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The male didn’t respond.
I pulled at the shackles, but that did nothing. “Just hold on.” I tried for the crank, but still, nothing happened.
I growled in frustration. No. I wouldn’t stand for this.
I reached for the chains. I’d avoided them because they glittered like silver, but they were my best bet. I wrapped my hands with parts of my vine clothing and yanked.
Nothing.
I tapped into my fury. The unfairness of this, the vulgarity.
The thought that Cole might be going through something even worse.
I pulled with all my might and the chain snapped.
“One down,” I promised the male.
He said nothing. I reached for the other. Sweat poured down my brows from exertion as I finally snapped the chain, the silver burning an exposed edge of my palms.
Success. I pulled the hood from his head. That, at least, was effortless.
Unfocused eyes didn’t meet my own as I peered down.
“Your… your hands are free.”
Still, no answer.
“Here, sit up,” I urged him, putting my hands on his shoulders.
The male began yelling. A wordless, pained cry.
I yanked my hands back.
The yelling stopped a moment later. I stared in confusion. “Please, you have to let me help you. Your hands are free. I'll undo your legs as well, and you can escape this.”
Finally, the male sat up. He stared at me, but his eyes went right past me.
“There is no hope. There is no escape.” The words were rough, like his vocal cords were mangled from too much yelling.
He laid back down, slapping the hood over his face, and extended his mangled arms over his shoulders once more. The ends of the shackles dangled inches from the rest of the chain. Links regrew between them. The crank wound, unbidden, tightening the grip.
The torture resumed.
The sight shook me. Another trick of the realm, surely. To try and convince me it was hopeless.
But then I turned to the next victim, one who was being sawed in half, over and over again.
Even when I fought my hardest to free the creature, it just brayed at me in fury and returned to the pose. The saw resumed.
So went the next.
And the next.
And the next.
True torture, I realized. Worse than being hurt. Not being able to help anyone. Fear crystallized into shards of ice within my chest as I, for a moment, just a second, imagined that Cole might have the same reaction.
The thought had me dry-heaving, bent over my knees.
