Page 91 of Pray for Scars
“Wait!” I call after him, my voice cracking. Slowly, I stand up, take one shaky step after another until I reach the iron bars of my cell. “Where are you going?”
Don’t leave me in here. Not anymore.
He doesn’t look back as he says, “You’ll see.”
And then he walks up the stairs leading out of the basement.
I curl my fingers around the cold iron bars, lean my forehead against them. A second later, footsteps echo down the stairs, and I hold my breath, waiting.
A man dressed in all black appears, a gun on his hip. He has dull brown eyes, a shaved head. Even though he looks nothing like him, he reminds me of Kristof in his demeanor.
He walks to my cell, pulls keys from his back pocket.
His eyes lock on mine. “Don’t do anything stupid, okay?” he asks me, smiling. “They’re going to bury you already. They won’t mind if I break you first.”
He slides the key into the lock, turns it, pockets the keys, and then pulls my door open.
I don’t move.
He steps inside, grabs my arm tightly in his hand, yanking me out of the cell.
Even if I wanted to, I couldn’t fight back. My stomach growls as we move, my steps are sluggish. I’m too tired. Too hungry. I run my dry tongue over chapped lips.
Too thirsty.
And I just…I don’t care.
There’s no angel for me now.
Maybe there never was.
The man pulls me up the stairs, dragging me after him. I stumble along the wooden steps in bare feet, my eyes on the ground. When we get to the top, he pushes me into the narrow hallway, closes the door to the basement, and turns to look at me, as if he’s sizing up his prey.
I don’t move.
Not even as he moves suddenly toward me, pulling my hair back in his hand, his hot breath on my face.
“You don’t look like much right now,” he says quietly, his beady eyes roaming down my body. “But with a shower, spread naked on my bed…you’d probably do it for me.”
I clench my hands into fists, but I can’t find it: the fight. I can’t find the energy I need to care about what he’s saying, what he’s threatening me with.
So I don’t care.
I just smile.
“Fuck me,” I whisper to him. “As long as you promise to kill me afterward.”
He blinks, his hand in my hair loosening.
Then he steps back, shaking his head. “You’re fucking crazy, bitch.” He grabs my arm and drags me down the hall.
You have no idea.
When we get to the sanctuary, with red floors and wooden pews, a cross on the wall behind the altar, I’m surprised to see it’s light outside through the intricate stained glass lining the walls. I assumed that the 6 worked in the night, under the cover of darkness.
But I guess when you’ve got Satan himself on your side, you don’t need the darkness. Youarethe darkness.
The guard pushes me into one of the hardbacked pews, and crosses his arms, glaring down at me. “Don’t move.”
