn’t anything compared to what my mind felt. What my heart felt.
I let everything go, let it seep out of me, until the tears slowed, until all that was left was a shell of what I’d been.
Avril returned. I was drifting in and out of consciousness when she greeted me. My mind was too numb to make sense of her words. I simply laid there.
It began again, the searing pain. My screams filled the room until my throat was so damaged that those screams turned to broken croaks.
Each one was wrenched from my chest, stolen like my blood.
It went on for minutes, or maybe hours, perhaps even days.
And each time the pain finally ended, I was empty inside.
Time stretched and warped around me. I welcomed sleep when it came, begging it to last. My dreams were a reflection of my misery.
I saw all the monsters of my life as if they were lined up before me, waiting to greet me.
Some were human, their faces blurred with time so that only their actions remained.
Others were more defined. Vampires. Witches. Laurent.
Every one of them clawed at me, hissed at me, told me how useless I was. There was only darkness. Only hurt.
During the times I regained consciousness, I was debased, my free will stolen. Sometimes I was forced to eat, food shoved down my throat. Forced to pee on myself. Treated no better than an animal.
There were periods of pain. Periods where that pain came in physical form rather than magic.
The magical pain, though eviscerating, faded when it stopped.
The physical pain remained, sending me deeper and deeper into myself.
Deeper into my delirium. I got bruises I didn’t remember receiving.
Cuts I didn’t recall. Broken bones I couldn’t place.
They hit me, broke me, marred me. They even branded me, searing their mark into my skin.
When I finally begged for death, it came. It scooped me up, murmuring comforting words against my temple with lips feathery soft. Death welcomed me into its embrace. I knew in that moment, despite my vague awareness, that it was finally, blessedly over.