Page 73 of Somno Slave

Peter turns sharply. Even through the glass, I feel it.

My heart stutters hard against my ribs as his gaze locks onto me, sharp, questioning for a fraction of a second before it shifts.

He gestures to where he thinks I am.

Short. Sharp.

The dial.

I look down at it in my hand and then back at Deogal.

Water drips from him. The floor beneath him is slick, reflecting the light in broken pieces.

Electricity and water.

The thought hits fully formed now, heavy and undeniable.

This isn’t procedure.

This isn’t controlled.

Peter signals again, harder this time, impatience cutting through whatever restraint he had left. My thumb hovers for half a second longer than it should.

Then I press.

The reaction is immediate.

His body jerks violently against the restraints, every muscle seizing at once. The chains snap tight with a sharp metallic strain as he’s forced against them, water splashing outward from the impact.

A sound tears out of him. It doesn’t sit right. Too raw. Too deep. It scrapes against something instinctive in me, something that recoils before I can process it.

Peter motions again.

My body forgets how to breathe naturally.

I press again and this time it’s worse.

The current runs through him in visible waves, his body locking, releasing, locking again. The rhythm wrong, too much, too fast. Steam lifts faintly from his skin where the water meets heat.

The smell hits a second later. Metallic. Burnt. Something that shouldn’t be in the air.

I swallow against it, my throat tightening.

Peter empties the last bucket over him. Water crashes down again, feeding the reaction, making everything harsher.

My teeth grind together without me meaning to. My free hand lifts toward my throat and stops there, fingers hovering just below my jaw.

A low sound escapes him, somewhere between a groan and something else I don’t want to name. Then the corners of his lip tip up.

Water drips from his chin, slow and steady, collecting beneath the chair. His skin is marked now, darker bruises forming beneath the electrodes, colours deepening where the current has taken hold.

He looks wrecked.

He looks—

I stop the thought before it finishes.

My hand releases the dial. It hits the desk softly. I reach for my pen, but the biro feels wrong as soon as I pick it up.