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I swallow hard, my throat bobbing uncomfortably with how far he has my head tipped back. “Okay, you got me. I’m… I guess I’m a witch,” I whisper back.
His fingers tighten painfully on my already throbbing face and then he pulls away from me almost viciously. “Thank you for admitting it,” he says, smoothing a hand down his plaid button up. “Now, are you going to tell me what spell you were doing?”
Meeting his gaze, I shake my head. “I wasn’t doing a spell, I swear. We really were lost. I’ve… I’ve only known I’m a witch for a few months. I can’t do much of anything.” Well, if you can call changing my entire appearance ‘not much of anything.’ Something tells me he won’t agree with me. “Where’s Jack?” I ask again, because I can’t feel Kohaku like I normally can.
“Does he know what you are?” I blink at him, not fully understanding his question, because it sounds like he’s not suspecting my big umbra demon of the same thing. Does that mean Kohaku doesn’t have the same magic as I do? He must not.
“If he was with you, then he must have witnessed what you were doing. So he must know, correct?”
I keep my jaw shut, refusing to let this asshole get anything from me he might use against my kitsune.
The man tsks. “You’re a stubborn little thing, aren’t you?” One of his fingers brushes over my swelling cheek, almost tenderly. But then I scream as he hits me there again. Blood fills my mouth and dribbles from between my lips down my chin.
“Can I tell you a secret?” he asks, hand fisting in my hair to tip my head back until I’m worried he’s going to snap my neck. But he just leans forward until his lips are pressed against my ear. “I like it when you fight, when you don’t give me the answers I want. I enjoy hurting your kind. It’s a fucking rush. All that power running through your body and here you are helpless against a mere human.”
I kind of want to point out that he’s not sticking to strictly human tactics here. I mean, he is using magical cuffs to cut off my power. It’s not like there’s some human way to do it. Unless it’s something like… Ty Lee fromAvatar: The Last Airbenderwho can hit pressure points in the body and make moving arms and legs useless. Maybe they can do something like that? Disrupt the flow of power.
A smack to my uninjured cheek brings me back to the conversation at hand, and I realize he must have asked me something while I was thinking about Ty Lee.
I shake my head to dislodge the ringing in my ears and then blink at him. “Sorry, can you repeat the question? My mind was a million miles away.”
He snarls and his hand flies again, this time to my ribs. I hear something crack and another choked scream pulls from my chest.
I’m going to die here. I’m going to die in this dingy warehouse with this asshole who gets off on beating women. How the fuck did this end up my life? How did I get from being a successful YouTuber college student to this?
I already know the answer. Four ruthless boys. If I’d never met them, if I’d never gone to Septem Stellae, I wouldn’t be here bound to this chair. If they’d just left me alone, let me be a student, rather than making it their mission to get me out of their school, I wouldn’t fucking be here.
The door opens and the woman from the woods walks in. She’s shed her trucker hat and bright orange vest and I can tell now that she’s tall and willowy, with blond hair in a messy braid that manages to look pretty draped over her plaid covered shoulder. There’s a scar on her cheek, a crescent of pale skin stretching from her temple almost to her nose. She’s holding a small bottle in her hand, and I eye it as she moves closer. Her gray eyes sweep over me, her face not betraying one inch of her emotions as she takes in the damage already done to me.
She dismisses me almost as soon as she looks at me, turning instead tot he older man. “Here, this should get her talking a hell of a lot faster.”
My stomach clenches in fear as he gives me a grin. “You won’t be so stubborn now.”
I try to think, try to figure out if there’s anything that I might tell him that would be terrible for me. I already admitted to being a witch, but they seem focused on this spell they think I was doing. Which I wasn’t doing a spell, so maybe the only thing I’ll tell them is I got sucked through a portal or something and was spit out on the coast of Washington.
Still, when he approaches me, I keep my lips clamped shut. I sure as hell will not make it easy for them. Not by a fucking long shot. My resolve only lasts as long as it takes for the woman to plug my nose, cutting off my air until my screaming lungs force my lips open as they tilt my head back and the potion is poured into my mouth. They slap their hands over my lips until I’ve swallowed at least a portion of it.
Then they step back, as my head droops down, and the remaining liquid dribbles out of my lips and onto my shirt. My mouth tastes bitter and cottony all at once. I have no fucking clue what they gave me, or what they think it’s supposed to do, but I don’t feel any different. I really don’t.
For some reason, they’re both smirking at me when I lift my head and glare at them. “What did you give me?” My voice is rough with pain and exhaustion.
“Something to help you tell the truth,” the man says, smug as fuck.
I frown. This isn’t good. But I feel in control of my thoughts, so I don’t think it’s worked.
They share a glance and I scowl even harder, ignoring how makes my eye and cheek throb.
The woman sighs. “I’m gonna go grab dinner. You want me to bring you something?”
The man shakes his head. “Nah, this won’t take too long. I’ll get something when I’m done.”
As the door closes, I frown at him. “What’s your name?” I’m getting tired of thinking of him as “the man” though maybe that’s appropriate, becausethe manis keeping me down.
His eyes flick to me, and a smile curls his lips. “You can call me Mr. Gibbs.”
I hum. “Is that your daughter? You look similar.” And the boy too. The douchebag who called me fat.
“She is.” He crouches in front of me. “What were you doing in the woods, Rose?”
