Page 31 of Wrathful King
“Sorry about that. Some men have no manners.”
I scrambled back into the corner, bringing my knees to my chest. My teeth chattered. My hands shook. Would he finally rape me? The waiting and fighting, day in and day out, was wreaking havoc on my sanity.
He grinned as if he could read my mind while his eyes roamed over the flimsy, tattered nightgown I’d been forced to sit in for God knew how long.
“You’re going to bleed for me so prettily,” he purred in his shrill voice. “It’ll hurt as much as it’ll feeloh-so-good.” He threw his head back and laughed maniacally. “Well, for me anyway. I can’t guaranteeyourpleasure, but I would prefer it if you remained conscious.”
The panic attack ripped through me, crippling me in an instant. My chest tightened, stealing the air from my lungs. I began to hyperventilate, and before long, the world around me went hazy.
Numbness spread through my limbs as the taste of bile filled my mouth, and I knew I was about to sink into the abyss.
Footsteps echoed through the stone cell. Then… Quiet. Stillness. Nothing but painful breaths.
Like clockwork, the screaming in my head drowned out the silence. As did the agony in my chest, the ache in my bones.
Week one, I waited. Week two, I hoped. By the third, I despaired. Now, in what I believed to be my fourth week in isolation, parts of me were beginning to disappear, while others were transforming into something ugly and twisted.
I wanted to scream out and beg for help, but I knew it wasn’t coming. And my strength kept failing me. I felt sluggish. Disoriented. There were gaps in my memory. Sometimes I’d open my mouth and it was like I’d forgotten how to speak. I couldn’t remember what I sounded like. Other times I said nothing, but the whispers crowding my head spoke of things I had difficulty grasping.
It was futile to fight it, pointless to cling to the light when all I’d taste was darkness. So I got lost in that pain.
The voices in my head protested.
No one’s coming for you. Get up and fight. Make them pay.
And I knew with certainty that I’d rather burn alive than live one more moment like this.
12
REINA
The darkened cellar became my home. The whispers and ghosts became my company. But the pain… It taunted me. Dared me to fight, to survive this horror.
Hours, days, weeks, possibly months… They all blurred together. I couldn’t distinguish dreams and nightmares from reality. I wasn’t sure how long I’d been here.
Shivers and the clattering of my teeth pierced through the nightmare, and I focused on that noise. It was better than the screams tearing through the hallway, splitting my skull and heart in two.
I brought my palms up, covering my ears. I knew what was coming next.
Thrust.Another rape happening outside these walls. One day it’d be my turn.
The thick walls separated me from everyone, but it didn’t stop the misery and abuse from finding its way into my prison. Each cry and scream multiplied as it traveled through the hallways, twisting into something darker than my own hallucinations.
This place was filled with shadows and monsters. The hallways echoed and groaned, feeding my despair as I sat in the corner alone, crying.
In the deepest recess of my mind, I remembered I fought for them.The women who paid for my sins.The womenhemade scream for my disobedience. My lack of resistance. Or was it too much resistance? I wasn’t sure.
Another thrust that seemed to shake the stone wall, sputtering dust through the air. Was I imagining that too?
But no… there it was. A whimper. Another cry. A heart-wrenching scream.
The heroin provided some semblance of escape, but still my stomach churned. It was like a constant itch underneath my skin that I couldn’t scratch. A bloodied cut I didn’t remember getting, opening back up right as the crusty scab had started to heal again.
I pinned my attention on the flecks of dust dancing through the air, mocking me with their freedom while I sat here immobile.
I raised my hand, reaching for them.
Except I couldn’t catch them. They were fleeting, just like my sanity. Just like the rush from the heroin. It was meant to subdue me, buthe—Perez, the man with the cold dark eyes—said it made me savage before it made me mellow. He didn’t like either extreme.
