Page 74 of Black Ledger

I planted my palms against the cold concrete floor and pushed myself upright. My head was now level with the operating table, and Aleksandr’s cold eyes stared back at me. They gleamed with taunting malice. He’d enjoyed that show.

“Haunted by something, little whore?” His voice was laced with sadistic joy.

I glowered at him as the tips of my fingers tingled and grew cold. It was as if they wanted to change.

I groaned. Not now.

I shook out my hands and dragged them through my hair. It grounded me well enough. My silver-white hair nearly glowed in the process. The light played funny tricks.

My furious attention returned to Aleksandr as I took the poker out of the grill next to me. The word fuck glowed orange at the end.

Refusing to acknowledge that he had spoken, I gripped his arm, turned the brand, and pressed it against his flesh.

Like the little bitch baby he was, Aleksandr screamed. The sound filled my soul. I could bathe in those screams; they were so satisfying.

“Oh, does that hurt?” I asked, pressing harder. “Oh, so, so sorry.” I pressed down even harder before removing the poker and examining my work.

I continued the process with the next five words until my phrase was perfectly burned into his skin.

Unfortunately, I needed him alive. That meant smearing medicated salve over the burn to keep it from getting infected.

But at least the salve stung.

Blood dripped from his wounds, pattering—drip, drop—against the metal table. Drip. Drop. My favorite color. Drip. Drop. My gaze fixed on it, and my mind became a blur of crimson.

Drip.

Drop.

Beautiful.

Joy coiled like a snake around my bones at the sight, but Aleksandr rudely ripped me out of my trance when he said, “Do you plan on staring at me forever, whore?”

I blinked. The words pierced my chest, hitting far too hard.

I was cracked open and vulnerable, trapped half in the past and half in my present.

And another memory hit me with the force of a bomb.

I turned around and faced my tool tray. I couldn’t have Aleksandr see my face. This time, the memory wasn’t purple. It was the Man in Black.

I sat cross-legged on my cot, my eyes flicking up at the blinking red light in the corner. Someone was watching me through that camera.

I knew it.

When I first got here, I assumed it was a surveillance camera, but when some of the men who rented me had said things like, “Great to see you in person and touch you finally,” I knew it was a livestream.

Fuckers all over the world were watching me be raped, tortured, and tormented. I was their little object—their plaything.

I never knew what was coming next. Some men rented me for sex. Some rented me to torture, to cut words and phrases into my flesh. Not my face, though. That must have been off-limits. Others made me run through the compound as their little mouse. Some just wanted to talk.

Most just came to rape me. I was beginning to prefer those days. At least they didn’t hurt me afterward.

There was only one visitor I looked forward to. Safe wasn’t the right word for him, but Blackwood was the closest thing I had.

He never touched me like that, and he always came to give me medicine or food I desperately needed.

Yes, of course, he was a villain like all the rest, but he never hurt me. He was a respite from all the pain.