Page 48 of Deadly North

He’s going to kill Mack and my brother and try to kill all the Royal Bastards.

I try to scream, but my voice has left me. All I can do is open my mouth and gasp for breath. Dylan/Blaze notices, obviously enjoying my terror. “You thirsty?” he says, snickering. “You seem pretty thirsty.”

He turns away from me and reaches for a bottle of water on on the counter and a plastic glass. He pours me a drink, then turns back around. “Here,” he says, offering it to me. “Gotta keep you hydrated.”

I consider not taking it from him, but I’m so thirsty that my hands reach out in spite of myself.You can’t fight back if you’re too weak. Drink it.I suck down the room-temperature water in great gulps, noting the slightly chemical taste. I don’t take a breath until the entire glass is gone. Swallowing a final time, I gasp in some air, then exhale in relief.

“More?” he asks. I shake my head, not wanting to accept any more favors from him than I have to.

But it doesn’t take long to realize it wasn’t a favor. A few seconds later, I start to feel strange. Woozy, and a little sick.

“What… what did you give me?” I ask, realizing that the strange taste of the water wasn’t just from the plastic bottle.

“The last good sleep you’re ever gonna have,” he tells me as everything goes fuzzy around me, and then black.

When I wake up,time has stopped.

It’s pitch dark inside the trailer again. But this time, I’m chained to the bed. Handcuffs secure my wrists; my feet are bound separately and secured to large, sturdy hooks in the wall. I’m on my back, splayed like an X.

And I’m naked except for my underwear.

I shiver and cry throughout the night, awaiting and dreading the moment when Dylan comes back.

Then he does come back. And it all starts.

Night comes and goes twice more. During that time, I endure things I never thought possible. He does to me the things Fury did to him. I know this because he tells me. He beats me. He cuts me — shallowly, so I don’t bleed out. He feeds me and gives me just enough water to keep me alive and conscious. He doesn’t let me go to the bathroom, no matter how much I beg.

When I soil myself, he slaps me and calls me filthy things.

Dylan doesn’t rape me — not yet.

But I know it’s coming.

I know because I can see the bulge in his jeans when he tortures me. When he cuts me and watches me bleed, his eyes are wild with rage but also lust. I know this because he got off on inflicting pain back when we were together. I recognize the expression in his eyes. My cries of pain turn him on.

So when I come back to consciousness on the third or fourth day, and see him coming into the trailer with a shovel, a towel, and a folded tarp in his hands, I know what’s next.

“See this?” he taunts me, brandishing the shovel. “Ask me what I’ve been doing.”

Wide-eyed, I can’t form the words. But he doesn’t seem to notice.

“First I’m gonna fuck you,” he hisses. “Then I’m gonna gut you like a fucking pig. And I’m gonna leave you to bleed to death in a shallow grave when I’m done with you. You better pray you die before the animals get to you.”

That’s what the tarp is for. To wrap me in and carry me to my grave while I’m bleeding out.

I work hard not to hyperventilate as Dylan pulls out the key to the handcuffs. He undoes one and then steps back. “Undo the other one, cunt.”

I do as he says. Trembling, I fumble with the key at first, from terror and because my hands numb and stiff from being cuffed for so long. As soon as the second one falls from my wrist, I wince and start to massage the feeling back into them. My heart is racing, fast and shallow, but I keep my face as expressionless as I can. I need to concentrate. I know I can’t waste any possible chance I get now.

Dylan pulls out his switchblade and flicks it open. The same gleaming blade that he’s been using to make thin track marks all over my body, he now uses to cut the ropes that have been binding my feet. Then he tosses me the towel. “Clean yourself,” he commands.

I do as he says, working to wipe myself off as best I can.

“Pull the sheets off. They’re fucking disgusting,” he orders. When I’ve done that, he grabs them from my hands and throws them to the other side of the trailer. Then, leering, he undoes the fly on his jeans, then pulls out his erection, palming it and starting to stroke himself. “This makes me so fucking hot,” he rasps. His forehead has started to perspire. He pulls off his sweaty T-shirt, revealing a torso that’s shockingly familiar. “Your pussy is gonna beg for me. And I’ll be the last man who ever fucks you, Gigi. You couldn’t escape. You tried, but you failed. You’re mine after all.”

My eyes never leaving him, I put my hands behind me and crab-walk to the far edge of the bed, my back to the wall. He takes a step forward, the knife still in the hand that’s not stroking himself. I brace as he kicks off his shoes and jeans.

Then, when he climbs onto the bed with the knife, I pretend to lie back and surrender. But then, I lift my heel up and kick him solid as I can in the face.

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