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“I’m not playing your game,” I hissed. “You might as well just cut them off and get it over with.”
He smiled and leaned back in his chair to get a good look at my hand. I hadn’t managed to look down at it myself yet. I imagined that would make the pain unbearable, whether I had Trista’s angry eyes pictured in my mind or not.
“Yeah, I was kind of hoping you’d put up a fight,” he said. He sat there until I couldn’t control the shaking that had taken over my whole arm. Then he calmly sat upright again to free my hand from the trap to set it again. I about bit through my lip when he raised my hand from the table again to slip the trap back underneath.
“New Jersey. Where is Trista?”
I couldn’t prevent my eyes from shifting to that camera before I looked back at Bryce. “Fuck you.”
He reached out with a single finger and flipped his end of the trap up so that it snapped closed on my fingers again when the release touched my palm. He didn’t wait nearly as long that time before he was reaching to reset the fucking thing another time. I still hadn’t looked, but I already couldn’t breathe. I tried with every bit of willpower in my body not to even attempt to move any piece of my left hand.
“Trista. Where is she?”
“Phrasing it differently doesn’t change the likelihood of me answering it.”
He flipped the trap up into my hand another time. It cut through to bone that time. I was certain of it, without even having to look.
“Oh, yikes,” Bryce said. “That one looked like it hurt. Got a little messy.”
The shaky and unsteady noises that came from me that time when he released my fingers just to reset the trap bothered me. Trista’s pissy face was starting to fade already. So I tried like fucking mad to imagine Memphis bossing her around every second of the day that I wasn’t there to run interference between the two of them.
“Where is she?” He asked another time.
And another few seconds later, the blood from the snap splattered up to my face.
“This can stop just as soon as you tell me where they are, New Jersey,” he said while he set the trap again.
The adrenaline that should’ve been pumping through me at full force to keep me going wasn’t there. I was tired. So fucking tired. And everything hurt worse than it should have. It didn’t matter where I looked around that room, the edges of my vision were blurring. Like a fog was moving in on us from the walls.
“You don’t look so good, New Jersey. Still with me?” He asked while he moved the trap beneath my hand another time.
“Don’t throw up, man,” he added. “I won’t stop just for somebody to clean it up. And then we’ll have to sit here in that mess while we finish this. Where is Trista?”
I dropped my own hand into the trap again just because it hurt too much to hold it up any longer, and I fucking squealed like a pig that time.
“Getting a little unpleasant now?” He asked. “That smug face doesn’t seem to be plastered in place anymore.”
Trista faded. Memphis wasn’t there.
And another voice snaked in. A tiny whisper from some ethereal place between my brain and my skull. Something that was always there, but somehow also never really there.
Van, do you ever think about us having a baby?
I shook my head as hard as I could and shot up out of that chair to try to fucking bust my way out of those shackles. At this point, it would probably hurt less to rip the whole fucking arm off anyway.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
trista
“Hey, guys,” Memphis said from behind where we sat around the fire.
“What’s wrong?” I asked, standing immediately. Of all the days we’d already been at this house, I hadn’t seen her outside of it even once.
“They sent something else,” she said quietly. “I already called Indy. Utah is on his way here now. I set up a place online for them to think they’ve found us so they can communicate with me, and it’s not good. It’s going to get even worse real fast now.”
I hurried toward Memphis, but stopped when I realized Kyle wasn’t following me.
“You’re not coming?” I asked him.
