Knox holds the third dart longer. He doesn’t rush. He lets anticipation crawl up my spine and sit there.
Then the air moves.
The third dart embeds itself left of my spine, too close, far too close. I feel the point scrape between muscle, slicing as it forces its way deeper. White bursts behind my eyelids. My legs give out completely. A choked scream tears out of me, held upright only because the restraints keep my arms locked above my head. My broken wrist jostles and screams with me, sending pain up my arm and into my chest like a hot wire.
Blood coats my back now, soaking into the waistband of the panties I have on. I can feel each drop sliding down, sticky, gathering at the small of my back.
Knox steps around me, admiring what he has done.
“And that, makes three.”
Sophie walks over, crouches, and grabs the end of one dart between two fingers. She wiggles it, slowly testing, like she wants to learn exactly how much it takes to break me.
Pain detonates through my back so violently that I gag.
She smiles. “Careful. I would hate for you to bleed out before the next game.”
Miles surges halfway out of his chair. “Stop, she needs help, just stop.”
“Sit down!” Asher snaps.
Emma can’t hold her tears back anymore. They stream silently down her cheeks as she presses shaking hands to her mouth. Sarah stares fixedly at the floor, jaw locked, shoulders trembling. No one speaks.
I can’t hold myself upright. My legs tremble hard enough that my whole body sways.
Sophie lets out a low laugh.
The restraints are the only reason I haven’t collapsed flat onto the floor. My head hangs forward. Hair falls into my face, and it sticks to wetness I can’t tell apart anymore. Sweat, tears, blood, it all feels the same.
Elliot claps once, bright and cheerful, like he is ending a dinner toast instead of torture.
“That concludes the games for tonight, Asher, remove her.”
Asher unbuckles the restraints. My arms drop like dead weight. Pain tears through my wrist and my back at the same time, and I collapse to the ground with a broken cry. Asher hooks his hands under my armpits and drags me across the floor. My knees scrape the rug, then hit tile, then concrete. Every bump sends shocks through the darts lodged in my back. Blood smears behind me in long streaks.
The world tilts and blurs as the pain drags me under.
But even as darkness closes in, one thought stays clear.
I am not dying here.
Chapter 10
Brooke
Ifeel cold at first. Then pain—deep, slicing, pulsing in three places along my spine. Then the feeling of fabric sticking to my skin. I blink slowly and realize I’m lying face-down on a cot in the physician’s quarters, cheek pressed to a thin pillow already smeared with my blood. Something tugs at the puncture near my shoulder blade. I jerk instinctively.
“Don’t move,” the physician says dryly. “Unless you’d like permanent nerve damage.”
My breath shakes out in short, panicked bursts. “Stop—stop, please—”
“Hysteria won’t speed anything up.”
His tone doesn’t change at all. He keeps working.
My fingers curl into the pillow, nails scraping fabric as he prods the wound. Pain tears down my back like lightning.
I grit my teeth so hard my jaw aches. “It—hurts—”
