Every inch of me believed this was a dream.
Every sane and rational part of me couldn’t accept anything else.
But...it wasn’t a dream, and I couldn’t wake up, and I had no idea what to do about any of it.
Chapter Fourteen
PAIN.
That was all I knew, all I was, all I would ever be.
Decades of agony.
Years of misery.
Gritting my teeth, I balled my hands where I sat cross-legged on my bed. I braced against the current onslaught. The burning, twisting, stinging agony that bled from the vitalsync core. That fucking machine injected poison straight into my heart, making it pump despair around my veins with every beat.
Sweat broke out on my temples as I did my best to ride through this particular punishment. My breath came short, my muscles locked tight. My blood was on fire, turning into the very magma that my company harnessed.
“Fuck...” Gripping my knees, I tried to stay upright but another gush of red-hot agony sent me convulsing forward.
Groaning, I hugged my middle, rocking through the worst of it.
No one came.
I had no reprieve, no help—completely abandoned to darkness.
As my vision blackened at the edges, the only chance I had at stopping a forced blackout was to lower my racing heartbeat. To stop it from siphoning the chemicals through my system.
Breathe.
I clenched my jaw, doing my best to sit upright.
In, out. In, out.
After so many years, I’d hoped I would become numb to the drugs they fed me. That I’d somehow build up a tolerance or immunity, and the burning pain would eventually fade.
But either my body liked being tortured or the people on the other end of my misery kept tweaking the dose, just enough that I could never overcome it.
My heart pounded in my ears.
The soft beeping of the vitalsync core warned that my pulse was nearing the limit that automatically triggered a sedative.
Their one weapon against me—rigged to torment me and prevent me from taking my life—tortured me until I almost broke.
I’d begged for death for so long. I’d screamed and howled for years. I’d begged and pleaded for someone,anyone, to end me.
Before they sent women in to toy with me, I’d hunted this entire estate for something that could kill me quickly—before my heart rate spiked and they administered the knock-out drug.
But there was nothing weapon-like in this place.
And each time I tried to hang myself with a curtain tie-back or suffer a tragic fall down the stairs, my racing heart and adrenaline betrayed me, and they knocked me out before I could succeed.
With no knives in the kitchen, no swords in the armoury, and no tools in the workshop, I didn’t stand a chance. Even the rooftop had platforms beneath it—terraces of stone that would catch me too quick to kill me.
My only option was to letthemdo it.
To close my eyes when they came sneaking and stay still as they tried to slaughter me. That would solve one problem. Unfortunately, I had too many others that wouldn’t be solved so easily.
