But, maybe was enough.
“A taste? I . . .” I stammered finally, trying to determine what he wanted me to say. As soon as I gave a voice to the pain, he stopped hitting me. My head was ringing, and there was no way I could keep it from my voice. I swayed, as his blows had messed with both my vision and my balance.
Suddenly, Holden twisted my arm behind me painfully, pulling his body against mine, I could feel his arousal — hurting me was turning him on.
“I see how he looks at you, Perrin. I see how everyone looks at you,” he said, and I tried to shake my head, but he forced more pain on my arm. It was hard not to struggle. I was leaner, faster, more fit; I knew I could take him in a fight. But if I fought him he wouldn’t talk. And right now, he was talking.
Jack was on the other side of him talking.
“How many?” he demanded, pushing my bones right to the point I knew they could snap. He knew how to manipulate my arm perfectly to inflict the pain and hover on the edge of that pain and anticipation.
“How . . . how . . . many?” I asked, my mind trying so hard to keep up, to not fuck this up. I had blood in my eyes, and everything hurt from his fists to my face. The pain itself was blinding in my arm, and I had to feel into it to keep myself here in the moment and answer him.
“Did you give it up for him, Perrin? How many did you let have you, kitten? Tell me, I’ll have you twice for each one.” His tone was dark and serious, sex and power.
“You never wanted me like that, Holden,” I said, using truth, and trying to add as much confusion as it had given me at the time to my statement. It came out small and weak, like I had felt. It’s what he wanted from me, though, so I hoped it was enough.
“Oh, but I did. It was worth denying myself - saving it,” he said, I looked up at him with confusion, and he backhanded me across the face, connecting exactly where most of the punches had landed. It was enough to black my vision, and twist my head and torso around sharply, but then he slammed fists repeatedly into my now exposed kidney with uppercuts. The pain from those hits was excruciating, and my arm was wrenched back and I felt a plastic bite around the wrist he had been painfully holding.
I slumped down, repeating to myself I had to keep him talking, and couldn't fight back like I wanted to. My arm was twisted painfully, now zip-tied to the radiator and Holden’s body kept me from moving to ease the pain. Blood ran from my face.
I wondered if he wanted to kill me, and how much it would hurt first.
“You didn’t answer me,” Holden said calmly. “How many?”
He hit me several more times, counting the blows and asking if he had reached the number, yet.
I threw my other arm up as feeble defense, reminding myself not to hit back. It wasn’t a great idea, because soon pain was shooting from that one as well from my attempted defenses. I needed to clear my head, so I shook it, maybe exaggerating the movements, and using as much confusion as I could in my features. That part wasn’t difficult. The blows were doing a number on my concentration. I was afraid I would black out, so I dove into the pain as much as I could, using it to keep me conscious.
“Too many, Holden. Weren’t you. I don’t understand - saving?” I said, slurring my words, but not because I was trying to. I was seriously having vision issues from the blood and the strikes to my head. Holden had large hands with meaty fists and he knew how to land a punch.
What if I can't pull this off before he kills me, I wondered. The look in his eye now told me that is where this would end, or that was his plan. And by the time I saw that, I was tied to a radiator, unable to move. Holden’s face held a sort of evil softness, like he saw my pain, and was happy for it if it got him what he wanted. He liked the pleading.
“Oh, kitten,” he said, using that old pet name for me. “Don’t you know what I do? I cleanse the world,” he said, stroking my face.
The confusion, the pleading — they were all so real. I needed him to keep talking, I reminded myself, but I couldn't remember why that was so important.
“Tell me so I can understand,” I pleaded with him. “I don’t know how to give you what you want.” I focused everything I could into that statement. The physical pain, the anguish, the confusion, anger and loneliness of five long years trying to find myself again after he had crushed me the first time.
The rage and desire that came over his eyes after the last thing I said was almost too much. It was too intense, too feral, and I had to force myself to keep looking at him. He never stopped stroking my face, except for a moment to move something in his pocket. I didn’t pay that any attention though. I needed him totalk, not move.
“We were going to do it together. Why couldn't you see that?” He asked, hitting me this time with a punch hard enough for me to feel a rib - cracked, maybe broken.
“You know how I caught all your mistakes on the charts? Because I pour over them. I decide who lives and dies - that’s real power. I have done it several times. And when they deserve to go - when I amtoldsomeone needs to go - I am so good no one knows, just a mistake they say.” He laughed a disturbing laugh I hoped I would never hear again from another person, it wasn’t even human. “I’m the closest thing to God you will ever know.”
“You are supposed to be there with me, Perrin. And the first time that you put someone down, and I made sure they never woke up again,as a team, I was going to have you like no one else ever did.” Holden’s eyes darkened. “But you didn’t wait for me. You didn’t understand what we were supposed to do.”
God, please, let that be enough for Bishop, I prayed, as I felt something sharp sting my thigh and only had time to wonder what he injected me with before I heard my arm break.
Bishop
“Gonow, goddamnit!” I screamed into the radio.
Finally, my anger was successful in spurring Levi into action. It was my second command for him to move. I had what I needed,morethan I needed, thanks to Perrin Thayer. But, the first time I had given the command, Levi had resisted, laughing into the radio even though he knew Jack was with me.
“Don’t you want to see what else he gets out of him?” Levi chuckled. “This is good stuff.”
That asshole was going to get someone hurt one day.
