Page 20 of Wrath

Slowly, the all-consuming, incandescent pain receded, and it felt like I could breathe again. My throat felt raw. I was terrified to even think about what it would look like beneath the collar.

“Z!” Bash barked.

“I think… I think it’s your magic,” I managed to pant out, spitting a mouthful of blood onto the floor.

“My magic?”

“When you started to use it, the pain started.” It still felt like I couldn’t take a full breath. Fatherfucker. “But I’ll be fine. Just do it quickly and?—”

“Fuck no!” Bash sounded horrified. “I’m not going to use my magic if it caused you to scream like that.”

“Bash—”

“Don’t Bash me.” He grumbled something too low for me to hear and then snapped out, “We’ll just escape the old-fashioned way.”

“And what way is that?”

Another pause. “I’m still thinking.”

My head lolled against my chest, even as a dark chuckle escaped me. “So do you think this is Lilith’s first task?”

“Either it’s Lilith’s first task or we have the worst fucking luck known to man,” Bash proclaimed. “What do you have in your room? Anything we can use to remove the handcuffs?”

I frowned and slowly lifted my head. It hurt like a bitch to do so. Was everything still connected? Was it possible for your muscles to disjoin from the bone? That was certainly what it felt like.

“Handcuffs? You’re held up by handcuffs?” I asked, my voice a guttural croak.

“Yeah?” That one word came out sounding like a question. “What the fuck are you held up by?”

“You swear a lot,” I pointed out.

“Fuck you. Now answer the fucking question.”

I tilted my head back once more and focused on the rope. “Rope.”

“Rope?”

“That’s what I said, isn’t it?”

“Someone’s feeling sassy today.”

“Stabby, actually,” I corrected, “but close.” I shifted slightly, the muscles in my shoulders screaming in protest, when my gaze caught on something on the tiny table in front of me, poking out from beneath one of the white shirts. “Bash?”

“Yeah?”

“I think I see a key.”

“A key?” Disbelief caused his voice to hitch.

“Gimme a second.”

How the fuck was I supposed to grab it? It wasn’t as if I had use of my hands…

An idea came to me, and I thanked every god in existence that I spent most of my life working out and training. I’d honed my body into a lethal weapon, and just then, I was incredibly grateful for that.

Wincing slightly, I tilted backwards—ignoring the strain the movement put on my aching shoulders—and allowed my feet to lift.

If the world was what it was like centuries ago, before the nightmares took over, I could've been a gymnast. I was certainly capable of bending my body in strange and unusual ways.

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