Page 47 of Stalking Wendy Darling

Gabrielle and her silent giant had been back twice since the first day, and each time that damn prod shot a higher charge through my body. It was like she was testing how much my heart could handle before it gave out. Luckily for her—and me—my heart was fortified by rage at the thought that she’d done this to my Hook, when he was a fuckingchild.

I pictured him as a defenceless teenager, sold by his own father, betrayed and heartbroken and terrified. With that evil hag watching with a gleam of enjoyment as he screamed and writhed from the agony of the prod’s charge.

I was done waiting. The next time she and her giant lackey came to torment me, I would kill them both. I’d got enough information out of them, and plenty of intel from my friend in the adjacent room. I knew Aidan Eldrick ruled over the city, keeping them bound by terror and a reliance on his money. He owned most of the properties and businesses, keeping them under his iron thumb. That must be why he got away with human trafficking and torturing a whole underground network of people. The screams never really stopped. They carved through the night when I tried to sleep, and rang out all day. By my guess, there were over fifty people down here, all sold and bought for Eldrick’s collection.

And when the majority of prisoners didn’t measure up to his lofty standards, they were sold on. I didn’t know how Hook had endured this, especially so young. I didn’t know how long he’d been down here or if he’d been part of thecollection.I did understand why it had hardened him into the sort of man who’d kidnap a woman every month to pay a debt he’d made in desperation. It didn’t make it okay, and Iwouldput a stop to it. I might have exploded the monster into goop and blackened bones, but it was agodand I wasn’t stupid enough to think it was dead. But we were done sacrificing women. Hook might have been scared when he made the deal, and he’d been backed into a corner for all the years since, but he had me now. I was crazy enough to kill a god.

“What are you planning?” my adjacent neighbour asked with heavy disapproval in her voice. Our eyes locked as I peered through the bars on my door, searching the cold hallway outside for guards or my soon-to-be-dead Gabrielle. “You’ve got that sneaky look in your eye.”

“Me? Sneaky?” I faked a gasp even through the swell of pain coming from my wounds. “I’ve never heard something so preposterous in my life.”

“I’ve never heard anyone use the word preposterous in mine,” she drawled, but her eyes began to crinkle,almostin amusement. She didn’t fool me, though. She liked me. “Whatever you’re up to, keep me out of it.”

“Spoilsport,” I teased, sticking my tongue out, pretending the tiny motion of my head didn’t make my eyes water.

I tugged at the lilac monstrosity I’d been dressed in, pulling it away from the oozing welts left by the prod. I’d kill for a poultice and bandage right now. Literally kill. Maybe Gabrielle was hoping I’d succumb to infection. If so, she’d be very disappointed. I’d been a sickly child, and if infections hadn’t killed me then, they weren’t about to kill me as a fully grown, fully pissed off adult. It was a lesser known cure for most ills—anger. I’d have died a dozen times if I didn’t get so angry that something had the audacity to try and murder me.

I’d die on my own terms, dammit.

“They’re coming,” my neighbour hissed, her face disappearing from view but not before I saw fear bleach the life from her face. She thought they were coming for her. Shit, what if they didn’t come forme?What if I hadn’t done a good enough job goading Gabrielle into hating me?1

I drew back a step, the space between my shoulder blades tingling, alarm moving up the back of my neck until I fought a shiver. Partly because shuddering hurt like a damn bitch.

I had no weapons but I’d planned for that. I’d planned foreverything,I reminded myself. It was all I’d had to focus on, left alone to wallow in gnawing pain and rage at Hook’s suffering. I seethed, and cried, and plotted.

“This will work,” I whispered to myself, edging beside the door, my hands flexing, desperate for a weapon.Soon,I promised them. I was going home, or I was dying here. One of two options. I was no one’s slave, no one’s to sell, tocollect.Iwas Wendy Darling, badass, butcher, and enforcer of the Death’s Right Hand.

“Don’t get yourself killed, girl,” I heard my friend mutter, and then a nearby doorway opened with a rough scrape and a shriek of hinges. My heart threw itself against my ribs. Showtime.

Hairs rose on my arms, every pain sharpening, my body reminding me what would befall it if I didn’t obey its scream of warning. Hell, even if I did obey, they’d stick me with that prod and pump me full of fire and pain and screams. I controlled my breathing with an iron will, my ears picking up every sound, quickening my pulse—the one thing I had no control over.

I ran through my plan three more times as footsteps scraped leisurely down the hall, two sets, both familiar. For a moment all I could smell was blood and burned skin—my own. For a moment all I could taste was copper and iron as my teeth sank into my tongue. I heard my own screams as they tore one after another from me, making me more aware of my body than I’d ever been before. I thought I knew pain before I came here, but a broken nose, bruised ribs, and snapped wrist weren’t the same as constant, methodical torture.

The same torture they put Hook through when he was young,I reminded myself. The captain was mine. Mine to hurt, to torment, to protect, and to love in equal measure.

Oh that was worrying. Did I have feelings for the bastard?

The footsteps neared, dragging me away from those thoughts and back to the present as a shiver skated down my spine. The rattle of my body hurt, piercing every wound until I had to clench my jaw to choke down a sob.

Door, wrist, prod, ribs,I reminded myself, struggling to settle my breathing as they stopped right outside. But who were they here for? Her or me?

The burn on my forearm screamed warnings as I flexed my hands, trying to clear my head, to stay focused on this momentwhen every torture of the last few days or weeks or years wanted to suffocate me.

Door, wrist, prod, ribs.I could do this.

I heard a key rattle, but it wasn’t in my door. I took a slow breath, biting back a groan at how much it hurt.Well, this is going to hurt worse.

Home,I reminded myself.Home or death.

“Back again, inbred?” I called through the door. “Is your daddy looking for a new plaything? We could be sisters!”

There was no sudden intake of breath, no growling reply, but my senses were so acute that I heard someone shift, probably the giant.

“Change of plans,” Gabrielle said, sending an icy rush of warning down my spine. My hindbrain screamed at me to run but there was no escape.

Every instinct I had shrieked that I was a fucking idiot and I was going to die today. I tried to tell those instincts that everything was going according to plan as footsteps scuffed the floor directly outside the door. But my heart was frantic, my breathing fast, and a cold sweat broke out on my forehead and all the way down my spine.

Every minute of their torture choked me in the split second of the key turning, the lock on my door clicking open. Pain blazed on my shoulder blades, my ribs, my back, my arms, my thighs, my chest, and it took effort to breathe when the door began to creak open.

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