Metal bites my wrists. The handcuffs ratchet tight, wrenching my arms back until my shoulders scream.
“What the—”
Cloth punches into my mouth. Dirt. Sweat. I’ve been gagged.
“Turn the shower on.”
That voice. I know that voice.Jason.
Water roars to life. Steam billows. My head bounces off the wall again—harder this time. Something hot runs down my temple. The hands holding me upright are iron, unyielding. I catch a flash of a guard’s uniform in the dim light.
I try to scream. The sound dies in my throat, muffled. Useless.
The bat finds my ribs first.
Wet crack. My torso caves inward. I can’t breathe. Can’t expand my lungs. The hands keep me vertical as I try to fold.
A second swing catches my kidney. Fire tears up my spine. My knees try to buckle, but the guard’s grip won’t let me fall.
Jason knows anatomy. He’s a fighter—he knows exactly where the soft parts hide. My ribs again. Another crack, distinct this time. Then my shoulder. The meat of my stomach. Each strike precise. Deliberate. Destroying my ability to lift a weapon. To run. To fight.
The irony almost makes me laugh, or it would if I could breathe. He doesn’t need to do this. I was going to die anyway. He’s just wasted his time and ruined my last hours on this earth.
The bat crushes my thigh. Dead leg. Then the other kidney—my body convulses, trying to retch through the gag. The world blurs at the edges. Pain rolls through me in continuous waves now, no break between impacts.
Jason’s panting. “You think you’re so special. Marco’s little pet.”
Another whack to my ribs, on the other side. Copper floods my mouth, hot and thick around the cloth.
“Thought you could just waltz in here and take everything.”
Hip next. The bone screams. My legs are gone. The guard hauls me up by the cuffs, my shoulders threatening to dislocate.
The pain stops making sense. Too much. Too complete. Like it’s happening to a body that isn’t mine anymore. Something broken beyond recognition.
Then the light catches metal.
Not the bat.
A knife.
Jason steps closer. The blade is small—a utility knife, the kind used to cut rope and tape. My heart hammers against my broken ribs. He’s not weakening me for tomorrow after all. Not ensuring I die in the arena, so that I can’t steal his shot at being made captain.
He’s going to kill me. Right here. Right now.
The knife comes toward my throat—I watch it rise, watch the edge catch the shower’s steam, watch Jason’s hand tighten around the handle. My pulse pounds in my neck where the blade will open me. Will I feel it? The hot rush as my blood joins the water circling the drain? How long will it take? Seconds? A minute?
I can’t even close my eyes.
The blade veers.
My hair.
He saws through it in rough chunks. No precision now—just destruction. Blond hits the wet floor in clumps. Years of growth gone in seconds. The knife scrapes my scalp, nicks the skin.
“There.” He’s gasping. “Now you look like the nothing you are.”
My face meets tile again. The world grays out. Sound becomes distant—just the water’s roar and my heart struggling to beat around aching ribs.
