Page 46 of Monsters Like Us
Another surge. The machine buzzes louder, the light flickers, and Micah’s body convulses harder. Sweat slicks his skin, the tang of burned flesh crawling up the back of my throat. His eyes never leave mine—dark and savage, silently warning:Don’t you dare give him anything.
Vale keeps talking, questions sliding past me like static. I can’t hear a single word over the rush of blood in my ears. All I can see is Micah jerking against the leather. All I can think is how much more can hetake before something breaks? Before his heart stops?
The thought claws through me. My stomach twists. My pulse stutters.
I can’t take it.
I scream his name until my throat is raw, sobbing and hurling myself against the restraints until bruises bloom, until my own body feels like it’s breaking right alongside his.
Vale watches me unravel with the delight of a man unwrapping a gift. “She’s yours, Micah,” he says softly. “Which means she’s mine to destroy.”
His gaze slides back to Micah. “I’ll enjoy breaking you through her.”
CHAPTER 41
Micah
The straps bite like teeth,still pressed into my skin long after they unbuckled me and shoved me back against the pipe. My wrists are raw, my muscles trembling from the current still echoing in my veins. The air reeks of smoke and sweat, and under it all lingers the sharp tang of ozone, clinging like a ghost. Every breath scrapes my lungs.
I don’t make a sound. Not when they shocked me. And not now.
Katana did enough screaming for both of us.
Her cries are still ringing in my ears, jagged and alive. They hurt worse than the current. Every time she begged them to stop, every time her voice broke, it tore something deeper in me than electricity ever could.
She’s curled against the wall again, knees pulled tight, chains locking her in place. Her face is wet, her body shaking, and she won’t look at me.
Good. She shouldn’t see me weak like this.
I flex my hands, testing the chains. The drug that paralyzed my limbs is gone, my fingers working again, but they’resluggish and tingling. My body will remember what they did long after the drug has left me.
I look over at Katana, hating that she’s still turned away from me. Something cracks open inside, a raw, desperate need to make sure she’s okay rolling through me.
“Katana,” I rasp. My voice is broken glass, scraped raw from holding back.
She doesn’t answer.
The silence digs at me, sharper than the current. A flicker of something ugly—fear, maybe self-loathing—spikes in my chest.
“You can’t shut me out.” The words grind out more of an order than a plea. “That’s what they want. To wedge something between us.”
Finally, her gaze flickers to mine. Her eyes are wrecked, red-rimmed and shining, but there’s fire under the wreckage.
“Why didn’t you scream?” she whispers, her voice hoarse and small.
I hold her stare, steady even with my body still shaking. “Because I won’t give them what they want. Not Vale. Not Corinne. They’ll never hear me break.”
Her lip trembles. “I would’ve. If it were me on that table.”
A muscle ticks in my jaw. I let my head fall back against the pipe, chains clanking with the movement. “That’s why I couldn’t. One of us has to stay the monster.”
She flinches, the word catching her like a blade. “Monster?” she breathes, like she’s testing the shape of it.
I don’t correct her. I don’t soften it. I let the silence sharpen around us, humming with the phantom current still crawling through my nerves.
Then she shifts. It’s small—just the faint press of her foot against mine again, cotton to bare skin—but it’s enough.
I breathe through the ache, through the fury, through the vow that’s growing sharper with every second.
