Incipient A Dark Paranormal Romance - Bianca Scardoni Page 0,40
I screamed out hysterically as I reared against the chains.
“Shit, Jem. I don’t know what to do!” he yelled back, panic overtaking his own voice as he rubbed as his buzzed head.
“Get these fucking chains off me!” I roared as I bucked and pulled against them, using every muscle I had in my body to free myself of these godforsaken restraints. I just needed to go see him. I needed this pain to stop!
Pieces of the cement behind me crumbled to the ground as Ben’s eyes darted over my shoulder.
“Jemma, come on, you’ve got to calm down, okay? This is for your own good. You have to fight—”
“Fuck fighting!” I screamed out like a banshee. “I need to get out of here.” I didn’t even recognize my voice as my own. It was loud and abrasive and filled with hysteria. But not even that deterred me.
The only thing I could focus on was the ear-splitting ache in my head that was begging me to obey Dominic’s command. Begging me to go to him. The longer I stayed chained, the more the pain grew, and I honestly wasn’t sure how much more of it I could take.
Either my head was going to split wide open in the middle of this torture chamber or I was going to pass out from the pain and possibly never wake up again. Though with how I was feeling in that moment, both sounded like a dream.
“Listen to me, Ben,” I said as beads of sweat began to form on my forehead. “This was a mistake. I didn’t know what I was talking about when I asked you to do this,” I said, gasping between sobs. “I thought I could do this, but I can’t. I can’t do this, Ben…I can’t.”
“Yes, you can,” he said, doing his best to encourage me, but it was completely misplaced. This wasn’t about will or positivity. This was going against nature. However unnatural it may have been.
“I’m going to die here, Ben. I swear to god,” I said and then yanked at the chains again. More cement chunks crumbled to the floor like little pieces of hope. “It’s killing me!”
“Fuck!” he cursed as he paced the small cellar in a panic, his palms splayed against the top of his head. Freezing mid-step, he pulled out his phone from his pocket and met my water-filled eyes. “I’m sorry, Jem. But I have to do this.”
Like a caged animal, I thrashed against the restraints as tears continued to spill from my eyes.
“You left me with no other choice,” he said as he put the phone to his ear. “I’m calling Trace.”
15. WITH OR WITHOUT YOU
The breathtaking Reaper from my dreams materialized in the cellar before Ben had a chance to end the phone call. His expression quickly morphed from annoyance to seething rage upon spotting me chained to the wall, dry heaving and shrieking as though Ben were getting ready to skin me alive.
“What the hell is going on here?” shouted Trace as he rushed to my side and picked up my chin, carefully brushing the matted hair back from my forehead. “Why is she chained up like this?” he asked and immediately started playing with the chains, pulling at them in an effort to break me loose.
“You have to help me,” I pleaded with him, my teeth chattering as though I were standing in the middle of an ice storm. The pain was making my entire body tremble.
Trace swung around to Ben; his hands clenched into fists as though he were going to hit him. “I said what the fuck is this?!” he snapped, getting directly in Ben’s face now.
“She asked me to do it, I swear it,” he quickly defended, raising both palms in the air. “I think Dominic compelled her to do something she didn’t want to do.”
Trace swung around, his eyes probing me for confirmation. “Is that true?”
“It’s…he…I can’t—” I shook my head, unable to utter a word about our secret rendezvous.
“I think he compelled her to keep quiet about it,” suggested Ben as Trace made his way back over to me, cursing under his breath.
He brought his hand to my face and caressed my cheeks with the pad of his fingers. The second his skin made contact with mine and stayed there, the blood-curdling ache inside my head eased just a tiny bit. Not enough to make a real dent, but enough to keep me from vomiting all over his shoes.