Page 150 of Nemesis

My heart sinks. We’re somewhere in the middle of the rows, positioned above the dark stage. This booth has been cleared of seats. It’s just the chair I’m tied to and the one he has that hard case sitting on. He moves the case to the floor and drags it closer, sitting right beside me.

“Begin!” he calls.

The stage lights turn on with a bang, someone, somewhere throwing a heavy switch to illuminate them.

The stage seems to almost glow white for a second, and I blink rapidly to allow my eyes to adjust. It’s then that the curtain on the far side is pushed aside, and someone is shoved through.

“Oh!” Gabriel leans in to me, his lips at my ear. “Oh, do you know her?”

I stare.

I do know her.

“The woman…” My mouth is dry. “She helped me get you out.”

“Correction,” he snarls. “She wassupposedto help you get us out, and she failed to protect us.”

I dip my head.

His fingers curl in my braid, and he jerks my head back up. “What do you think her punishment should be?”

The woman stumbles around the stage. She’s in white lingerie, her body pale and emaciated. I could count her ribs. Her shoulder blades stick out, and her skin is practically translucent.

“I think she’s been punished enough,” I answer carefully. “Perhaps you should let her go.”

He laughs. It’s loud enough to draw her attention. Her glazed eyes coast over us without recognition.

“Here are some options,” he says. “We could stab her in the gut and watch her bleed out in the corner while we continue our game. Or you could choose to kill her now and put her out of her misery.”

I bristle. “Excuse me?”

He reaches down, pushing up my pant leg. The knife I always keep on me slides out of its sheath easily.

Without warning, he presses the blade to my side. Then keeps going.

The knife bites, entering my body slowly. Everything flashes white-hot inside me, and pain chases it. I clench my jaw against the scream rising up in my throat, and only a lone whimper escapes past my teeth. I can’t control my hands from spasming, clenching on the arms of the chair, until he stops.

He leaves the blade there. It protrudes from my side, but my mind cannot comprehend it. If my hands were free, I’d yank it out and stabhimwith it.

Gabriel examines my face, then reaches up and swipes his thumb across my brow. “Sweat,” he says, more to himself than me. “Interesting.”

His attention swings back to the woman I had to bribe, nearly a decade ago, to help me. She worked in the bowels of Terror. It took weeks of watching the place to figure out who worked in the building, and even longer to convince her to help.

In the end, it wasn’t her moral compass that made the decision. It was the money I shoved at her.

He makes some sort of motion, a sideways ticking of his finger, and a man with a bandana covering the lower half of hisface strides out of the shadows. He grabs the woman by the back of the neck and forces her to her knees.

He drives a knife into her back.

The scream the woman releases is earth-shattering. It goes straight into me, and I yank against the constraints. She falls forward, on her hands and knees, and tries to shuffle away. Her legs don’t work, though. She can barely drag herself away from him, her fingernails digging into the platform.

“Got her in the spine,” he whispers in my ear. “Even if she survives this, I don’t think she’ll walk again. Poor bird.”

He clucks.

“I don’t see the point of this.” My voice rasps like I was screaming, even though I didn’t make a sound. “You’ve held a grudge this whole time?”

“No.” He taps the knife handle.

---