Page 125 of Devilish Ink

A cold sweat covered my body, panic gripping my chest. My body was reacting, but my mind could process nothing more than that I was awake, but I didn’t want to be.

My baby.

This thought was like a dam breaking.

With a horrible gasp I came to full consciousness.

I was on a bed, but it was not my own. My sweat-covered back arched off the sheets like it was all just a nightmare I’d awoken in the middle of, screaming.

But there was no sound from my chapped lips.

And thiswasthe nightmare.

I was splayed across a firm mattress. I tugged at my wrists, but they were each tied to a post of the iron-frame bed, this position making it difficult to breathe through my panic. My ribcage seemed unwilling to expand and I was left with tiny, gasping inhales of musty air.

A fresh wave of horror swept over me when I realised how widely my ankles were tied apart at the end of the bed. No matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t turn my knees in far enough to force my thighs together.

Beneath Liam’s oversized t-shirt I was completely exposed inmy panties. Cold air wrapped around my exposed skin so that the hairs stood on end.

If there wasn’t my baby to think about I might have succumbed to the temptation of just closing my eyes, blocking out what tortures awaited me.

But I needed to find a way to escape.

I forced myself to look around me.

The bed was in what looked like a massive warehouse. The size of the space with its industrial lights, only a few lit up, high above me was not just intimidating, but dehumanising.

Everywhere I looked in that huge space just sent my heart racing faster. Racks, toys, whips laid out on the cold concrete floor, covering the corrugated metal walls.

I imagined Balor planning their arrangement and thought I might throw up. Before, his playroom had been in Balor’s home.

This was a slaughterhouse.

I could not see or hear anyone else. Wherever Balor had gone, he wouldn’t have left me alone for long.

I imagined him approaching the layout of his sick warehouse in the same practical, cold-blooded way he would his office, his boardroom. Rearranging things for months. Perfecting. Getting hard as he ran through all the ways he could hurt me in his mind.

Tears welled in my eyes despite myself. It would be one thing for me to go through this bastard’s revolting games. But to know that my baby would have to be right there with me filled me with unbearable rage.

If I was still on my own, I could have taken some solace in knowing I wouldn’t survive. Balor had clearly been planning his revenge for so long there was no way he would let me live.

My tears were as hot as blood on my cheeks. It hurt to imagine Liam pulling me to his chest amongst the reeds of some filthy river outside the city, my bones broken, my face bloated and bruised.

But it was unbearable to think of our helpless baby dead in my belly. Liam’s hand pressing the cold skin of my stomach.

He could have survived losing me. But not both of us. That would kill him.

My life wasn’t just mine anymore.

I felt my heart harden with purpose. Liam’s love wrapping like steel around my nerves. I had to fight even if I died trying.

I had to get back to Liam. I needed him to hold his baby.

I had to survive.

I tested my bindings again. They were rope, made of slick unnatural fibres in a thick twist. The kind of fibre that would melt if a flame was applied to it.

It scraped my skin as I tugged. But there was the slightest bit of slack in the knot because of what it was made of.

---