Page 93 of The Blood we Crave

“That can be arranged, little girl.”

If they thought for one second I would go down easy, they were mistaken. I may be tethered to this chair, beaten and bleeding, but I refuse to go quietly. When they leave my body for the bugs to feast upon, my mark would remain on their skin.

They would remember me, the way I fought, and I would not die forgotten.

With all the force I have left inside of my bound body, I jerk my head back and launch it forward, crashing my forehead into what I am hoping is his nose. My skull throbs in protest of the collusion, but his groan of discomfort is enough to make it worth it.

“You cunt!” He screeches, wrenching his mask off in order to hold his split nose. His face isn’t familiar to me, but I try to take a mental picture of every detail.

The way his greasy blonde hair swoops in front of his ratty eyes. The mole that lives on his cheek, and the scar that curls around his upper lip. I mark every feature in my mind, keeping it there just in case I make it out of this.

“We aren’t supposed to take the masks off,” Player Two urges, looking over at me. “We weren’t—”

“It doesn’t matter.” His partner removes the face covering completely, tossing it on the ground. “It doesn’t matter if she sees us now. She won’t live to talk about what we look like.”

My gut churns. Terror swells inside of my chest like a wave, crashing over my entire body. Their large hands grab me on either side, plucking me from the chair with ease.

I kick my feet in the sand, tossing up the grainy bits. My lungs belt out scream after scream as they drag me backward. Tears streak down my face as I feel metal scratching my back.

My head turns, searching for something to tell me where I’m headed. I catch a glimpse at what looks like a set of stairs. Black grate steps, leading to a small platform. My body bumps against each incline, aching with every impact.

When they reach the top, my weight is slung onto the platform. It does not take me long to understand what their plan is. Remembering when they first woke me up, what remained from tonight’s event.

A prompt still stranded in the ring, altered to create the perfect torture device. A cylindrical tank that had been used as a magic act earlier. Escape the unescapable. A tank filled to the brim with water, while they chained a performer to the bottom. Escape and you’re a modern Houdini. Don’t and you drown.

But it wasn’t water inside of it. It was thicker and scarlet. It sloshed around in the tank, at least twelve feet deep, wobbling with my anxious moments on the platform.

“Pig’s blood.” Player One says snidely. “We were going to give you your very own Carrie moment. Dunk your head under a few times, get your adrenaline pumping. But you’ve been difficult, little girl.”

My heart thrums in my ears, when they threw me inside this, there would be no hope for me. I would sink to the bottom and never reemerge.

That would be it.

“Killing me won’t stop them,” I press my arms against the ropes, trying to find a weak spot in the knots, but I’m having no luck. “It’ll only make it worse. Your boss knows what they did with Rosemary Donahue. They won’t stop.”

“My boss…” He preens, “Doesn’t care. I don’t think there is anything he’d want more than to slaughter one son from each founding family. Make this town reap what it has sown. You’re just the warning of what’s coming, Lyra.”

“You won’t make it out alive.” I choke.

“A reckoning is coming, little girl. For you now, and all those little friends of yours later. I just hope I get to be the one to rip Pierson apart.”

I’d decided from the moment they’d kidnapped me, those in charge of the Halo hired these men. We were running out of time, and they were coming for our silence.

Even if they had to kill us to retrieve it. We’d gone a step too far, learning too much. Killing a teacher and teaching assistant to uncover the drugs they are using to sedate the girls they kidnap. Burning the mayor alive for selling Rosemary, butchering two corrupt detectives involved in the ring.

We’d gone too far.

At the sound of Thatcher’s name, my heart surges. A sob choking me, the urge to beg. To plead for mercy and pray they stay far, far away. But not from me.

Never from me.

From him.

“Go on, beg me.” Play Two snickers. “Beg me to spare your life and I might just keep you alive long enough to watch how well you take my cock.”

My body flinches at his crude words. One singular tear falling from my eye at the choices I have left. Behave, beg, bend for this disgusting excuse of a man to lay his filthy hands on my body or remain where I am, letting them push me into a vat of animal blood where I’ll sink.

Two options, that was what my life had boiled down to.

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