Page 20 of All Saints Day
“Alright—let’s keep it moving, Penny,” he grumbles, giving me another jab between the shoulder blades before giving one of my exposed ass cheeks a stinging swat.
Under my breath, I count steps, looming near the wall—my fingers tentatively slipping along the surface of the wall until Frank barks another set of instructions.
“Take another right, keep going—hands off the wall.”
I do as I’m told, turning a hard 90 degrees, pulling my wrists into my chest as I step cautiously down yet another blind hallway.
Ten paces from the last turn, another thirty paces and Frank’s voice rings out in the quiet of the hall once more.
“Stop!”
I come to a halt, the jangling of keys ringing in my ears as Frank fiddles with a lock, then the pop and click of a latch.
There’s a warm, dry smell like dust in the sunlight—like an attic—but just beneath, the chemical tang of heavy-duty cleaning supplies and antiseptics breathes new life into my panic.
Frozen, I stand in the relative safety of the carpeted hallway until Frank loses his patience—dragging me over the cold metal threshold and onto warm, smooth wooden boards; the door slamming behind us.
“On your knees,” Frank commands, circling behind me.
“Frank,” I hiccup—struggling to swallow down a breath as one of his boots snaps out, the blade of his foot striking the backs of my knees, forcing me down to the hardwood with a painful thud, my hands brace in front of me to keep me from toppling forward onto my face.
“We’ve had plenty of time for small talk, Lou. Today we’re gonna be getting right down to talking turkey, or things are going to start to get ugly,” he sighs.
In a burst of light, Frank whips the black bag off of my head, and I can see the horror of my surroundings.
Until this point, I had incorrectly assumed that I had been held below ground. However, if my little blindfolded sojourn hadtold me anything—it was that I hadn’t gone up any stairs or taken any elevators between transport from my cell to the main torture room, to this place.
I faced a wall made almost entirely of glass window panes that faced out over a landscape of unspoiled lush greenery. My heart sank as I took in the stretch from the window to the horizon; completely unspoiled by the hand of humankind. Not a single power line, ribbon of highway, rooftop, or even a dirt path—from the pane of glass to where the sun hung golden in the blue sky.
I can tell by how the ground drops away beyond the glass window panes that we’re at least one floor up from the ground, the spacious room minimally furnished with a collection of rope-laden pulleys and winches. Just at the edge of my vision, a set of leather belts and metal chains dangle alongside a narrow wrought iron cage that stands amid the dancing motes of dust on the sunbeams that drench the space.
Just to the right of the wall of windows sit a pair of wingback chairs—a small circular table with a black and white marble chess set sits as if the room were not but a posh library, but when my eyes dart to the opposite end of the room—a massive glass tank borne aloft atop a pedestal of brass fittings and colorful tiles warps the reflection of the room with the distortion of hundreds of gallons of water.
My blood turns to ice as I take in the narrow steps to the small, tiled decking around the top rim of the glass tank, a large brass cleat wound with rope leading conspicuously up a line threaded through a pulley attached to the high vaulted ceiling, the rope dangling a large brass hook at the end of a thick rope over the surface of the water.
I spin around to face Frank—a glossy lacquered inversion table to his side, a surgeon’s table laid with all manner of horrifying tools just beyond.
“N-no!” I blurt out involuntarily as my eyes fall on the cruel shine of a scalpel’s blade, the teeth of a bone saw, turning desperatelyaway from Frank and the horrors of the surgery table—the wall of glass taunting me with freedom; so close, yet so far away.
Even if I had the balls to rush the bank of windows, to hurl myself into space—once I hit the ground, assuming I could run for it—where would I go? I have no idea where I am, and from the looks of it—this location is very remote. I would be all but guaranteed to be caught by the Windmill.
“Listen, Sweetheart,” Frank begins with an exasperated sigh. “Susan already told you about the sweet deal the Windmill wants to cut you, right?” he croons in my ear as his hands find my waist, his hips grinding against mine as he slithers in behind me—already half hard.
I hate the way my body responds to his—fated mates, our flesh ever longing for the touch of the other above all else.
“She wants to turn me into glorified breeding stock,” I shudder, doing my best to shut Frank out as his fingers ghost over the bare skin on my arms, creeping up my shoulders toward the nape of my neck.
“Didn’t she tell you?” Frank breathes my scent in, his fingers creeping up into my hair at the base of my skull.
“Tell me what?” I swallow hard as Frank’s fingers coil in the tangle of my fiery hair, forcing my head back, my throat exposed to the sun’s warm rays pouring through the wall of windows.
“They’ll give you to me,” he growls low and needy, one of his hands leaving my hair to snake through my bent elbows like a bracer bar against my mid back, my chained wrists digging into my solar plexus as he holds me captive against him. “All you need to do is say that you’ll be mine,” he rasps, gently nibbling at my earlobe beneath Seb’s scarred bite.
“They’ll put you under for the trip to the estate Lowry mentioned, and by the time you wake, all of this could be like a bad dream you’ve left behind.”
Tears pour down my face as I close my eyes, leaning back ever so slightly into Frank’s hold on me.
“What did they do to you to make you like this?”
