I peer up at the blurry figures closing in, face slick with blood and rain and the high of carnage.
“Perfect,” I rasp, laughing through gritted teeth. “Parley and take me to the mothership, you motherfuckers.”
They dump me like trash.
Hardwood bites my knees as I hit the floor, wrists cuffed behind my back so tight, they’re going numb. Got countless bruises from their blows. Guess they weren’t too happy with how many I took out.
Blood from a cut on my lip hits the floor before I do, and I lift my head just enough to see the Prophet’s office. Ornate rugs. Gaudy gold-framed mirrors. A silver circle above his desk. And fuck me if he doesn’t have animal masks with crowns lining the damn walls.
“Well,” I grin through bloodied teeth, looking up at the man sitting in a royal purple wingback chair behind the large desk in front of me, “someone’s got a god complex and a shite interior decorator. What, no velvet Elvis?”
The Prophet—tall, dark hair, and way too good-looking for a piece of shite like him—smiles thin and humorless. He wears all white, like some bastard saint. The robes make me itch just seeing them. Can’t wait to turn them red.
“I should’ve known the drone was ineffective.” He rises, circling me like a vulture. “You’re clever little rats. Slipping through cracks. Multiplying.”
“Yeah,” I grunt. “We’re everywhere. Crawling up your ass like radioactive rodents.” I give him my best twisted grin becausehe’s invited me into the belly of the beast. Not knowing I’m the bigger beast. And I’ll goddamn devour him from the inside out. “Where’s my woman?”
He stops behind me.
I don’t like not being able to see his hands.
A hum cuts through the air, rising.
Then, searing pain stabs into my neck from the cattle prod he presses to my skin. Just the lowest setting, but it’s enough to light up every nerve from the base of my skull to my fingertips. Pins and needles dipped in acid erupt through me.
I grit my teeth and exhale sharply through my nose. No scream. No satisfaction.
“Where are they?” he demands.
“What’s the matter?” I croak, blinking through the static fuzz in my head. “Your hand trembled. Try again, maybe you’ll pop the cork this time.”
He zaps me again, fucking bastard. Can’t even bother to get his hands dirty.
“Ye like a bit o’foreplay, Mr. Messiah?” I say through gasps. “Cause ye gonna need more voltage than that to light me on fire.”
I groan through the next jolts, my muscles a’jerking, the pain firing through every nerve ending in my body.
He squats beside me, leans in close enough that I smell cloves and copper on him.
“You think you’re brave,” he murmurs. “But we have other ways to make you talk.”
“Ack, what a cliche. Ye gonna share your tragic backstory monologue while petting a black cat next? Where is myLass, motherfucker?”
He straightens. Snaps his fingers. “Bring him to the Circle.”
My stomach knots. Not from fear. From rage.
Two grunts grab me under the arms and haul me to my feet. I drag my boots like dead weight just to spite them. Down windinghallways, underground, past stone walls that smell of mildew and old blood. My head swims, but I don’t stumble.
Then the doors open.
The Circle.
It’s an amphitheater. Ancient. Cold. Stone seating all around, rising tiers like some twisted coliseum. Ripples of conversation surge through the audience. Mostly men. Some women. No children. At least that’s a blessing.
Then, I lift my eyes to the center: a cross. Not symbolic. Not spiritual. Functional. Brutal.
And she’s bound to it.
