Page 3 of Sweet Nightmares
A black haze stepped in front of her, and she blinked again, trying to focus.
“What do you want from me?” Jane croaked, her mouth dry.
“Oh, we don’t want anything from you,” a man who had finally come into her vision said, as he grasped her chin. “You are the payment. We are going to torture you until you die, and then we are going to hang your mangled body from the ceiling in your husband’s living room.”
Jane sucked in a breath. She’d known she would die young, but she never imagined it would be because of her horrible husband. The idea made her livid.
“He won’t care,” Jane said through gritted teeth.
“We shall see.”
Then the torture began.
A high-pitched ringing sounded in Jane’s ears as she blinked and tried to open her eyes again. One of them was swollen shut and leaking blood.
The disorientation hit her in waves. Jane knew she should remember where she was, how she’d gotten there, and why her wrists felt like they were burning. But she didn’t, at least not at first.
So, she tried to take in her surroundings. The room was pitch black, or at least she thought it was because she couldn’t see anything, and she was pretty sure she managed to get one of her eyes open.Pretty sure.
Jane didn’t mind the darkness as much as the sound.
Drip, drop. Drip, drop. Drip drop.
A sound that would haunt her nightmares for years to come.
Drip, drop. Drip, drop.
She shuddered and tried to pull her hands up to inspect her wounds, but her wrists chafed against the ropes that stopped her from moving more than an inch or two.
She was trapped, tied to a chair, and hurt… badly.
It was then that the world came crashing in. She’d been kidnapped and endured three nights? Four days? Seven? Jane’s nose bunched as she tried to remember, the movement shooting pain through her cheeks. She moaned. Everything fucking hurt, and she didn’t know how long she’d been in this room, and whether it was a blessing or a curse not to remember.
She vaguely remembered being hung from the ceiling, so the chair was a relief at least.
The one thing she knew for sure was that they had a healer. After she’d passed out from the beatings and carvings, she’d wake up, and someone would come and fix her flesh just enough for her to take it all again.
Again and again and again.
Jane sat in the darkness and silence for what felt like an age, and in that time, her memories seeped back in. Fear and anticipation were her constant companions. They sat on her chest like a heavy weight. She didn’t want to die. She’d just become the prima ballerina. She had too much to live for, and she refused to let this end her. But how could she get out of it?
These men wanted her to pay for her husband stealing from them. Was there anything she could offer to fix it?
Eventually, three men entered the room and turned on the light. It took her too long to acclimate, and she blinked several times to do it, each movement causing a rippling of pain through her.
When she was able to see again, she noticed that one of the men was burly, another was average in build, and the third was muscular, but dressed in a sharp suit and cravat.
“Please stop.” The words came out as a low, husky whimper. Her throat was raw, too. Had she been screaming? “Please, I’ll do whatever you want.”
The burly man stepped forward. “Unless you have a magic pussy that can grant us the 100,000 siennas your husband stole from us, there is nothing you can give us.”
100,000 siennas? What? That was the fortune of several men combined. What a fucking fool. Her husband would never learn.
“Unfortunately, deary, you are the lesson,” said the one in the sharp suit. “We’re going to kill you and leave you for your husband to find.”
“Then why torture me first?” Jane said with a sarcastic lilt. Sometimes, her tongue was a bit too barbed for her own good. Usually, she chose to respond to situations with calmness, but on occasion, she just couldn’t hold herself back.
The sharp one’s eyes flared—clearly the leader. “Because we enjoy it.”
