“Stop hurting her, you fucking bastard!” V swung again but missed as Cut ducked and snapped his fingers for the Black Diamonds to grab V.
“Leave him alone!”
My screaming didn’t do any good.
Commotion shot to mayhem. Men shoved back chairs. Fists swung. Grunts echoed.
“Stop! Please stop!”
They didn’t stop.
Not only did millions of tiny nails trap my body, but I was forced to watch my twin beaten and kicked and left gasping by my feet.
It’d only taken a few minutes.
But the punishment was severe.
I groaned, slapping my forehead.
Stop thinking about it.
After the Iron Chair, I’d been locked in my room with no bandages or medical salve. I wasn’t allowed to see Vaughn, and I’d tended to my injuries in a lukewarm bath that I lacked the strength to climb out of.
I was exhausted.
They’d found a recipe that could well and truly break me forever.
Unknown Number:I’ll be back as soon as I can. Every day I’m getting stronger. Just a little longer, then this will all be over. I promise.
I sighed, curling around the phone. My fever came back, dousing my insides with frigid unwellness. I had every intention of fighting back. I would make them hurt.I will make them pay.
Somehow, I would keep my oath.
But a little longer? It made time sound like it was nothing—such a flippant phrase, a small segment of moments—but to me, it was a never-ending eternity.
I don’t have much longer, Jethro.
Not judging by Bonnie’s antics. Every day she had something worse.
I truly was Elisa, fading hour by hour, wasting away beneath torment.
Swallowing more tears, coughing with wet lungs, I typed:
Needle&Thread:I’ll be here waiting for you. Every night I dream of you. Dream of happier times—times we haven’t been lucky enough to enjoy yet. But we will.
As if fate wanted to banish those dreams, to prove to me that I should’ve given up months ago, it brought forth the memory of what’d happened the day after the Iron Chair.
I’d been summoned to the kitchen, believing Flaw had some good news for me or Vaughn had been given free rein. It’d taken my last remaining strength to shuffle to the kitchen. Perhaps, the cook would give me some warm chicken soup and some medicine for my flu.
Instead, Bonnie found me. “Seeing as you refused to confess your sins on the Iron Chair, you will pay the opposite price.”
“Confess my sins?” I coughed. “There’s nothing to confess. You’re doing this for your own sick pleasure.”
She chuckled. “Itisrather pleasurable, I must admit.” Coming forward, she wrapped her fingers around my arm and dragged me through the kitchen to a small alcove where herbs and small plants grew.
My fever turned everything hazy. My blocked nose and stuffed sinuses granted everything a nightmare-like quality.
Cut stepped around the corner, dangling something in his hands. “Good morning, Nila.”
