Page 79 of Liberated By Sin
My black trench coat slid off my shoulders and onto the floor. I heard him suck his teeth and quicken his pathetic hand thrusts. Grimacing with disgust, I rolled my eyes and gripped my knife.
“I must say, you are exquisite, whore.” He drew closer, his breath on my shoulder, and my hand trembled with the overwhelming urge to react. “Tell me, are you ready to play?”
Savage.
Licking the sharp edge, I countered, “The better question is, are you?”
The knife sank into the side of his abdomen, and he froze in shock, his brain taking its time to register what the fuck happened. With eyes as wide as saucers, he dropped his gaze to the wound.
“Bitch…”
Three more quick stabs had his mouth gaping open, followed by a slash that forced him to stumble backward.
I could have killed him on the first hit, but I needed my fun. I hadn’t come all this way for a quick death. Nothing about what I had endured was easy or fast. Maybe he hadn’t been the man who’d violated and beat me until my skin was raw and broken. But they were one and the same.
And if I could take it, so could he.
Blood dripped from the corner of his mouth. “I’ll kill you.”
“Try.”
He growled and lunged forward, expecting me to attempt an escape, but I surprised him when I dropped to the floor, and another slash of my knife stole his breath. Though this time, I couldn’t blame his look of utter horror and shock when he realized he was down an appendage—one he was very fond of.
“No…no!” Staggering, he fell on his ass, blood pooling beneath him, gushing from the stump where his cock had once been.
“You’re all the same,” I said, stalking toward him. “You take and take, andtakewithout mercy or remorse.”
Tears ran down his cheeks as he attempted to scoot away. “Fuck…you fucking psycho. What have you done?”
“Oh, Sokolov, I’m just getting started. Maybe you don’t remember me. But we’re old friends.”
His shallow breaths slowed briefly as his eyebrows came together, the wheels in his mind turning.
“I’m insulted you forgot. My eyes have this way of making me quite memorable.”
“You…” he huffed. “You shot up my garage.”
“Bingo.”
He grimaced and reached for a Glock on a side table, but I introduced his hand to my blade instead, piercing straight through his palm and into the flimsy wood. Howling, his body shook against the pain.
I dipped close to his face. “Hurts, doesn’t it? Just breathe for me.”
As I circled him, light tapping noises from another room caught my attention. “I thought you were here alone.” The sound became more frantic. “Don’t go anywhere.”
Grabbing the gun, I approached a short hallway. The same odor from earlier wafted beneath my nose, stronger and more pungent. I braced myself for what I could potentially see and pushed open the door.
A sharp gasp fled my lips when I saw a young girl sitting in an empty tub, chained to the faucet. She was skin and bones, filthy, with dried blood and bruises all over her body. Barely conscious, the tapping seemed more like an innate survival response than a deliberate one.
“Hey,” I said in a hushed voice. “I’ll get you help, okay?” The closer I got, the more horrified I became. The girl was sitting in a puddle of her own blood, urine, and excrement. A nipple clamp that I could only assume had been attached to flesh sat beside her while the other was still halfway dangling.
“Fuck,” I cried, squeezing my eyes closed. “I’m so sorry this happened to you.”
Ireached out to touch her hair, but her head slung forward, and she stilled.
Falling to my knees beside the tub and blurred behind a wall of tears, I saw myself in this girl.
For a moment, the world quieted. And it was just her, me, and the memory of my own suffering. I didn’t know who she was, where she’d come from, or how long she’d been here.