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“I’ve missed you so much, lover,” he coos in my ear.
Heat washes through me, and my heart can’t decide whether to stop or start, whether it’s too nervous to beat, or too wound up to slow down.
“I missed you, little heathen,” I whisper. Reveling in his touch. In being in his arms again.
The days were hell, but he came for me. He found me.
“Hey, what about me?”
Zeke pushes up from the other side of my green-haired heathen, and his usually stern face is painted with a goofy grin.
“You too, beautiful,” I murmur with my eyes on Zeke, as Riot leans over, pressing his lips to mine.
Suddenly a massive tidal wave crashes through the city, and we all pause, staring in terror at the waves crashing through the windows of the high rise buildings to the east. Sloshing up the sides of the buildings, the waves don’t slow, in fact they grow. They gain speed. Gain height.
Zeke wraps his arms around Riot, and Riot grips my hand, lacing our fingertips together, but when the wave crashes over us, it’s too strong. I’m ripped from his grip, pulled under by the icy current. My lips part and I try to scream, but instead I just swallow water. It invades my stomach, my throat, my lungs, and I can no longer breathe.
“Wake up!”
Sputtering and coughing, I wake up on the cold concrete doused from head to toe in frigid water. I choke and retch as the water expels from my lungs. Pushing myself up from the ground quickly, I scamper to the corner of the cell as four guards approach me. One holding the end of a long hose with a clamped nozzle. Another holding something long and black.
Violent shivers rack my body, and my muscles ache.
“Wh-what do y-you want?” I stutter through the sharp convulsions, wrapping my arms around myself for warmth. It’s so damn cold. My denim jeans and the thick cotton of my hooded sweatshirt all clinging to my body like a second skin.
“To send a message,” one barks out.
Just like the last time, I can’t see what they look like. In addition to their black tactical gear, they wear thick, black, solid mesh masks covering their faces.
“Grab him,” the one man barks, and two men step forward, but this time I fight back. I swing and I land one punch. One lucky punch because the next thing I get is the heel of a palm to my face and the loud crunch tells me he probably just broke my nose. Blood gushes down my face as one man wraps his arms around me, and then steps toward me with a needle.
“No, no, no,” I plead loudly, tears streaming down my face, blood and snot pouring from my nose like a river. “Not again, please not again.”
They can’t drug me again. Not knowing what’s happening is worse than living through what’s happening. I need to be alert. It’s bad enough that I can’t even tell what day it is, or how long I’ve been here, I can’t also be unconscious.
“Don’t worry, prisoner. This time you only get enough to keep you compliant.”
The needle glides through my neck like butter and this time I don’t flinch. In a mere matter of moments, a wave of nausea settles in, and my limbs fall limp. Once again, I’m dragged across the floor to the center of the cell, and I’m unable to fight back.
Everything is so heavy, like I’m sinking in quicksand. When I move a limb to fight, it only serves to make it harder to breathe, and I sink deeper.
“No…” I try to scream but I just whisper and whimper. “Please don’t do this.”
The bigger man releases his grip on me and I fall to the ground, crumpling over my limbs. I feel myself being bobbled back and forth as someone peels my wet hooded sweatshirt and t-shirt from my body, leaving my torso exposed.
It’s so damn cold…
My arms are jerked out to each side and a smooth, cold, heavy, metal cuff is clamped around each of my wrists. When the support of my captors is removed, I’m left on my knees, my upper body suspended by my chained arms, extended out from each side of me.
My voice comes out a dull grunt, “Please do-”
I’m interrupted by the ice cold blast of water that hits my chest and face. It’s so cold and forceful that it stings like sharp razor blades against my skin, but I can’t even move my head enough to avoid the stream. Water forces its way up my nose and down my throat again, and I start coughing, sputtering through the spray. Suddenly the stream is cut off, but I’m coughing so hard that vomit makes its way up the back of my throat, spewing down the front of my chest.
There’s a tiny bright light outside the cell, and when my eyes finally focus, it dawns on me they are recording every moment of this. I don’t know why, but I refuse to give them the satisfaction of seeing my pain any longer. Once I catch my breath, I inhale deeply, sniff back the last of my sobs, and press my eyes closed just as the first lash whips across my back. Searing pain rips through me as my flesh splits, but I bite my tongue until copper floods my mouth, because whoever they are sending this to, doesn’t need to know that I’m already falling apart.
Someone save me.
Chapter thirty-three
