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The slightest sliver opened along the door and an orangey glow appeared.
Nighttime. Candles.
Even though the light was low, her pupils revolted, pain shooting through them as her eyes closed tight against the intrusion.
It took her two full breaths before she could force her eyelids open again.
The door opened further, a figure holding a lantern moving toward her. She needed to yell, scream for help. Her mouth opened, her lips cracking at the force, instant blood dripping onto her chin. A breath and she screamed.
Only air. A tongue that couldn’t make sound. Air that wouldn’t vibrate in her throat. Only silence making it past her lips.
Boots, trousers flashed behind the lantern, moving toward her. A man, but she couldn’t see his torso or face for the angle of the light in front of him, the offense of the flame burning into her eyes.
She craned her neck, lifting her head from the stone floor, searching for a face above the light.
Gilroy.
Her breath choked in her throat, her heart sinking deep in her chest. Instinctively, her body curled up onto itself, her legs dragging through the dirt of the stone floor.
She was done.
“Where is Ness?” The hiss of Gilroy’s voice cut into her ears, slicing into her brain. Loud. So loud. The echo of the words bounced about the inside of her head, searing.
She pulled her knees into her chest, wrapping her arms about her bent legs. Her face tucked into her knees, hiding. If she didn’t look at him, if she didn’t acknowledge him, he would end it.
End it for good.
Better that than the slow death she’d been suffering.
“I’m going to ask one last time.” Gilroy’s voice was closer, like he’d bent down to her, his voice thundering in her ear. “Where is Ness?”
She pulled harder into herself, her forehead pressing into her knees, refusing to look at him.
His hand jabbed into the back of her head, gripping a clump of her hair and he jerked her head back, her cheek scraping across the floor.
The lantern was set onto the floor next to him and his nose came at her face. “I’ll see your eyes when I slide this blade into you—ye little whore. You won’t tell me where she is, then I have no use for you.”
He pulled away slightly as his fingers tightened into the mess of her locks, ripping hair from her scalp. A length of silver flashed in the glow of the candle, the tip of it coming slowly at her.
“I’ll gut you slowly, though, so ye might change your mind. If not, at least I see the life drain away from your eyes.”
He yanked her across the floor by her hair until her body was splayed long and straight, the iron clamp on her foot stopping the motion and digging into the raw, bloody skin about her ankle. And then she felt it, the tip of the dagger digging through the cloth between her breasts, threads snapping.
She gasped a breath, her arms flying up, trying to catch his arm and push the blade away from her. Her fingers not able to bend, her arms flopped about, not listening to instructions from her brain. Days ago, she could have done it. Could have fought him, maybe even stopped him. Not now.
Now she was weak. Each strike she made on his arm the bite of a gnat.
The blade reached skin on her chest and she exhaled all her breath, trying to sink her lungs into the floor and away from the knife.
Even as her body still fought it, her mind slowed. Let it happen.
Let it happen and it would be over. All the pain. All the fight. Soon enough, it would be over.
The last thing she wanted to see before it was done was Evan. Only Evan.
With calm acceptance about what was to come, she opened her eyes, looking past Gilroy’s head. He was only a blur now because standing above him, his legs straddling hers, was Evan. Huge and ferocious and exactly as she wanted him as she breathed her last breath.
Going mad had its benefits.
