Page 252 of Like Grim Death: Part One
And I don’t care.
It doesn’t fucking matter to me.
My chest heaves even though it doesn’t feel as if I’m breathing.
“Kameron is the woman who has Jeremiah Rain held as a hostage right now. She’s the leader of Cruor, who has power even over RC. She has, it seems, risen from the dead. A trueLazarus.”
I drop the phone.
I don’t care about Jeremiah fucking Rain. I don’t give afuckabout Kameron. I don’t know what he means, rising from the dead.
I do not fucking care at all.
The only thing that comes out of my mouth, a gasping sound, like I’m choking, is my son’s name.
“Rain!”
His boot isflat against my spine. My cheek is pressed to the floor of the chapel inside Emily Cemetery. My thighs clench involuntarily, so I can hold back my pee. The pressure builds in my bladder and my nostrils flare rapidly, in and out as I try to gulp down air. It’s Sunday, the boys are at Sanctum, Sid is safe inside her house, and I… I am in hell.
A small laugh leaves his lips, curling with arrogance. “This looks like it’s a familiar position to you.”
My skin crawls, spiders down my shoulder blades. My palms are pressed to the dusty hardwoods too, but I couldn’t push up even if I tried. I’m not in much pain, not yet, but it’s the fear that crawls inside of me, making my body tremble on the floor.
I close my eyes tight and pray for Mavy, knowing he won’t come.
“Lucifer told you why you’re to meet me here, didn’t he?”
I clench my teeth, trying to gather my nerves. Yes. Lucifer told me to be fully inducted into the Unsaints, to be welcomed by the 6, I had to go through an initiation process, very different from Ignis, he told me with a wry smile.
But I guess I don’t speak quickly enough, because this man’s boot crunches against the lower part of my spine, along my sacrum.
I cry out, a wretched, weak sound as my eyes flash open and tears prick behind my eyes.
“When I ask you a question, you answer. I’m sure Maverick Astor taught you at least that?” A lightness to his words that tries to hide his evil.
I nod once, my chin sliding along the floor of the chapel. I see beneath the pews, dust and dirt and decay. It smells of things locked away in here. Dank and musky.
The man’s foot shifts up my spine, toward my shoulder blades, then he’s stepping on the back of my head. I snap my eyes closed once more, sucking on the inside of my cheeks to keep from sobbing.
Be strong. You can do this. Sid probably had to do something similar. You can survive, for him.You can.
He pushes his weight against the side of my skull. It feels like my temple will explode. Stars pop behind my lids, pressure building and growing and expanding, my nails digging into the floor, bending backward, flexing under the fear of my panic.
“If you do not come when you are summoned, it will not only be your life at risk.” He bears down harder, a jagged hiss escaping my lips as he covers my ear with the sole of his shoe. I can barely hear him when he speaks next, over the pain and my pulse pounding beneath his boot. “Exsanguinate. Do you know the meaning of the word, Ms. Christian?”
Snot drips down my nose as I try to breathe through the pain. He applies more pressure the longer I go without answering, the side of my face aching against the floorboards, the other side aching beneath his boot.
“No,” I whisper. I feel stupid, foolish, useless. Maverick has humiliated me a thousand times over, and it has never felt like this because there was love beneath it. “N-no, I don’t.” I say it again when he doesn’t let up. It feels like my ears will pop, like my eardrum will explode.
I push my palms against the floorboards, wanting to buck up, but he only laughs, decreasing the pressure and saying curtly, “Back on the floor.”
I drop down, relief spearing me with a warmth when he slides his boot down to the back of my neck. At least I can hear.
But as he flexes his toes, causing pressure at the top of my spine, I hear something crunch.
I bite my lip so hard I taste blood so I do not cry out.
“Of course you don’t know,” he croons. “You are nothing. A stupid, brainless girl. It’s what he likes about you, you know? That he could set you on fire and you would simply stand there and burn.”
