Page 85 of Cruel Riches

He unrolled the black fabric so I could see every other knife and scalpel he had in his collection. Then he started unloading things from the big bag next to it—antiseptic wipes, tissues, ropes, bandages, red and black alligator clips attached to long cords, and a large black device that I didn’t recognize.

“Please, Nate,” I said, panic rising in me as I watched him fiddle with the clips. “You can still stop this before it’s too late. You don’t have to hurt me.”

“I know. But I want to.” He smiled nastily and held up the alligator clips. “Wanna guess where these are going?”

“I don’t know,” I whispered. I didn’t even want to think about it.

“Put your feet in the stirrups. I don’t want you struggling.”

With every inch of me trembling, I managed to stick my feet in the stirrups at the end of the table. They were set quite low, so my legs weren’t bent at the knees, but they were still splayed. If I wasn’t wearing panties, Nate would be able to see every inch of me right now.

When he was satisfied that I was in position, he grabbed the rope from the other table and tied my arms up behind my head. Then he picked up the clips again.

I screamed when he attached them to my nipples, letting the cool metal bite into my sensitive flesh. “Stop. Please!”

“I haven’t even started,” Nate replied. He went over to the other table and clicked a button on the side of the mysterious black device. “This is a battery, by the way.”

I frantically shook my head. “No, no, you can’t—” My words were cut off, replaced with howls of pain as electricity jolted straight into my nipples. It felt like someone had poured lava directly into my veins.

Nate flipped the switch off a few seconds later. “Where did you keep Claire and Nessa before you killed them?”

“I didn’t do anything to them!”

I shrieked as the battery switched on again, making me convulse in agony. When Nate finally turned it off again, I sobbed with relief.

“Why did you pick them?” he asked, eyes glittering with hatred.

“Nate, please! I didn’t do anything. You have to believe me!”

He switched the battery back on and twisted a knob on the side to lower the intensity of the electric shocks. It was still painful, but I didn’t feel like I was dying anymore. “I think I’ll leave this on for now,” he said coolly.

I whimpered as the sharp clips zapped me over and over, making my torso thrash on the table. My legs were held fast by the stirrups, which Nate had tightened earlier.

“What sort of knife did you use to cut them up? Was it like this?” He slid a large knife out of its pocket on the black fabric roll.

I shook my head, tears streaming down my face. “I can’t admit to something I didn’t do,” I choked out, squeezing my eyes shut as another jolt bit at my nipple.

He sighed and brought the knife over to me. “Where did you go that night when you sneaked out of your dorm?”

“Nowhere. I—”

I stopped and screamed louder than ever as he brought the knife down to my left inner thigh and carved a straight line into the soft flesh there.

“You clearly went somewhere.”

I shook my head wildly. The movement made the clips pull on my nipples, sending more fiery bolts of pain through my chest.

“I didn’t mean it like that,” I said. “I just meant I don’t know where I went. I don’t remember because I was sleepwalking.”

He carved two more angled lines, both joined to the first one. They were excruciatingly slow. “If you don’t remember anything, how can you possibly know if you were actually sleepwalking? How do you know you weren’t lucid, and then your crazy fucked up brain blocked it all out?”

“Stop! Please!” I shrieked through the pain. I looked down to see a sideways K on my thigh. He was writing something on me.

“Answer me.”

“I… I…” I gasped for breath as I attempted to arrange my thoughts into something coherent. It wasn’t easy with the searing pain in my left leg and the jolting agony in my chest. “I just assumed I was sleepwalking. It was probably your fault.”

Nate chuckled and shook his head. “Holy fuck, you really are crazy. Blaming your psycho shit on me.”

---