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No, I do not, and honestly, I never had plans to find out.
“They call it ‘death by a thousand cuts’,” he continues causally, heartlessly. “None of the cuts are ever deep enough to kill, but together, the victim slowly fades into unconsciousness and eventually bleeds out. But I’ve got something far better than that. The blade I just nicked your grandfather with is poison-tipped. It’s a rare venom that will slowly begin to paralyze him. He won’t be able to breathe, the blood in his body will be unable to clot and it will start seeping out of his eyes, nose, ears… you get my point.”
He pauses.
“But if you come out now,” he says. “Give yourself to me, and I will make sure he won’t suffer such a horrible death. I’ll make it quick. Just like yours.”
I can hear my grandfather warning me not to do it. Not to give in. But soon he begins to cough and splutter. I can’t ignore that. I can’t ignore the pain.
Slowly, I unfold myself in the small area and push on the door. It swings open, catching and attaching to the large portrait and dragging it open with it. The scream I was holding onto rips through me as calloused hands grab at my hair and drag me from the safety of the hidden space.
“Fucking little bitch,” the man hisses as he pulls my frightened, trembling body toward him.
“Please…” My fingernails claw the skin of his wrist, the one attached to the hand in my hair. “Don’t…”
Agony shoots through me as I’m thrown backward onto the floor. It ricochets up my spine and through my neck, my head hitting the opposite wall. My feet struggle to gain purchase as I attempt to stand.
I look down, regretting the action immediately.
My stomach churns again, bilious and sour as my bare feet slip through my grandfather’s blood. He’s dead. His throat slit open from ear to ear. The man hadn’t lied about giving him a quick death. However, I doubt there was any poison.
From the predatory look in his eye, he isn’t about to give me the same courtesy.
“How about we have some fun?” The man’s eyes light up as he steps toward me, a blood-covered knife in his hand. He is tall and broad, but I can see the slight limp in his right leg and the fresh blood soaking through his blue shirt.
The man is injured.
“Fuck you,” I sneer. Holding onto the wall for support, I manage to climb to my feet.
“Oh, I’m planning on fucking you,” he smirks. “All over your dead family’s bodies before I slit your throat as I come inside of you.”
I will not be sticking around for that.
Another step.
Then another.
Finally, he is just within reach. He doesn’t have his defenses up. Is it because he thinks I am weak? Nothing more than a princess in a tower? He is going to regret how wrong he is.
Sort of.
The man swings at me with his empty fist. It’s sloppy. The hit is wide and leaves his entire middle open to attack. An attack he doesn’t see coming. I throw myself off the wall and surge forward, digging my knee into his groin.
He hisses, the knife in his hand clattering to the ground as he drops to his knees.
Shit. That actually worked.
Take that motherfucker.
Whoops.
A low growl surges through him.
Time to go.
I make a break for it, my blood-covered feet slapping against the wooden floor, leaving prints in their wake. It doesn’t matter.
A roar shatters the air, abangrattling my senses just seconds before pain cuts through my side.
