To his right, the brazier glows red in the dimness of the basement. The brand waits also, well-heated and ready to sear her flesh.
Her fair hair flicks across her shoulders as she peers over her back at him. Even in the low light, her trembling is obvious.
“I had this designed by a blacksmith trained in making them the traditional way. It’ll leave a mask inside a circle onyou, here,” he murmurs this as he feathers his fingers over the skin of her sexy rear. “My hacker symbol.”
She squirms her ass from side to side and whimpers, though the sound barely carries due to the cloth gag stuffed and tied in her mouth—it’s wedged there, tightly. Interruptions would be sad.
He touches her with only his fingertips—wouldn’t do to soil himself with this one’s flesh.
Afterward, he’ll jack off on her, then leave her here for someone else to find and free. Or find and fuck.
Dawid double-checks the gag then reaches for the brand’s insulated handle. The air steams into the air from the other end, as he lifts the red-hot metal and smiles.
“Stay still or I might miss and scrape it across you. That would do more damage.”
Again, she whimpers, stiffening as he approaches with the brand aimed low.
There’s a rustle somewhere, across the room, and he pauses in his action, arm slightly raised. Something scuttles. Rats?
“Fuck. I hate rats.” Should he go upstairs and get someone to fix this before he brands her? Dawid considers this and decides not to. He raises the brand, aims at her right cheek…
And something black leaps at him at head height and burrows into his ear. The pain is instantaneous and overwhelming, and for a fraction of a second, he hears it scratching, feels it digging deeper into his head. Another of them hits his gaping mouth and wriggles inside, pushing, resisting his attempts to bite.
He doesn’t have time to scream. There is the thud of a body falling.
A tendril of smoke rises from the floor where the hot brand lands on a piece of litter. A tiny orange flame grows then leaps along the paper.
39
THE VOICE AND THE VISIONS
The visions called to me so viciously that I clicked, finally. Just for one disgusting second, I thought of cutting up Hailey.
Of using that knife on her flesh and inside her too.
The pattern was written in steel and blood. In blades that sliced up women. It was a subtle voice that seemed my own but was not.
I have fallen in love with Hailey, but staying with her will doom her. I must go.
Even now, my hands are shaking as I remember the moment and how close I came to killing her.
Only the why—the reason for it all—was keeping me from awareness.
Your body suffered a catastrophic brain injury…I don’t know how that part of you could have survived…your face is not a match for your brain.
What if part of my brain, survived, but not enough? What if another brain was added and we melded together? I am afrankenstruct, and someone else is in here with me. Someone who cannot quite vocalize proper speech or think thoughts or make me act. That last, though, I’m not sure of when I was resisting the wishes of him and when I was doing what he wanted?
A part of this new me loved torturing and killing women. Or should that be loves? He’s in here with me, now. I swallow that bitter pill of awareness.
He loves it like a normal person loves the sky, their family, that pet they brought home.
Those coils of blood, the screams I remember, they were real, once.
Can I separate myself from that freak’s cravings?
This sucks balls.
I have carried her upstairs, brought some clothes, cleaned her, helped her dress.
