Page 30 of When Sinners Fear
My stomach wants the liquid and bread more than my brain wants to run over that fear, so I move over to the food.
I look around for Knox, and he’s sitting in his corner, already picking at his morsel.
“Eat.” His command is simple and one I have no trouble obeying. There’s barely any water in the cup as I lift it, but it’s there, and I drain it quickly, desperate for relief.
I chew the dried-up bread but keep working it in my mouth. The carbohydrate will help. Energy is what we need. What we both need, and Knox is eating his slice, too.
“How long?” I don’t need to elaborate.
“Not long.”
I nod and carry on chewing. The bread balls up into pulp in my mouth, and I taste the slight sweetness as the starch begins to break down. Can I still hold on to hope that we’ll get out of this alive?
The shimmer of tears begins, and I try to breathe around them. I don’t want to waste a single drop of liquid. As if he can read my thoughts, Knox looks over to me.
“Save them. Rest up while you can.”
His words are sombre, sounding depressed and hopeless to my ears, but I know he’s saying it for my benefit.
The door crashing open bursts my thoughts and sends my panic sky-high. I scurry towards the back of the cage, but Knox doesn’t move.
“We weren’t very entertained earlier. Not sure you put your best effort into breaking your girl in. So we thought we’d give you some added persuasion.” Reed looks at Knox, and I can see the furore aimed at him.
Knox doesn’t say anything, but his eyes cast a quick glance my way before they crowd around the cage and start to drag him out.
He kicks out at them with his better leg, but fighting is useless as they pull him from the cage. His already mutilated back is dragged across the floor, and he grimaces and swings a punch, but it’s futile and weak. What they've already inflicted doesn’t seem to register or stop them. They restrain him and leave him hanging. It’s all shadows and dark shapes from my cage, but I can’t look away as they step back and land the first punch. The loud grunts from Knox as he leans forward, knocks the wind from him. They start to pummel him over and over, up and down his chest and stomach, aiming at the sides and sensitive areas. Repeating their attention in his kidney area.
He doesn’t make a sound now, as if they’ve knocked everything out of him.
A second later, the splatter of liquid hitting the floor echoes in the room, followed by the acrid smell of vomit. Whatever sustenance he managed to get down is now on the floor. He needed that. What little nutrients and liquid he got, he needed to keep him strong and help him heal.
My hands grip the bars and squeeze, anger and fear mixing again, making me feel nauseous at what the future may hold. The dire thought of starving to death hits hard. Is that worse than being raped and beaten by strangers?
They lift his head, and I can see he’s barely holding it up on his own anymore. He’s got nothing to fight back with. He’s at their mercy like I was at his. But while I couldn’t say anything – while I didn’t have a choice in what he did – it felt like we were in it together. It felt like there was something that was more than him just abusing me. That’s not the same as what they’re doing to him – beating him to a pulp.
The beating doesn’t stop. They continue, and I wonder if they’re even causing him pain if he’s unconscious. They don’t care because they continue to lay into him until I can hear their heaving breaths.
“You’re going to kill him,” I shout weakly.
Reed snaps his head around to me. “Just be grateful we don’t want seconds from you yet.”
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
KNOX
Staring at Peyton while she sleeps isn’t helping, but she’s about the only thing here worth a damn at the moment. We’re both down on the ground after my last beating, both trying to find reasons to bother breathing some more. If someone doesn’t get here real damn quick, I’m not sure that’s gonna be an option for me much longer. I’m bleeding inside. It’s coming out through the small amount of piss I’m managing, and I’m hurting like a bitch every time I try.
I shift a little to ease the pressure on my burns and ribs. Doesn’t work. I just lean on another point of pain and eventually I give up trying to sleep at all. What’s the point? If I’ve only got so long left, I might as well look at something beautiful for the time I have got.
Pitching, I sit and lean my head back on the bars to gaze some more. That silken blonde has turned all matted up now, and her naked skin’s full of dirt and smudges. Broken fingernails. Blood-stained thighs. Some part of me likes the look. Another fucking hates it, because whilst I might have done that to her, I wouldn’t have if we weren’t being forced into it. She wasn’t for that. She was for some light and preciousness in the middle of my world – some innocence. In the beginning, at least.
Guilt and blame addle my nerves, making what was just problematic become a trench of underlying self-loathing. I’m not used to it, nor do I care for its effect on my emotional response to the conundrum we’re in.
The slow creak of the door opening switches my focus. Two of the dicks walk in and one instantly lifts his gun to point it at Peyton. She barely wakes, and she doesn’t need to either because the other one flicks his fingers at me to get up. I stand, shakily, and leave my cage when instructed to avoid that shot being fired at her. Chains get put on my wrists again, and before long they’re beating hell out of me with some iron bars while Reed watches on.
I don’t know how long it lasts. I’m passing in and out of consciousness through it. It’s just a continuous rally of blow after blow, pain after pain, attack after attack. I’m on my knees, and then I’m trying to get on my feet again. My wrists and arms take my weight until they can’t, and then I’m part hanging. I don’t even think Reed speaks this time. He doesn’t need to. This pain tells me everything he’s trying to say.
Being slung back into the cage goes by in some dusty haze of dragging feet and heaved shoulder blades. I slump to the ground as the gate clanks closed, defeated. Hands cover my skin instantly. I frown at the feel of them, and then even more at the feel of my head being rested on skin. “Knox?” Peyton.