pain or something else entirely, Nita didn’t know.
“Vengeance.” His voice was cold and angry. “Is that what you’re calling this?” He met her eyes. “I never pegged you for a sadist when I first met you. I guess I was wrong.”
“No. You weren’t wrong.” Nita shrugged. “But people change. I changed.” She leaned forward, eyes cold. “I had to change to survive because of what you did to me. So, this, all of this?” She waved a hand around. “That’s on you.”
He glared. “I’m not responsible for your choices, Nita. You are. You chose to be what you are, and you chose to do this to me. I admit, I fucked up. I shouldn’t have sold you out. And I’m sorry. I really am. I’ve apologized a dozen times, and I mean it. But I can’t change it. And it’s not my fault what you’ve decided to do since then.”
Fabricio looked away. “I have enough things to hate myself for without adding your crimes in there too.”
Nita’s smile was tight. “I’m sure you do.”
“You can look as smug as you want, but at least I know what my crimes are.” His voice was bitter and raspy from screaming. “But, Nita, do you know?”
“Know what?”
“The price of your ‘vengeance’?” Fabricio raised his eyes and met hers, rage burning dark and cold in their depths. “I think it’s only fair you know, don’t you?”
Nita’s eyes narrowed.
“Shall I tell you what Kovit did to me?” Fabricio said softly, barely more than a whisper. “Shall I tell you what you let him do to me?”
An uneasy feeling coiled in the base of Nita’s stomach. She didn’t like hearing the details.
“I know what Kovit did.”
“Do you?” Fabricio whispered. “Then you know that he started skinning my fingers? Slow, small strips of skin, one after the other. He peeled them off like potato skins.”
Nita didn’t say anything, her expression hard, trying to cover the ugly, vicious revulsion coiling inside.
“Have you ever scraped your knees, Nita? That’s just a little bit of skin off. Just a small scrape. This was bigger. He scraped and scraped, and it was so painful that I couldn’t even tell you my own name. I couldn’t think over the pain.” He swallowed. “I suppose at some point my body decided it was too much pain to bear and stopped sending so many signals. But if I twist wrong, it hurts all over again.”
“Enough, Fabricio.” Nita sounded hoarser than she intended. “I get it.”
“Do you, though? Because I’m not done.” Fabricio’s blue eyes were steady. “Because he reached my nail at one point, and he slid that knife under my nail. And he ripped. It. Off.”
Nita clenched her fists at her side and said nothing.
Fabricio’s gaze bored into her. “Do you know what it’s like to have a fingernail ripped off? Do you have any idea how many nerve endings are in there?”
“Actually, I do.” Nita could count them if she wanted to. Her own fingers tingled, as if waiting for her to do so. “It’s not an insignificant number.”
He blinked, his mouth slightly open. Clearly Nita hadn’t responded the way he’d expected, but he recovered quickly.
“Nita, please. You’re not a sadist. I know this. I remember how much it bothered you when your mother took my ear.” He began to cry. “Please stop hurting me.”
Nita stared at him, at his blood and tears and soft whimpers as he begged for her to have the conscience she used to, the same one she’d had when he met her.
But she didn’t.
Nita wasn’t that girl anymore.
The gory details still bothered her—they’d probably always bother her, she didn’t think she’d ever escape that, no matter what she’d told Kovit—but she didn’t feel sympathy for Fabricio anymore. She could see the points on his manipulation plan, each reaction, each word a calculated effort to pull on her strings and make her do what he wanted.
“Sorry, Fabricio. That ship sailed.” Nita knelt so she was eye level with him. “You’re going to have to learn how to manipulate the new me.”
He met her eyes, his face damp with tears. “No, Nita. You’re the one who needs to learn how to manipulate me. Because you suck.”
“Pardon?”
“You’ve given me nothing to convince me to work with you. You’ve sicced your pet monster on me—”
“Kovit’s not a monster.”
Fabricio laughed then, short and sharp. “That’s what you want to argue over? That? To me? Right now?”
She clenched her jaw shut.
“As I was saying.” His voice was cold. “You’ve sicced your pet monster