The hiss of his zipper cuts through the air. My blood doesn’t chill—it heats, boiling in my veins until I feel like I could burn the whole room down just by breathing.
I should be afraid. Maybe the old me would have been.
But I am not prey anymore. I am not a victim. I am the nightmare they should fear.
Caroline lets out a strange, tittering laugh. "She’ll bite your dick off, E."
I will. I’ll bite it off and spit it back into his face.
Blood rushes to Elijah’s face, turning it almost purple. As if he heard my thoughts, he raises his hand. The explosion of stinging pain across my face makes my eyeball want to leap from its socket. My groan of pain is eaten by the cloth.
Tears leak out, but they aren’t from fear. The spark has turned into a ball of fire, a blazing star in the pit of my stomach that heats my blood with rage. The kind of rage that could crack the world open and drink from its bones.
The thought is cut short by another near eye-exploding slap across my other cheek.
Caroline’s unsteady pitch of laughter grows louder. Elijah pulls something from his back pocket before flicking it open with a metallic gleam. A knife.
He grabs the end of the rag and yanks it out of my mouth. I dissolve into a coughing fit as I fight to suck fresh air back into my lungs. My cheeks burn and ache as I convulse.
When I come back to myself, I find Elijah holding his dick in his hand. As soon as my eyes land on it, he pushes the knife against my throat. His knife flashes in the dim light. He presses it against my throat, clumsy, too hard, splitting my skin with a sharp bite. Blood slides down my collarbone in thin, hot lines.
"Again," Caroline says, her spine ramrod straight, eyes growing as big and round as an owl’s. "Cut her again, E. Make her bleed. Make her bleed for Mama." Her throat contorts with a visible swallow of anticipation.
A dark smirk pulls at one side of Elijah’s mouth. The knife bites into my cheek and I cry out in pain.
Caroline’s chest heaves almost violently as she watches him with rapt attention. Elijah pumps his meaty fist around his dick.
He watches her even as he lowers the knife to my naked thighs and cuts me once, twice, three times. I grimace, refusing to whimper in pain or beg him to stop.
Not only do I think Caroline might get off on that, but I know it won’t do any good. I grit my teeth, suffering the stinging, shallow wounds.
When his knife finds the center of my panties, I look up at him from under my lashes. "I will kill you."
My voice is low and certain. It is not a threat. It is a fact.
If I were free, I would show him what kind of monster this world has made me. I would carve the flesh from their bones and hold it in front of their eyes.
He only smiles at me, as if I’m a dumb child.
The pressure of the knife against my sex shatters the last remnants of the girl I was.
"Let’s get you wet," he hisses.
Tentacles explode from beneath my bed, coiling and snapping angrily.
Elijah stumbles back, his jaw going slack with surprise.
The room fills with Shadow’s enraged presence.
"GET AWAY FROM HER." The words boom around us like a thunderclap.
My fear and rage cartwheel in exaltation. Hatred and outrage simmer in my soul, a dark, bubbling mixture.
"You’re fucking dead now," I spit at Elijah. The knife slips from his hand, clattering on the floor.
"E?" Caroline asks, her voice shaking. She likely thinks she’s having some drug-induced hallucination.
A shadow tentacle snaps out and grabs Elijah, slamming him into the ceiling. Elijah’s face crashes into the dingy surface over and over again. Shadow crawls out from under the bed. With an unnatural creaking of bones and eyes like fire, he swells into the room like an apocalypse made flesh.
