He gave his instructions like he had no choice. Like something deep inside was making him do these despicable things.
This version of the man had knowing eyes. His movements were not so strained, definitely more fluid. And his eyes? His eyes today were bright and filled with the most amazing blue color. And he knew exactly what he was doing. The way he watched me. The way he smelled me. He teased and tested my endurance. It was all him. This version of the monster was very much in charge of his own actions.
This version of the man terrified me like I’d never been terrified before—he knowingly made me scream. Yet despite this, I could see a flare of humanity in his stare.
Last night, there had been none.
The monster turned off the heater, my head dropping with exhaustion. He stepped closer and leaned down, his musky scent of dark spices blanketing my face. As before, his nose tucked into the crook of my neck, the tip of his nose dusting below my ear. It ran down and back up my tender skin, until his warm breath stopped at my ear and he whispered, “How do you know Zaal Kostava?” His voice was soft, almost convincing me into thinking he felt a morsel of regret. Then I remembered his balled fists and tight eyes and wondered if he did.
He repeated the question again and made all the blood drain from my face. My eyes slammed shut. Whether I wanted to or not, a tear escaped the corner of my eye. I knew he had felt the droplet. When my eyes reopened, I saw he had captured the droplet on the pad of his finger.
I kept my mouth closed, holding back the answer to his question. He lifted the finger holding the drop. Making sure I tracked his movements, he brought the droplet to his mouth, and flicking out his tongue, he then wrapped his lips around the digit.
Slowly, he pulled his finger from his mouth and lowered it, until it landed on my chest. Even the featherlight touch of his finger felt like the stab of a dagger to my sensitive skin. But he kept it moving, until it ran over my breast and circled the wet tip around my nipple.
My breathing hitched at the fear of not being able to move, at the fear of what he would next. I knew he was pushing me for an answer, testing my resolve. Avto had told me what torturers could do. However, learning of such acts and enduring them were not even comparable.
Fluttering my eyes closed, I tried to take myself away from the here and now. I instead pictured the meadow when I was a child. I remembered Zaal and Anri walking side by side as I hid behind a tree, watching my two brothers smiling as they talked. I remembered my grandmama rocking me in her arms as she sang me her favorite song. I remembered my papa buying me whatever it is was that I asked for. I remembered lying with my mama, her stroking my hair as my baby brother and sister slept in their cribs. And I pictured Zaal, my sykhaara now. I held the image of his photograph, smiling and in love.
Inhaling through my nose, I finally pictured Zaal’s fiancée in the window of the house in Brighton Beach. I saw his hands wrapped around her waist. And she was happy. The house seemed full of such happiness. My sykhaara, after a life of pain, had finally found happiness. He had found another family. That was all that mattered.
Steely resolve settled over my soul; I vowed to never betray him. I would not heel to this monster. No matter what he tried.
Then when I opened my eyes, I took in the size of my captor, the scars, the tattoos, the collar around his neck … the collar resembling that of a slave, and my face blanched. I replayed what Avto had told me about Zaal and Anri, that they had been captured and drugged. Experimented upon until they were like beasts, monsters, ghosts of who they once were. Forced to kill and fight for Jakhua. Then I pictured Zaal’s tattoos on his arms, tattoos not too dissimilar from this man’s, and I wondered if he was the same. He wanted my brother. My brother who had recently killed the man who had experimented on him as a child.
A man whose people could still want revenge. A