Page 73 of Mud

A lot of metal and glass that was surely going to hurt.

I looked at Taland again—help me!

What a silly, silly girl I could sometimes be.

Taland smiled harder.

Radock’s face filled my vision.

“Let’s try again, shall we? Now, tell us, who sent you after our little brother, Miss La Rouge? The name…”

Please.

They had some sort of wires set up and ready for me—Seth was just tying up loose ends, connecting them to this thick chain that they planned to wrap all around me. It would send small electrical shocks through my body, and because I was nowstained,the charge would go throughout me because there would be no magic to act as a barrier and fry the wires as it should.

Then, while the shocks went throughout me, Radock had prepared a variety of blades on a half-broken table that they’d brought closer to the middle of the room.

Please, don’t do this…

“Chin up. Swallow, pretty girl.”

Kaid was by my side all of a sudden, my chin in his fingers. He pulled up my head and poured water right into my mouth without warning.

I wished I’d drown in that small bottle, but wishes were stars, and stars were too far away for me to reach. I didn’t drown, but I coughed my heart out for a little while as the brothers laughed. Water in my eyes, in my nostrils, going down my throat wrong, but my tongue was no longer dry. Iwas shaking, a mess of tears and weakness chained to a chair about to be electrocuted and cut open little by little—all while Taland watched from his chair near the corner.

He watched and smiled and played with his fingers.

“Okay—Seth goes first, then it’s my turn,” Radock said. “You went at her already, Kaid, so you take a step back until we’re done.”

“No fair,” Kaid said, pretending to pout, but he stepped away, resting his hip at the edge of that table. Then he picked up two knives and began to juggle them without even looking. His dark eyes were only on me.

“Okay, I’m ready,” Seth said, excited, proud, pulling at the chains he’d prepared for me slowly as if to not ruin all the hard work he’d done, twisting those wires around each link.

Please, please, please…

Radock helped him get them on my lap first, and then twisted them around my torso while I tried and tried to move and throw them off, tried to get up, to knock that chair down, to doanythingother than sit there and take this madness.

I couldn’t, though. A moment later, Radock’s hand was around my neck. He squeezed and his magic, powerful Blackfire, slipped under my skin, pinning me in place. Stopping everything inside me as he whispered his spell—even my heart for a second. Even my lungs.

I choked on thin air, eyes wide open like they were about to pop right out of my skull, even though I couldn’t see anything.

“Enough!”

Taland’s voice rang in my ears and forced my mind to focus, and then the Blackfire magic settled, no longer pinning me, squeezing me as hard.

He was there, standing in between Seth and Radock, looking at his eldest brother without a smile for once, arms wide to the sides, fingers spread. That’s how he always looked when he felt threatened, and he was about to launch himself at someone. He did it every time in Combat class at the Academy.

“That’s too much. She’ll die,” Taland told Radock when he refused to say a single word. “Her life ismine,remember?”

Radock smiled, but it didn’t quite reach his eyes. He let go of my neck and raised both his hands in surrender. “My sincerest apologies, Tal. I got a little carried away, that’s all.” But the look in his eyes said something entirely different.

“If she’d have stopped jerking like a madwoman, we would have already begun,” Seth said, locking the chains somewhere behind me. “There, that’s secure enough.” And he stepped in front of me, taking Taland away from my vision.

Which was a shame because he looked about ready to kill something right away—killme.And I’d have loved to get this over with quickly, to not have to endure the pain of being electrocuted and cut open. Because now with Radock’s magic on me, I couldn’t eventryto move away. I could barely blink my eyes and move my neck a little bit.

It’s okay,I told myself, because I was weak. I wouldn’t last long—just like I didn’t last when Kaid and Seth attacked me with their magic earlier. I’d lost blood and I hadn’t eaten and I was a fucking mess, not to mention…that word.

So, it would be over quickly. All I had to do was close my eyes and breathe and take the pain they were going to give me until it was Taland’s turn to end me.

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