Dark Champion (Flirting with Monsters #4) - Eva Chase Page 0,109
is large enough for the sharp man to squeeze through. There’s just enough space for him to grab me by the back of my neck and slam my face against the floor.
Pain radiates through my skull. He clambers on top of me with his pointy knees digging into my calves and the spikes of his elbows jabbing my ribs. His weight bears down on my back, squashing most of the air from my lungs until I’m on the verge of suffocating. He grinds one of those elbows into the tender spot just below my shoulder blade, and I catch my lower lip between my teeth.
I hate the whimper that slips out of me anyway. I hate his fingers burrowing into the hollow between my cheek and my jaw to press my face even harder against the grubby metal. I hate that he knows exactly how to take me from discomfort to agony in the space of a breath.
I hate the jagged snicker that tells me how much he loves it.
A jolt of adrenaline shoots through my veins, more panic than anything else, and I have to clamp down hard to smother the urge to thrash against his hold. There is no escaping them. I know that. And the one time I tried, when I didn’t know very much yet, the man on top of me repaid me in spades for the one kick I landed to his gut. He grasped my foot and twisted his hands, and the bones snapped in an explosion of pain.
That pain has never quite gone away. They didn’t let the fractures heal right—a little extra security against me running away. I can’t really walk in this cage, but any time I put weight on that foot, a dull ache spreads through it. Extra security and a constant reminder of the consequences of fighting back.
I have other ways of defying them that they can’t see. I pull all the way back into my mind, into the depths where the pain is only a distant buzzing, into an imagined vision of the world they wrenched me from. It isn’t a part of that world I ever experienced in real life, but one I dreamed about traveling to someday back when I could have dreams that large.
Before me lies a broad pool of turquoise water surrounded by weather-sculpted rock. Brilliant sun beams down to glitter off the ripples. I would drift in that pool, embraced by gentle warmth, gazing up at the clear blue sky…
The rotund man lets out a raspy sound of amusement. “Can we have her arm already?”
The man on top of me leans his weight onto his left elbow in a way that nearly dislocates my shoulder. The spike of pain shatters the illusion I’ve formed in my head. As he yanks my other arm toward the open door, I grit my teeth, but a little cry seeps out anyway. He snickers again. I squeeze my eyes shut, tears leaking out despite my best efforts.
The man with the knife doesn’t revel in the process, but he doesn’t appear to have any objection his companion’s antics. Without another word, he slices the blade into my wrist.
It’s a shallow stinging, mostly drowned out by the cacophony of hurts already coursing through my body. From the glimpses I’ve gotten of the vial, they only take a few teaspoons. He pinches the flesh and then ties a thin bandage over the wound with a perfunctory tug to fix it in place.
The one who cut me straightens up. The one on top of me pushes off me, knocking my head against the metal floor once more for good measure. When he’s clambered out, the yellow-haired one shuts the cage door and voices his magic once more to lock it.
Normally, this is when they’d leave. Instead, the sharp man peers down at me, folding his arms over his chest. The light glittering off the pale, spiky tufts on his head turns them even icier.
“She barely responds anymore,” he says. “It makes this rather tiresome.”
“Only you would wish for a fight,” says the one with the vial, shaking his head.
“I’m only saying that while we have her, we might as well make use of her for some entertainment in between more vital matters.”
“What did you have in mind?” the yellow-haired man asks as if he doesn’t really care about the answer. He’s eyeing the vial rather than me, with a triumphant gleam in his eyes.