One shock too many.
When I didn’t respond like they wanted me to, he pressed his lips together. “It stops a heart.”
All it took was one shock too many.
“You don’t have to hang there anymore, Olivia,” he told me, two of the men walking over and gently undoing my chains.
The pain was sharp and horrifying, but I swallowed the screams down, I learned how to do it really well after the fourth time they pulled me down.
One of the men carried me over to my bed and set me down, taking off the chains from my bloody and torn wrists, and stepping back while another put a thick metal bracelet around my ankle.
I inspected it, my arms now on either side of me, my eyes following the chain to the end of the bed. I couldn’t feel my arms or legs, what was I going to do? Roll out of here?
Idiots.
Once my ankle was chained, one of the men pushed me back into the bed, moving me to the center of it.
This was it, wasn’t it? They were going to try and kill me over and over again until I just didn’t wake up anymore.
I couldn’t even say goodbye.
Isaak appeared above me, looking me over slowly from head to toe. “It’s a shame,” he hummed, his eyes lingering on my breasts, on my cunt. “You’re a pretty little thing. Perhaps maybe I’ll have some fun with you before we ship you off, hmm? My cousin says his man would pay a good price for someone like you, and you’re no use to us here. Not anymore.”
They were hoping they wouldn’t kill me then. If I was to be shipped off, I had to survive. Did they understand that the human body could only take so much of this before they simply wasted away? Because I did. I had done my research, and what that research told me was that I was too frail, too underfed, too dehydrated, to survive this.
“So,” he went on, nodding to one of the men, “we’re going to try one last thing before my cousin brings in his man, and if you don’t have anything of value to tell us, we’ll ship you off with him, is that clear?”
I just continued to stare at the ceiling. I had no idea when I would be able to feel my arms and legs again, which meant that all I could do was take this. There was no fighting against it. There was no getting up and punching someone in the balls to weaken them. There was nothing. The only power I had left was my voice.
My heart stuttered at that as a man placed two sticky pads on me. One on my ribs, the other near my heart. He slid his handover my breast, causing me to shiver involuntarily as he did. I hated that. Everyone kept doing that, copping feels. Everyone except for Phil. I wanted to kill them for doing it. I wanted to gouge their eyes out, tear their hands off and feed it to them. I wanted to do to them what my character Alaric did to his victims. I could do it. I could handle it. I could become Alaric. But not until I had full use of my body again.
Once I did? God fucking help them.
Isaak pulled up a chair, one I didn’t see them bring down, and sat at my bed side. “Tell me what you know about Malachi Adler,” he requested gently. “Where are their base operations? What are their real names? Their plans? Their wants? Their desires? Tell me anything. Even something small. A scar on their face, facial hair. Information about the other two Claims. Give me something.”
I found his eyes, watching him carefully. There was nothing to tell. I didn’t knowanything. I didn’t understand why everyone thought I had this information. How could I give them information that didn’t exist?
Isaak released a breath and gave a nod to the man next to the defibrillator.
I didn’t have any information at all, I was just trying to get Merlin o—
~~~
I gasped, my entire body convulsing in absolute agony.
Everything was too loud and too colorful, my body didn’t feel right, nothing felt right.
Tears filled my eyes as I frantically looked around, panting, my heart pounding. “What the fuck,” I gasped, terror filling me. My brain felt as if it were full of sparks, as if I had been reset. Everything and nothing kept flooding through in bursts, notmaking any sense at all. Pictures and words and feelings. Too many feelings.
Isaak leaned over me, his eyes hard. “What do you know?”
“What’s happening?” Malachi asked calmly.
“Nothing,” I tried desperately, my nails digging into the bed. “I swear to God, I don’t know anything.” I wouldn’t give them anything. Not an inch. They were coming for me. They had to still be coming for me. All I had to do was wait.
I was fine.
I wasfine.
