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I will not let this break me.
Even if I thought it might. I won’t let it. I have too much to live for outside of this hellhole.
The metal around my ankle heats as images of me from Homecoming flash on the screen, and a tear slips down my cheek as I take in the jubilance on my face, dancing with Indi before her guys arrived. The heat grows and I see a flicker of orange out of the corner of my eye.
Flame.
I scream as it licks against my skin, all while trying to hold onto my mental walls. I can survive this. It’s just pain.
“Our initiation…” Lincoln’s voice starts, and another tear trickles down my face.
“Panda, please,” I croak. “Stop.”
The heat reduces and he moves to stand in front of me, running a finger down my cheek, wiping away my tears. “We’ve only just started,” he says quietly. “I know it hurts, but this is the only way. I’m doing this for you. Once you’re all better, free from their control, then we can stop. Then we can be free.”
“I’m already free.”
He frowns at me before shaking his head. “You’re lying. They made you a liar. I’ll bring you back.”
He drags his blade from the top of my bicep down to my wrist. “You just need to remember how bad they are for you. All of this is their fault.”
I close my eyes and try to shut everything out. The pain, the sounds… that Panda is the one doing this to me.
“Open your eyes!” he yells in my face as the flames lick at my ankle again. I try to clamp down on my lips, to stop the screams that threaten to burst from me at the searing pain. “You need to see that they did this to you. That this is their fault!”
He moves to the other side of the room, returning with a dark pole in his hand. “You need to be reborn in fire, only then will you see the truth. There is no other way.”
He uses his knife to cut away part of my tank top, exposing my stomach before placing the tip of the pole against the very bottom of my stomach. It’s cold at first, but then electricity rips through my body, and pain like I’ve never known grips me as I convulse against the table. The voltage comes in bursts as he starts and stops the pain.
Tears run down my face. From the pain, yes, but also for the guy who was once my friend. Whoever this person is, it isn’t my Panda. This person is beyond unhinged, and my heart sinks as I wonder just how far this version of him will take all of this.
* * *
“How long have we been here?” I ask Panda as he walks me back to the basement, my arms bound behind my back and my ankles shackled together. The cuffs rub on the gauze from where he tried to patch me up after his multiple attempts at breaking me. It hurts a bit, but at this point, everything hurts.
I’ve spent the last day or so—I think—trying to seem more compliant. Hoping I can make him believe I’m coming around to what he wants. After the last time I was taken, my dad and Mac did months of training with me in case I got taken again. Stay calm, don’t antagonize, and try to get out. Send up a signal if I can. If only they’d told me how much harder it would be in reality as opposed to my lessons with them. I’m trying now, I just have to hope it isn’t too late. If I can get him to trust that I believe him, then maybe he’ll unshackle me and I can get the fuck out of here.
That sinister side of him hasn’t come back out since his last attempt to ‘deprogram’ me, and I’m thankful because my entire body still hurts from what he did. It feels like days I’ve been trying to play on that softer side of him and I think it's working, but I’m still so weak and dizzy that I’m not exactly firing on all cylinders.
“Just over a week,” he mumbles as he walks beside me, tapping away on his phone. “We’ll be here another few days. The final arrangements are just being made.”
I try to look as doe-eyed as I can, all while trying to smother the rage and fear inside of me. “Where are we going?”
He pauses to look at me, almost confused like he expected me to fight him or argue. I can’t tell if he’s suspicious of my compliance or just shocked. I keep the innocent, doe-eyed look on my face, as if just waiting for the answer while he watches me.
His mouth opens, then closes, like he doesn’t know what to say before shaking his head. “We’re going far from here. That's all you need to know.”
“Okay,” I say, shrugging my shoulders and continuing to waddle toward the basement door, looking down at the floor. Being this submissive is not in my nature, it goes against everything I’ve ever been taught and every part of who I am, but I tried fighting him and it got me nowhere. This is the next option on my list.
I can’t wait for someone to save me.
I am not a princess in a tower.
I can save myself.
But first, I need out of these goddamn bindings. He opens the door for me, and I pause at the top step. There is no way I can make it down with my ankles bound, so I wait for him to lift me, the same way I got up here. Inky darkness presses against the windows, the light of the moon the only thing illuminating the kitchen of the dilapidated house.
Thanks to a high fence surrounding the property, I haven’t been able to get a sense of our surroundings, so I have no idea if we’re even still in the Cove or not.
