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But then evenings would come, and nightmares would haunt, and I’d wake with renewed purpose with another vow to my tattoo. My ink represented everything stolen from me and everything I would one day earn back.
I’d grow strong again.
Stubborn again.
And by the time Cem came for me, the entire vicious circle would begin again.
And again.
And again.
My back prickled as I sat down. Cem came to join me.
I didn’t like things out of the ordinary.
And this was definitely out of the ordinary.
I didn’t like surprises.
Because the payment for them was more than I could pay.
“Tea?” Cem asked, pouring some into a fine china cup before I could say yes. Four young women in matching cream dresses scurried forward, laying the table with huge platters of babagannus, fresh bread, saksuka, yaprak sarmasi, and too many other dishes to count.
My stomach rumbled even though I’d learned the hard way that a full belly when being electrocuted equalled projectile vomiting.
“Here. You must eat.” Cem piled my plate with a little of everything. Each dish glistened with oils and spices, but I couldn’t smell anything. I wondered if the sessions on the chair had fried a few circuits in my senses.
My heart tripped over itself a few times before latching onto a steady beat.
I didn’t reach for my fork.
I didn’t give him the satisfaction of keeping me alive all while he killed me.
Placing a forkful of delicious-looking food on his tongue, he chewed while watching me.
His eyes never looked away, his face unreadable. Ever so slowly, his left hand came up and placed something slim and violent on the table.
I froze.
My nostrils flared.
Cem swallowed and waved the wand he’d used on the soles of my feet, my cheeks, my temples, and even my balls when he felt particularly diligent in his training.
“Eat something, Aslan, or I’ll have to use the picana.”
That awful rod. That despicable stick of torture.
It didn’t matter that the electrical current wasn’t as hot as the machine. It still hurt, still made me twitch like his puppet, and still made me drop to the floor if I wasn’t strapped down.
My hand trembled as I scooped up something and shoved the fork into my mouth.
The moment I chewed, Cem lurched forward and pressed the two prongs of the picana against my chest.
I grunted as a searing bolt tore through me.
My fork clattered to the metal table, splashing babagannus everywhere.
I tipped sidewards.
I went to fall.
But he pulled back, the current stopped, and I managed to hold myself upright.
Gasping, I choked on my mouthful.
Cem carried on eating as if nothing had happened. “Is the food to your liking?”
“Yes, baba.” I swiped my mouth where uneaten food dribbled out of my lips. I fought my shakes, but they only grew worse because I didn’t understand.
I didn’t know why some days he shocked me and others he didn’t. I didn’t know why some days the answers I gave to his endless questions were right, and some days they pissed him off so much he turned up the machine far too high.
If I knew what I was supposed to do, I would do it.
No, you wouldn’t.
You’d take the punishment to stay true to Neri.
I stilled.
Perhaps that was the problem.
Maybe he knew that.
I stiffened as my gaze fell on my tattoo.
If he ever learns that’s how I’m avoiding his mind games...
My head wrenched up. I swallowed hard as a slow smile tipped Cem’s lips. With eerie calmness, he reached across the table and pressed the prongs of the picana against my ink.
“I think you just gave away your little trick, Aslan.”
I didn’t move my arm away.
I wouldn’t give him that satisfaction.
Instead, I sat taller, shoved another forkful of food into my mouth, and dared him, just fucking dared him to shock me.
With a low chuckle, he sat back.
He toasted me with his tea.
And I feared what the fuck he would do next.
*
Two years, nine months...
*
“I’d hoped, Aslan. I’d truly, truly hoped.”
Cem threw a bucket of icy water over me where I’d passed out in the chair. I came to, spluttering and choking, already fearing the extra sizzle of electricity now I was wet.
I had so many scars over my body—not from blades or daggers but from electrode burns. Water made them sear ten times worse. Some wounds had become infected, leaving me with lesions and scabs that made me look like something only written about in horror stories.
To make matters worse, the oversensitivity I’d been born with—that’d granted such pleasure and intensity when I’d made love to Neri—was now my enemy. My skin didn’t just zing with electricity, it blistered. The phantom pain of my amputated leg made me sob in the dark as I tried to rub away the bone-deep ache or scratch the incessant itch on my missing ankle.
No matter how hard I clung to sanity and grasped at every memory of Neri, each day I was losing.
