“Again.” The command came from somewhere in front of me.
Synapses fired as my brain sent its commands; tense my stomach, clench my grip.
But did I move?
Did I do anything but hang suspended like a slab of meat trussed on a hook, watching my blood slowly fall to the floor in front of me?
Drip.
Drip.
Drip.
I didn’t feel the warmth slipping away, nor did I taste the metallic tang I knew had to be there. I felt nothing. Not the killing ache in my shoulders from muscles strained far beyond their limits or their savage blows…not anymore.
I was numb.
Lost.
Not lost, a husky voice whispered from deep in the void. I’m right here.
And a shiver broke free.
I was scared of that voice in the darkness, that lure of insanity. Maybe even more than I was scared of them.
“Your fists don’t seem to be effective,” Hale’s voice tore me away from the beast waiting for me in the deep recesses of my mind. “This time we go…electric.”
I jerked my head upwards and squinted into the dark. Shadows moved as my pulse kicked in my chest. Sparks of neon white flared from the thing in his hand, illuminating the big bastard in front of me.
It wasn’t steel knuckles this time, or the baseball bat they’d used before.
This was worse…
I shook my head as panic howled inside, and I bucked, making me jerk in the chains that hung me from the ceiling.
My tormentor swung his hand and upended a bucket of icy water all over me. But I couldn’t fight. I couldn’t even move, not even when the empty bucket hit the floor and that sonofabitch stepped closer and drove the prongs into my side.
Agony ripped across my stomach, driving through muscle and bone into the very center of me. My body took over and threw my head backwards, my body tensing until the links on the chains gnashed loudly.
It came.
The blinding white.
A white so bright I saw nothing else.
Not the darkened cell they’d kept me in.
Not their faces.
Their cruel fucking faces.
LET ME TAKE IT FOR YOU! the beast howled.
My jaw was so tight my teeth cracked.
Brown eyes. Brown eyes. Hold on. Please, hold onto her.
Browneyesbrowneyesbrowneyes…
I couldn’t let go of her.
YOU’RE GOING TO DIE! The beast slammed against its cell. DO YOU HEAR ME? YOU. WILL. DIE HERE!
I held on to the memory of her tighter than I held onto the chains.
The warmth of her fingers.
The throaty sound of her laugh.
Colt, she whispered in my mind. I love you.
“WHAT IS HE PLANNING?” Hale’s roar followed.
Let me take it, the beast demanded. I can do this. I did it before when you needed me. I can do it now.
But that was when I was a kid, when I didn’t know better. Now I did. I’d lost myself when he came. Time. My memories. Those brown eyes filled my mind. I closed my eyes, remembering the scent of soap on her skin.
If I let him take over, I’d lose again…only this time I’d lose her. My…Wildcat.
Agony stabbed deep, finding a nerve somewhere inside that made my legs dance and my spine bow backwards.
LET ME TAKE IT FOR YOU! The beast slammed against the confines of its cell.
I shook my head.
Drip.
Drip.
Drip.
The falling blood blurred.
“I know you can talk!” Hale bellowed. “I don’t care that everyone calls you a dumb mute bastard, you’ll tell me what I want to know. WHY DID YOU KILL OPHELIA!”
Drip.
Drip.
Drip.
“AGAIN!” Hale roared.
The pain came once more, driving deeper. My right leg trembled violently, until I couldn’t hold on. With the mention of her name, it all came rushing back to me. The phone call to London…the panic in my voice.
London…I…I killed her.
NO! I jerked as Ophelia’s scream shattered the moment. You were mine when you were conceived, she screamed. Mine to torment. Mine to destroy.
CRACK! Something broke inside of me.
Something…crawled free.
“That’s enough. He’s out.”
He’s out.
He’s…out.
“Not yours.”
“What?” That far away voice called. “What did you say?”
I forced my eyes to open. Through the cracks and the sting of the sweat, I saw them. “I’m not yours. I never was. I am…Wildcat’s.”
“What the fuck is he saying?”
Hale’s voice came clearly now. “Untie him. Leave him here. We’ll try again later. I want to know what that bastard is planning. I need to be one step ahead. If it’s a war London wants, then it’s a war he’ll get…my way. First, we need the bitch. We take her and they’ll come. We take her and they’re all dead…every single one of them.”
I forced myself to hold on.
To push that emptiness away for just a little while longer. I lifted my head, but my bones were heavy as lead. Still, I found him in the gloom. I found his face. I found his eyes. “You touch her…and I’ll kill you.”
He took a step closer, lifting his gaze until he stared up at me. I jerked my body, trying to free my hands. But my feet swung free. There was no ground for me to grasp onto. Not up here. There was just pain.
Hale’s lips curled at the edges as he looked down, past my bare chest, my body bruised and bleeding from their fists and their boots, then up again to meet my stare. “Son…you’re already dead.”
He gave a hard chuff, then turned around and left.
Already dead.
I don’t think so…
But it wasn’t my voice that came back to me.
It was his.
The beast.
I tried to push him back into his cell, tried to tether him to the past. But I couldn’t…not anymore. My chest trembled as a dark, demented chuckle tore out of me. Metallic and hollow, tasting like blood and murder. That sound grew and grew and grew, until it bounced off the walls of this prison. Laughter reverberated through my body, turning into a roar.
It had no place in this horror.
Yet, here it was.
Here I am, the beast whispered. Finally.
Hale stopped cold in the middle of the darkened room, then turned around. There was a spark of fear in those beady fucking eyes, stilling that unhinged sound that had somehow come from me.
“I KILLED HER!” I screamed. “I KILLED THAT FUCKING BITCH!”
He jerked as though I’d slapped him and those cold eyes grew colder, pinching at the edges until they creased.
“I caved her head in.” I sucked in cold air. “Until there was nothing left but a mess. But that’s nothing compared to what London will do to you.” I looked at my tormentor, in front of me with that thing in his hand. “That’s nothing compared to what he’ll do to all of you. Even if you kill me…even if he never finds my body, he’ll kill you all. He’ll kill and kill and kill. He’ll be the shadow you’ll never see coming. He’ll become wrath.”
Hale swallowed hard with those words.
And I smiled.
It wouldn’t matter how many men Hale surrounded himself with.
They still wouldn’t stand a chance.
Blood dripped down my face from the fresh gash on my head, the warmth raced along my cheek and over my lips as I smiled. “He’ll be seeing you, motherfucker. Real fucking soon.”
