All I did was ask to go play games, like I did with the other masks. They pulled me out of my room and threw me in one of the cells.
“Let me play, and take me back to my room!” I yell, mad enough to talk back.
Horns slaps me in the face so hard, it spins my body around on the tiny bed. He doesn’t stop there, either. He lets his fists fly, beating me until I’m about to pass out.
I sit there and tremble, especially when the three others walk in.
“What happened?” the new Demon asks.
Horns fills him in, and he clenches his fists at his sides. Stalking towards me, he pulls me up by the front of my shirt, leaving me dangling in the air.
Speaking to the new Jester, he commands, “Open his mouth and pull out his tongue.”
I struggle, trying to escape his hold. It's useless to fight, though. I'm so small compared to them.
Jester forces my mouth open and yanks out my tongue. Horns digs around in his pocket, then pulls out a set of pliers. My eyes widen in terror. He clamps them around my tongue, making them tighter. He pulls a couple of times, and I shriek.
Jester laughs, then removes them, shoving me back onto the bed. “Let this be a lesson, boy. Know your place. Speak out of turn again, and you will lose your tongue.”
I stopped talking after that.
I didn’t dare take that chance.
The new assholes brought in when I was fourteen were even crueler. Sadistic.
They taunted me relentlessly about “having their way with me,” but they didn’t touch me like that until the morning of my eighteenth birthday.
The fuckers raped me whenever they wanted once I was legally an adult.
They also threw me into the fighting ring for their amusement.
Add almost daily beatings to the mix, of course.
They left abruptly when I was twenty. That's when the current set of masks came in; just as fucking sick and depraved as the last ones.
They had started to torment me —something about my twenty-sixth birthday— a few months ago. People disappear when they turn twenty-six. I have no clue why. All I’ve noticed is that some patients who are too weak get shipped off. Then the strong ones are sent elsewhere. Then the ones who “age out” are sent who the hell knows where.
So, the fact that Demon has my girl... not acceptable.
I am going to kill him, brutally, if I can get my hands on him first before the others do. I hate sharing with those other dicks, but it’s worth it to be with my love. My Em. I love her so much.I've been working hard on learning to talk again, for her. I have so much to tell her.
I'm pulled from my thoughts when Ghost lays a comforting hand on my shoulder. “We’ll find her, man. I promise you that.”
I nod, gritting out, “Yes, we will.” I walk in step with him.
I wrangle my thoughts to my Em.
We will get her back—no matter what.
Chapter 15
Phoenyxx
I’m exhausted,but I don’t dare lay down to rest. I remember what the sick fuck did to me in The Morgue while I was asleep.
Demon is out of his mind and unhinged. I knew there was something weird going on while I was in there, but this level of obsession? Nope, not one clue.
There is no way I'm willingly marrying that psycho fuck. But I’m smart enough to know pretending to comply could help me play the long game, and hopefully find a way to escape.
