Page 44 of Monsters Like Us
Corinne hums as she guides me back toward the pipe, her hands deceptively gentle. She murmurs something about “steady breaths” as she rebinds my wrists, and it makes bile rise in my throat. Steady breaths—like this is routine. Like this isn’t some sick torture.
The chains lock again, the metal biting deep into the lacerations from the leather straps. Then she straightens, wipes her hands on her scrubs, and glides out behind Vale. The door slams, the lock scrapes. Silence swallows the room.
Micah’s voice breaks it first. Rough, low, and bleeding at the edges. “Katana.”
I can’t look at him. My eyes burn too hot, my body still twitching from the phantom current.
What happens when Vale decides I’m no longer useful? The thought snakes under my skin.
“Talk to me,” Micah begs, his chains dragging as he strains to be closer. “Please.”
I keep my head down, my hair falling around me like a curtain. I’m afraid to meet his eyes, fearing I’ll shatter.
He gave them answers. I heard the words spill from him between my screams. Little scraps, but still—he gave them something. And for what? They shocked me anyway.
My chest twists. Do I resent him for talking? Or do I resent him for not being able to stop them? I don’t know. Both, maybe.
“I had to,” he says suddenly, like he’s heard the thoughts I didn’t speak. His voice is hoarse, desperate. “I thought if I gave him scraps, he’d stop. I thought—” He cuts himself off, chains rattling.
I stare at him, waiting.
“I was trying to make it stop.”
Tears spill hot and fast before I can stop them. I tip my head back against the wall and let them fall, my voice splintering when it finally comes. “It didn’t work.”
The silence that follows is heavy enough to choke me.
Then Micah speaks again, softer this time. “I know. And I swear to you, little murderess, I’ll make them pay for every second of it.”
I want to believe him. God, I do. But all I feel is the echo of the current, the burn in my muscles, and the memory of his voice breaking as he tried to save me.
I close my eyes, curling tighter against the wall. I don’t answer. I can’t.
But when I feel the faint brush of his foot against mine again, I don’t pull away.
CHAPTER 39
Micah
The lock clicks.Vale descends the stairs with the slow confidence of a man who believes he’s already won. He’s alone this time. Corinne told us when she dropped off our breakfast that she’d be “doing rounds” tonight. But now, looking at Vale, it seems the sort of mundane excuse that smells of planning.
He drags a chair from the wall, metal legs screeching across the concrete, and plants it between Katana and me. His smile is too sharp, too polished, the kind you wear before snapping a trap closed.
“Let’s talk,” he says lightly, like we’re equals. As though this isn’t chains, concrete, and scars. Like this isn’t torture.
I say nothing.
Vale’s eyes flicker with amusement, but I catch the strain at the corners. He expected me to spit, to curse, to roar. Instead, I stare back, my jaw locked, the silence between us as heavy as iron.
The room hums faintly with its own secrets. I start mapping again, my focus sliding away from him and onto the items in the room: the small closet near the stairs whereCorinne wheels the machine. The locked metal case on the shelf where she keeps her syringes—always sliding the key in twice, with quick precision. The ring of keys clipped to the left side of her belt jingles when she moves. The bulb overhead that flickers every time the machine powers up, dimming like it’s swallowing electricity. Each detail settles into my mind like another weapon.
Vale leans forward, elbows on his knees, his hands clasped together. “You can make this easier, Micah. I’ll even reward you for it. A little comfort. A little reprieve for her.” His smile tilts toward Katana.
Katana stiffens, curling tighter against the wall. I see the terror flare in her eyes. She looks terrified and worried, like she’s afraid Vale will kill her. The worry is a live wire in her face, and it tightens my gut.
I keep my face carved from stone. Silence is my answer.
The pause stretches. Vale clicks his tongue, shakes his head like he’s disappointed in a child. “Stubborn,” he muses. “But stubborn things always snap when enough weight is applied.”
