“Don’t pay them any attention, sweethearts,” Roger said.
Stirring at his voice, Zack finally turned his attention toward a cell on the other side of the chamber. Roger stood behind one of the cell doors. His long black hair brushed his shoulders, and his smile was warm, though exhaustion was obvious in his brown eyes. He was as muscular as he’d ever been, but he leaned against the wall as if it took everything to stand. He had no shirt, and his pants were bordering on too torn to hold together.
Zack’s libido attempted to rally.Not the time. He rushed to the door, realized he didn’t have any tools to unlock it, and motioned to Takashi. “Quick, we have to get him out.”
Takashi crossed the room and knelt down to begin working on the lock. “I don’t understand. Anton said he let you go. I saw you run.”
“He caught me later on. Fuck, is it good to see you two.” Roger reached out between the bars, carefully not touching them.
Zack stepped forward to feel him. His touch was warmer than Takashi’s at first, but then suddenly, it wasn’t. “Wait, something’s not right.”
“Because he’s fucking with you,” a voice said, the clarity and pitch echoing off the stone walls.
Nothim. Zack spun to his right.
A young man a few years older than Zack was in the near corner cell. He was fairly tall, just shy of six feet in height, with dark brown hair that always got redder in the summer sun. His skin was the gray of a tombstone, and his once dark brown eyes were a faint shade of red. He had broad shoulders and a strong jawline with a dimple in the center of his chin. And Zack had never noticed that he had such long eyelashes before, but they were there.
“Dennis,” Zack snarled. “What the fuck are you doing here?”
“Great to see you, too, coz,” Denny drawled. He pushed himself up to his feet. He touched the bars as he did and hissed as they burned him. “That over there is an incubus.”
“Succubus, technically.” The fake Roger smiled wickedly. “Since I prefer to be on the receiving side.”
“Shit,” Takashi muttered. He slid back from the lock and shoved his makeshift picks into his pocket as he stood.
Denny grumbled, “Point is, that isn’t who you think it is, Zack. It’s a demon.”
“I know what succubae are, thanks,” Zack snapped.
“This is little Zacky?” the fake Roger asked delightedly. He shimmered with a red light. Between one blink and the next, he changed into a skinny boy with light brown hair and steel-gray eyes. His appearance was identical to Zack’s younger self. With glee, he pointed at his face. “You’re him?”
Hearing his own younger voice speaking to him pushed Zack further to numbness. “Wait, hold on, succubae are sex demons. I knew you were a prick, Denny, but seriously? A pedophile?”
“Gross. No,” Denny said.
“A sex demon knows what I look like!” Zack gestured at the succubus.
“To be fair to our poor Denny, this isn’t about sex. I wouldloveto feed on nothing but that desire, but pickings are a little scarce down here, so I’ll take as much regret as possible. And this? Mmmmmmmmm.” The now-fake-Zack licked his fingers. “Delicious!”
“Regret?” Zack asked.
Denny crossed his arms over his chest and stared at the floor of his cell. “Don’t overthink it. He’s starving, and I’m the only semi-sane thing left in here.”
“I don’t need to ‘overthink it,’” Zack growled and clenched his fists. “I was a child that you helped tie up, and then when we were alone, you beat me. I wasdefenseless.”
“All I wanted was to play with you guys,” young-fake-Zack said, pitching his voice high and tight like he was about to cry. “What did I do wrong, Denny? Why did you call me those names? Why do you hate them so much? Why do you hate me?”
Big, wet tears started to roll down fake-Zack’s cheeks, and he sniffled.
Denny was crying, too. His tears were drops of blood that made tracks down his cheeks.
“Zack,” Takashi whispered. “Perhaps we should leave.”
That would be the smart move. Zack could forget about this horror show and whatever was happening in this torture chamber. Out of all the people in his life, Denny was certainly one of the prime candidate assholes for abandoning to actual Hell, not just hell on Earth.
But he could sense the deep chasm of regret in Denny. He refused to dive into it, didn’t want to know whether the source was some desire that he wished he’d done more or not. But villains didn’t cry about the pain they caused.
Once he touched Denny’s regret, he could taste it on the air. And it was zipping across the chamber to the demon in the cell.
