Page 11 of Savage Sin

Persephone

Silence cocoons me. Everything is dark. And cold. So damn cold. My eyes slide open, but I need a forklift to keep them that way. My lashes fall again, and this time, they stay there. My limbs are heavy and my body feels like it hasn’t realized I’m awake yet.

I’ve never been so cold. Only minutes ago, I woke to find myself in a dank-smelling…jail cell, a hole in the middle of the woods? I feel the ground beneath me. No. There’s no dirt, and it smells more briny with a tang of metal and urine than earthy. And whatever I am on is hard and cold.

What that tells me, I don’t know, but hell would be cozier than this place. It feels like I’ve been thrown into the back of a freezer and my entire body has turned to a block of ice. My eyelids feel just as heavy. I try to pry them open again, but lifting sheets of lead is an easier feat.

I try to scream, but I can’t seem to get my throat to work. The fact that the back of my throat feels like I tried to swallow a lit blow torch doesn’t help. I focus on that fact as my senses come back online one by one. Fog drifts over my thoughts and it’s hard as hell to make sense out of the bits and pieces coming in and out of focus. Confusion muddles everything, and I am having a really hard time remembering the last few hours of my life. Or days. My sense of time is skewered, too.

“Hello?” I try to speak, but I sound more like a feeble mouse than a woman. After an agonizing stretch of silence, I try again. “Hello? Where am I?”

Nothing. Just a void of blackness and cold.

My breath quickens.

Muffled shuffling in the far corner sends a rush of goosebumps up my legs. That is when I realize my change of wardrobe. From jeans to nothing from mid-thigh down is alarming. But so are the shackles around my ankles. I raise my heel an inch and then another and sure enough, part of the reason I can’t move one foot separate from the other is the fact my ankles are cuffed together. My wrists too.

What the hell?I blink through the hazy fog in my head and the darkness, but it doesn’t do any good. I can’t see a foot in front of me in either direction.

“Where the fuck am I?” My voice is rough and dry. I try to swallow and even that is hard. I shuffle my body around and take stock. I start with my feet. They hurt and my toes are ice cubes, but otherwise okay.

I mentally move my attention to my legs and the cold draft of air. Bare? That explains why I am so cold. I roll to my side and maneuver my hands to push myself up when it hits. “ARGH!” Pain radiates out from my middle to light every nerve ending in my body on fire.

“Quiet, you stupid girl, or you’ll get them to come back and beat us more because of you.”

“Me?” I hurl back and stifle the cry rising in my throat. Tears aren’t going to help me right now.

I try to sit up again, but this time it’s too much when another wave of pain slices through my side. Fire replaces the ice weighing me down. Instead of freeing me, I crunch into a ball of agony and give in. And that is when it all comes rushing back to me at once. The wall of memories pummels into me and with the weight comes the raw, festering anger. It rises in me and ebbs into panic and then fear. Tremors take over and it’s a long minute before I can force myself to breathe.

Joaquin. My mother. Silas. The thumb drive. My sister. I grit my teeth and wait for the barrage of agony blazing my insides to quell.

Fucking Silas.

I run a trembling hand down my body. The Russian bastard thrived on the pain of others. I don’t know him past our first encounter, but given my current state, I’m going to say that was more than enough to know what he’s about. Seeing him dead will do my soul good.

In place of the tight camisole I remember wearing, I have some kind of loose shirt now. Or is it a dress? I don’t know. What is important right now is the feel of warm, sticky liquid on my hand when I draw back the edge of my clothes and feel the puckered sides of a fresh wound in my side.

“That bastard stabbed me.” A minute ago, I had a clogging fog, but now I can speak, despite slurring my words.

Icy fingers swat at my hand. “Don’t touch. I tried my best to stitch you up. They won’t hold if you keep moving around.”

“Who are you?” I meant to say thank you, but whatever.

Silence.

“Answer me, damn it!” I slam my palm down and immediately regret my actions. Unyielding metal greets the palm of my hand and I might as well have stuck my hand in a bucket of electric eels. I jerk it to my chest and roll in the other direction, only to bump into someone.

“Shh.” More icy fingers wrap around my wrist and I’m shoved back.

Heavy stomps sound like death drums in the darkness.

Those frozen digits search for me again and this time they pinch the sides of my cheeks together. “You’ve done it now. They’ll come back in here and kill another one of us.” Her voice pitches low and hangs heavily with malice. Shrieks and whimpering ricochet off the walls. At least I think it’s walls. Why else would there be an echo?

“Get off me,” I grit out. Using the little strength I have, I jerk the hand from my face. There’s more mumbling from the far corner before another voice in that direction says, “Hopefully her.” Such a bitter tone for a cold room.

I’ve spent a good amount of time in a dark basement. That doesn’t scare me. Monsters I can’t see do. “Who arethey? Who are you so afraid of? Where are we?”

“You’ve been out of it for hours. I think I gave you too much.” It’s the same voice of the person who said they stitched me up. She is nicer, weak from the sound of softness in her tone. Or just scared. Definitely all the above.

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