Page 89 of Huntsman
“What was that shit you talked when I offered to fuck you before?” She draws the blade of the knife over the edge of my jaw, down my neck, then slides the tip just under my skin at the base of my throat. “‘Try it,’ I believe your words were,” she purrs, gloating.
The bite of pain is negligible, doesn’t even warrant a flinch.
But my stomach roils, and bile churns, searing my chest and throat. Because this feelswrong. Dirty.
“While I was waiting on you to get here, I passed the time imagining all the ways I could ‘try it.’ Too bad sloppy seconds aren’t my thing, but damn, you make me almost reconsider.”
She leans over me, presses an open-mouthed kiss to my throat, and it requires every bit of control in me not to strain away from her touch that burns my skin like acid.
I’m going to kill her.
I don’t know how. But even if I have to pull a Jesus Christ, I’m ripping this bitch’s throat out and spitting in that hole.
“The only thing that would make this better is if Eshe were here to witness this.” She grips my chin and jerks my face toward her. “Too bad she’s not, Huntsman. Too bad she’snever been here. That video? A little clip of my niece’s kidnapping from years ago. Who knew it would come in handy? Glad I kept it.”
A sheet of ice slicks through my veins, and for a moment, my lungs cease pumping. I yank my gaze from the ceiling to glimpse the triumphant glint in hers, and the rage starts to eat away at the shock.
She’s never been here.
Abena didn’t have Eshe? The fucking cunt tricked me. And for the first time, blinded by emotion, I fell into the goddamn trap.
Yet, under the anger… relief threads through me like silver filaments.
Eshe’s okay. She’s not hurt, hasn’t been tortured like an animal. If my being here means she avoided that fate, then I’d still do it again.
I smile.
And I turn my head back toward the ceiling. But not before I catch the bewildered shock that slackens Abena’s face.
“Oh no, muthafucka. You’re going to give me what I want. Where the fuck is Eshe? You two left the obodo together, so don’t try to tell me you don’t know. Give her to me, and I’ll make your death quick,” she snaps.
When she doesn’t get shit out of me, she emits a low, vicioussnarl and jams her knife into the meaty portion of my arm. Red-hot pain flashes through me, but experience informs me the injury isn’t life-threatening. I grind my teeth, not releasing a sound.
Or an answer.
That enrages Abena more.
“Where, Huntsman?” she demands, this time plunging the knife through my opposite arm, the same place.
And she gets the same result. Nothing from me. She’s wasting her fucking time. I was raised on fucking pain like a baby reared on their mother’s breast milk.
The bitch played her card. And lost.
Over and over, she slices my body, drenching me in blood, cocooning me in agony.
By the time she drops the knife to the silver table, she’s splattered in crimson and sweat, and I’m weakened from blood loss but still silent. In the half hour she’s worked me over, I’ve inhaled the searing ache, the sharp, blinding pain. Consumed it until I’m almost high like an addict. I teeter on a needle’s edge, caught between scorching pleasure and agonizing pain, my body strung tight like a bow.
But I remain silent.
“I can do this all night, and there are plenty of places on your body to run through.” Abena leans over me, slicing my shirt down the middle and baring my chest. “I’m not going to kill you, because you’re too fucking valuable alive. But I can make you pray for death.”
I dip my head, meet Abena’s manic gaze. “Fuck. God.”
Her face darkens, and for a moment, I think she might break that vow not to kill me.
“You want Eshe so bad, you can be just like that bitch, then,” she sneers, picking up the knife once more.
With a sharp, brutal swing, she hacks off my finger—the same finger Eshe’s kidnappers took. The blowback of pain crushes my spine to the gurney, and I damn near bite off my tongue, trapping the roar that barrels out of my throat. Abena grabs a blowtorchand aims it on a metal disc. Once it glows red, she jams the disc onto the stump where my finger used to be, and my body shakes as I almost pass out from the agony. Black claws at my vision, gnawing at my consciousness, and I scrape and fight to stay alert.
