Page 70 of Anathema

Both guards laughed again, and I pushed to a sitting position, drawing in a deep breath.

“Go on now. I don’t know how much longer I can stand this. My cock feels like it’s about to break from its breeches. I’m dying to watch.” Dark-Hair’s words confirmed what I’d already dreaded.

At the sound of their retreating footsteps, I glanced around the cell. Only the flickering of the torch outside the door streamed in through that small window, provided a dim light. My muscles ached as, throat dry, I patted around on hands and knees, searching for a weapon, or, by some miracle, means of escape.

A wire of tension stiffened my limbs, my body growing weary from the stress of the evening. First, Aleysia’s banishment, running through the woods from whatever creature inhabited it. Now this.

Aleysia. I hadn’t even had time to mentally process the events from earlier. The very real possibility that Moros had slaughtered her.

Leave it, my brain urged. I couldn’t afford the preoccupation right then. I had to secure a way out of the cell before they returned.

Then I’d find my way back to the woods. Back to her.

Even if it meant returning to nothing. I had to know if she was dead, or alive.

It was the unknown which clawed at me, perhaps worse than having seen Moros, or whatever he’d become, haul her off, because at least then, however devastating as that would be, I could’ve let go. I might not have cared what lay in store for me with these men, at that point, because without my sister, nothing mattered to me.

I hadn’t seen her die, though.

And because of that, however small, there remained a sliver of hope. A reason.

The will to fight.

In the shadowed corner of the cell, I reached out and fingered a hard, stony object. Smiling, I took hold of it and scrambled back into the light to see what kind of weapon it’d make, but with it illuminated, I frowned on staring down at the strange, black object clutched in my palm.

Out of the top of it, two long, bristle-like structures unfurled, followed by dozens of hair-like fibers that tickled my skin. And pincers. Pincers that plucked at the fine layer of skin on my finger with the promise of a sharp bite.

I let out a piercing scream and dropped the object onto the floor, where it exploded into hundreds of small black bugs that scampered across the surface.

I shot to my feet and backed myself to the wall. At a tickle on my shin, I lifted my skirt just enough to see two crawling up my leg. A needling pain pierced my skin.

Screaming again, I kicked out, sending them flying, and stomped on the dozens more heading toward me. Crunchy carapaces crackled beneath my boots, the spray of guts wetting my exposed skin.

A much bigger bug skittered in my direction, snapping its pincers at me. A panicked gasp hitched my breath, and I stomped on it. Bright yellow guts shot up onto my skirt, oozing down the fabric.

A long hiss echoed through the cell, and all the tiny versions of the bug skittered toward the bigger one, as if sucked into it. Their shiny black shells crumpled into a pile of black ooze.

Blowing out a hard and shaky breath, I stared down at it all.

A tickling sensation at my arm threw me into another frenzy, as I yanked back the sleeve to find nothing there but a stray hair. Shivering, I slapped my hands over my arms and legs, completely rattled and shaken.

From the shadows, two more large bugs stepped into the light. One black like the other. The second, red with black markings.

“Oh, my god. Please.”

The clanking of metal snapped my attention toward the door, where the dark-haired guard from before could be seen through the window.

“Ferrys gets first. He’s due at the gallows first dawn,” he said, my heart hammering at the click of the lock.

The bugs slinked back into the shadows as the light from the doorway spread over the dark cell, and two guards stepped inside. The third stood at the doorway.

“Jevhyr is after, then we set her loose in the pit.”

I had no idea what the pit was, but the tone of his voice when he said it carried a harrowing edge of amusement.

A fourth guard stumbled alongside them, the one I recognized from the forest, who’d seemed against their ideas.

“Ah! Looks like someone changed his mind, after all.” The redheaded guard patted him on the shoulder.

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