Page 33 of Wicked Enemy
But before I could, that awful sound came again. And this time, I wasn’t fast enough to dodge it.
Pain speared through my shoulder blades. But it only lasted a second. Then it was replaced by a crackling, vibrating sensation that shot through my limbs. My throat closed up and I couldn’t even scream as lightning ricocheted through my whole body.
I crashed down on the ground and rolled back down the hill as every single one of my muscles refused to obey me. The world spun around me. Green grass. Gray sky. Green grass. Gray sky. Over and over again until I finally slammed to a halt at the bottom of the slope.
Lying on my back, all I could do was to stare up at the thick clouds while my limbs shook from the massive current that that lightning bolt had forced into my body. Any stronger than that, and the lunatic would have stopped my fucking heart with his attack.
Three hulking figures appeared above me.
Dread snaked through my chest as the three dark mages look down at me with unbridled rage in their eyes.
“You’ll pay for that stunt,” Joshua said, his voice terrifyingly casual.
Since my muscles were still cramping, I couldn’t even try to fight back as Pollux reached down and grabbed me with his large hands. My teeth rattled with the force as he yanked me up from the grass and slung me over his shoulder as if I was nothing but a lifeless doll.
A desperate noise slipped from my lips as they carried me back into the cabin and away from the freedom I had almost reached.
Wood creaked in alarm as Pollux kicked the door shut behind us and then dumped me on the floor. At that point, the lightning had finally stopped flashing through my body, so I had once again regained control of my muscles.
This was it. The moment they locked me up, I would never be able to escape again. White would eventually realize that Levi wasn’t coming, and then he would worldwalk back here and take that out on me. I had less than twenty minutes before that maniac was going to start fulfilling his promise and torture me to death. I had to do something.
The second my feet were on the ground again, I yanked my knee up to kick Pollux in the balls. But before I could, his fist slammed into my jaw.
My head snapped to the side, and I crashed down on the ground from the sheer force of the strike. Blinking, I tried desperately to clear my vision but it was no use. A boot crashed into the side of my ribs, knocking the breath out of me.
“Do you know what Master White would’ve done to us if you’d escaped?” Another kick to the ribs. “Do you?” Another kick. “Huh?”
What little air I had managed to recover exploded from my lungs again when yet another savage kick landed at my back instead.
I retreated into myself as fists and boots connected with my body. I had no idea how much time passed, because all I focused on was forcing one breath after the other into my lungs while pain bloomed all over my body.
After a while, someone grabbed me by the collar and hauled me up. Blood ran down my chin from my split lip, and one of the hits must have broken the skin somewhere around my eyebrow, because blood trickled down around my eye, almost blurring my vision.
Every breath sent flares of agony through my abused ribcage, but I sucked in a shuddering inhale just as I finally found myself upright. But the relief was short-lived.
Fear blew through me as Pollux pushed my hips against the edge of the table and then bent me over it, using his grip on my neck to shove me face down. I struggled weakly but could do nothing as someone, I think Joshua, grabbed my shackled wrists and stretched my arms out in front of me before securing the handcuffs to the other end of the table with a chain. It rattled metallically as I yanked against it, but it didn’t budge.
The hand around the back of my neck disappeared, but it didn’t matter. The table was too wide to move around, so I was still trapped bent over it like that.
Terrible dread flashed through my every vein as I felt fingers curling around the edge of my pants. A cry tore from my throat as I fought uselessly while Pollux yanked my white leather pants down to my knees.
My heart pounded so hard against my ribs that the already bruised bone almost shattered completely.
“No, no, no,” I begged. “Please. Please, don’t.”
I was so sure that he was going to rape me that my brain couldn’t even process the sound when I heard him unsheathe a knife instead.
“Since you cannot be trusted with functioning legs,” Pollux began, “I suppose you’ll just have to crawl from now on.”
My mind was still trying to sort through what was actually happening when I felt the cold touch of steel against the back of my thighs. And by then, it was already too late.
A scream shattered from my throat as Pollux cut my hamstrings with one long slice.
Pain seared through my skin like burning waves, and my legs just collapsed underneath me.
I screamed again, so loudly that my vocal cords almost fractured. Blood ran down the back of my thighs and my legs just hung uselessly in the air. The only thing keeping me up was the manacles secured to the other side of the table that still left me helplessly bent over it.
Tears welled up and mingled with the blood on my face as I sobbed while another wave of agony washed over me.