Page 99 of Fixate

I let out a shocked laugh. “What’s your end game here, Constance? You want to pin everyone against each other, that it?”

“No, no… I just want the South to work in harmony. And sometimes, you have to get rid of a few bad notes along the way to make the melody flow. You understand what I am saying, Maxxy?”

I have no idea, but right now, I need to focus on myself because it seems like I am first on the chopping block.

“Look, maybe we can make a deal?” I try to barter with her to get myself out of this mess.

The Baroness smirks, shaking her head. “Sorry, this deal’s already been struck. It is a shame… I do like the fire in you, Maxine. You are a fighter. Pleasure doing business with you, Selene… I’ll be seeing you,” she says, turns, and walks for the rickety door.

“Baroness… Constance… Connie, please!” I beg, but she walks out the door, closing it behind her. My breath becomes frantic as I spin back to face Selene, who is now standing in front of me, holding a small cage in one hand and a blowtorch in the other. An evil glint lights her face, and I let out a long breath. “Selene… I know I shouldn’t have let you take the fall—”

“Stop! That’s not the issue here, Maxxy. If I didn’t want to take the fall for you, I wouldn’t have. I took the shiv from you consciously because I was protecting you. I took that role on in there and was happy to do it because I thought we were friends.”

“We were friends, Selene—”

“Then why did you abandon me? You left. You cut ties. We made a pact in that prison that we would stick together once we both got out. You remember that, Maxxy?”

I jerk my head back in confusion. She’s upset because I abandoned her, not because I let her take the fall.What the fuck?“Selene… do you have abandonment issues?”

She rushes forward, her eyes wide, flicking on the blowtorch, the hot flame next to my ear. “You want to psychoanalyze me? You want to try and figure out why your leaving has made me this way? You think you have power over me, Maxxy? No, I’m just going to make you regret leaving. Because if there is one thing people don’t do, it’s fucking leave me high and dry, right Trap?”

He glances from Selene to me and nods his head. “Right, baby.”

“Set her up, Trap,” she instructs.

Trap walks over to me, flicks a switch on my seat, and it flies back like an old-style dentist chair. My legs recline, my back tips, and I lie almost flat.

Trap grabs my bound hands and yanks them above my head, locking me in place. My heart races so fast as Selene grabs my tank top and rips it open, leaving me in my bra. She smirks, her long, red fingernails tracing the outlines of my tattoos. “Such delicate artistry, such a shame I’m about to ruin it,” she states, then places the cage on my stomach.

“Selene, think about this. We can be friends again. I’ll make sure to spend time with you. I’m so fucking sorry I bailed. It was the guilt. I swear I won’t bail on you again.”

She nods her head. “No… you won’t.” She hits a little button on the side of the cage, I feel the section against my stomach moving, almost like it is retracting, and then I jerk as the sharp claws of something begin to run along my skin.

“What the fuck is that?” I blurt out as she fires up the blowtorch with an evil grin.

“Vengeance,” she replies, placing the intense flame on the top of the cage, the metal beginning to glow bright orange with the heat, sending that heat right down into my flesh.

I shake my head, trying to wriggle the box off me, but Trap holds me down as the animal inside the cage begins to squeak and claw, ripping and gnawing at my stomach to try and make its way out. “Fuuuck!” I scream as pain ripples through me.

“It’s intense, isn’t it? Feeling the rat rip through your skin. It will literally burrowaaalllthe way through your intestines to try and get away from the heat.”

“Stop!Stooop,” I scream out, begging Selene to end this.

But she doesn’t. She only turns up the heat of the torch. “You want me to stop, Maxxy?” she yells over my screams. The rat digging further into my flesh.

“Yes! Stop!” I beg through my tears.

Suddenly, she turns off the blowtorch and lifts the cage. The rat jumps off my stomach, and the relief is instant as I breathe harshly out of my mouth, trying to come down from the intense pain. I glance down at my stomach, seeing deep scratches and a ton of blood and burn marks.

Selene exhales, shaking her head. “You know, Maxxy, this all could have been avoided if you had just decided to come and work for me. Instead, you tried to hack into my cell to try and find the footage. You should know, as Bachelors, we’re more capable than you think we are. We outgun you and your measly MC.” She shrugs. “You should have come to work for me. But now, I know you’re a quitter and a backstabber, and I can’t have that. So there’s only one option to deal with you, I’m afraid.”

Sniffing, the pain overwhelming any other sensations I have, I look into her eyes and see nothing.

There’s no soul.

No sense of sanity.

The woman is vacant of any kind of humanity.

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