It’s dangerous. It’s like this tingling energy that never sleeps. It’s always there just beneath the surface, haunting me, begging for release.
“Violence, come here.” His gaze pierces right into me.
In life, there are make-or-break moments. I know this is one of them.
I’m powerful, but he’s more powerful. If I concede, if I let him have his way, my life may never be the same.
And if I don’t...
He’ll kill me.
Or worse, he’ll kill my friends, my family.
Yet, as if I don’t own my own body, I take a step back. Basilus sticks out his arm, his palm resting between my shoulder blades as he urges me forward.
“Don’t be scared,” he whispers.
My chin rises, and despite the terror that’s ripping through me, I take that daunting step forward and extend my arm to the king.
Dry fingers push along the blue vein until his hand is resting just below my elbow. He turns, and when he comes back, the glinting tip of the needle is all I see as he poises it against my skin. Jeriko leans closer, her gaze steady on me as she watches.
I can only hope my father won’t inject Jeriko as well. I’m rational. Jeriko might be an idiot, but she’s a deadly idiot.
Stinging pain shoots through my arm as he inserts the needle. With unflinching eyes, I hold his gaze. Intrigue is there. He’s simply a man interested in the outcome. A man in search of more answers.
He isn’t a father at all.
Slowly, painfully slowly, the dark substance starts to push from the syringe. It fills my veins with a chilling feeling. It’s so cold, a shiver shakes through my body, and I start to lose feeling in the tips of my toes and my fingers.
An odd, euphoric sense of mind starts to wash over me as my eyes lower to a hooded state. Desperately, I try to keep my focus on the pleased look in my father’s gaze. But the storming power I thought would burst from me never comes.
Emptiness and confusion settle in instead.
He guides me down into a stiff chair and motions to Jeriko. Her movements are blurred to me. I feel smooth leather meet my wrists and find that I’m tied tightly to the chair.
“You won’t remember how irreplaceable you’re about to become, Violence.”
So many emotions surface in my mind, but none of them come forth.
My father’s right.
I won’t remember.
* * *
Every joint, muscle, cell, and fiber of my being protests as I lower onto a heavily blanketed twin-size bed. Each breath is accompanied by an ache that pulses through my chest. The soft mattress is no comfort to my tender body.
My eyelids keep falling half closed, each blink becoming longer, more drawn out. Above me, the ceiling goes in and out of focus.
I could... go back to sleep...
I could give into the shadows, let myself be cradled by the dark arms of unconsciousness, and pray I never wake.
Exhaustion blankets my mind, but the only thing keeping me from fully giving in is the pounding headache behind my eyes and the reminder that there’s a fearful span of time that’s vacant in my memory.
There was the injection.
And then nothing.
