Page 182 of Kiss the Villain

I’m still in that white room with all the blood splashed on the walls, and I’m trying to wipe it away, to get back my peaceful white room where I can just close my eyes and breathe.

Just for a while.

But they’re talking now—the men who were hitting me—saying things about how I creep them out and how I don’t scream no matter how hard they hit me.

They need to stop talking, because their voices are polluting my white room. The one in my head that I escape to when my mind gets too loud.

The one Kayden turned so white before he splashed it in blood.

My blood from that useless organ behind my rib cage that won’t stop beating.

Being alive.

And for what?

A shoe presses against my stomach, and I ignore Declan, who’s peering down at me, his face uglier in the dim light.

“Ye wanna die, don’t ya?” He smirks. “Ye think it’d be that easy?”

I don’t reply, because I have nothing to say to him. Maybe it’s better if he kills me, because that white room is dripping in crimson no matter how much I wipe the fuck out of the walls.

“Torture doesn’t hurt freaks like ye,” he says while sliding a toothpick in his mouth.

“That’s true. It’d save you time and manpower to kill me, actually.” My voice is husky, my jaw bursting with pain when I speak.

“No shit, ye weaselly cunt.” He grabs me by the hair and then lifts my head up. “Heard ye a goddamn fag who’s been sucking Kayden’s cock. Ye do have eyes similar to Caysie’s. He must’ve thought of her while deep-throating ye?—”

I headbutt him. Hard.

So hard, I reel from it and blood explodes on his forehead and mine, because my vision is red—literally—rivulets sliding down my nose and into my mouth.

Declan curses, then bursts out laughing. “So ye’re a little quiet psycho until he’s mentioned? Ye don’t like the thought of being Caysie’s replacement?

“I’m no one’s fucking replacement!” I glare up at him, thinking about how to strangle him. Watch the life bleed out of those repugnant eyes.

“Maybe I have a better way to torture ya.” He grins and calls his men, who once again inject me with something.

And then my world turns black again.

31

GARETH

Iwake to the sound of soft, mocking laughter, like a distant echo bouncing off the sterile white walls.

My head is heavy, my limbs bound in the tight grip of a straitjacket. I sit up on the white tiles, the cold digging into my bones. The room smells of suffocating antiseptic, the walls blurring in and out of focus as I try to figure out if I’m in my head.

No.

I’m here. In the real world.

Sitting on the floor. My pants are white, too, like the straitjacket.

The same straitjacket Grandpa tried everything to save me from—even hiding the truth from Dad.

I smile and my jaw hurts.

Ah, fuck. Looks like I’m not keeping my promise to him after all.

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