Page 41 of Like Grim Death: Part One
I don’t answer.
This time, a sharp kick hits my ribs.
I try to hunch over as a snarled sound leaves my lips, but the binds are around my chest too, and my ab muscles flex, attempting to soften the blow. I feel bile burn up from deep inside my stomach, spurting into my throat.
“There’s a panic room in Lucifer’s house. How do you access it?”
If I weren’t in so much pain, I would laugh. I forget he has a panic room, and he’s certainly never told me how to get inside. The devil keeps secrets even from his demons.
But Idon’tlaugh, and I don’t speak, and that gives me another blow, this time a slap to my abs, which my mind reasons shouldn’t hurt so badly, but after the kick, it’s like my body wants to levitate off the chair to get away from the torture.
I don’t go anywhere though as tears from physical pain prick behind my eyes. The binds keep me in place.
“Fuck,” I grunt out, my voice a splintered whisper,“off.”
There’s quiet.
Then, “She’s alone right now.If you don’t answer my question, if you don’t give mesomethingon Rain, I’ll ensure my men fuck her with everything in your house until she’s absolutelyuselessto you.”
The pain seems to abate. Cold fear numbs it. I’m rigid in my chair, my mind teleporting to my beautiful, red-haired girl, hopefully sleeping through my absence.
But no. Not hopefully.Wake up, pretty girl. Open your eyes.If someone came for her, would she know how to defend herself? Why have I never taught her? Why did I make her entirely dependent on me?
My thighs tense. My jaw hurts from clenching my teeth.Rain, or Ella?Is that what’s happening right now? I’m being forced to choose between the only person who accepts me entirely as I am, who loves me despite every fucked up thing inside my head,and a baby?Mynephew?
It’s too clean, this set up. Too far-fetched.
It’s too… Russian thriller.
If they had really spied on me, watched me type in the passcode to the Malikov garage, they would have simply followed me inside or else used something to capture the numbers I entered.
Horrifyingly, I realizethis is a test.
So all I say is, “Yeah? Well when this is all over, when I get out of this chair,I’m going to fuckyouwith it.”
There’s a strange quiet. I wonder if they knowIknow.
Then there’s a different voice. “Very good.” It’s the person who attacked me,and I fucking know him.His praise doesn’t make sense to me. I didn’t give themanything,I didn’t make the choice. But maybe they believe because I didn’t immediately rat out Rain’s whereabouts after they threatened my girl, I decided. Or maybe, since this is a test, they went easy on me.
Either way, I go perfectly still. Instinct makes me want to slam my knees together and hunch over to protect my heart and my dick, but I know the voice that just spoke, and I know he won’t go for either. It must not have been him attacking me, becausehewould go for my back.
“Hope you’re not feeling too fucked.” Father Tomas speaks as if we’re still on the phone, having casual conversation over creepy 6 property. “But it’s all over now.”
I still can’t see anything, and I want to rip the fucking blindfold off of my face, but I don’t strain my wrists anymore against the bindings. They’ll only tighten if I do. This isn’t my first fucking kidnapping. It’s a 6 specialty.
“What do you want?” My voice is hoarse and my lip splits as I speak, dry and cracked. I can hear my pulse in my ears, and I can hearher name too.
I need to get to Ella.
Father Tomas laughs, but it isn’t mocking. Not even cruel, really. We trust each other, in the way people do when they know secrets that could wreck one another’s worlds. It isn’t loyalty born from love or respect. It’s cold-blooded blackmail we have hanging over the other’s head.
But he’s the priest for the 6.Nothing changes that. Not even what he’s done to my fucking back. Is this about my phone call to him? How long ago was that now? I’ve lost any sense of time.
At the end of his bizarre laughter, I hear him sigh, followed by the sound of his shoes on the cement floor, a soft and subtle echo. I wonder if we’re at Sanctum. For a second, I imagine my parents’ ghosts drifting around the graveyard, peering inside to see what’s become of their son.
But the imagination is just that.Imagined.They aren’t buried here, at this new version of Sanctum.
For reasons I can’t explain, I feel like I got punched in the gut with the thought. They didn’t have a proper funeral. They were buried by the 6 while Sid was in the hospital. I didn’t even get invited to their funeral. I didn’t know it would happen without me.
