I wasn’t afraid of death but I wasn’t quite ready to accept her loving embrace. I wanted to live. I’d never gotten the chance to do that yet. With that in mind, I knew I was going to get out of this. I didn’t know how, but I would. I had to.
The man continued with his work, humming to the beat of a heavy metal song blasting through his ear-buds loud enough for me to hear. Black Sabbath? Seriously? It was almost comical.
I watched him skillfully maneuver around the chains and wondered how many times he’d done this. He didn’t so much as bat an eyelid when he had to lift the section of skin that covered the bump.
“Jesus Christ.” I shut my eyes and looked away, unable to watch, wishing I had something to block out the sound.
“Ugh, fuck.” My eyes flew open when something wet touched my legs. Her blood seemed to gravitate towards right where I was sitting. I hurriedly crab walked further, not stopping until the chains around my wrists reached their limit.
I hoped that she couldn’t feel any of this, that her nervous system was screaming for help and misfiring so many different warnings that her body was shutting down.
I wisely kept my smart ass mouth shut for once, not wanting to draw any more attention to me than necessary. If I were a normal woman, I would have been a hysterical mess and projectile vomiting all over myself.
I wasn’t, though, and I was really happy about that right then. Falling apart was the last thing I needed to do.
Fortunately, he sped through the rest of the process and walked off with his wheelbarrow full of bloody flesh, only acknowledging me with a slight nod.
His process had been so different from the cannibals. Why did he only take the skin? Were there people who only ate human flesh? I found that more disturbing than broiling someone’s arm.
When empty silence descended, I found myself studying the carcasses beside me, doing my best to avoid the brunette’s torso for obvious reasons.
It was morbidly educational to see tendons and muscle mass exposed. They looked like large slabs of raw meat left out to dry. The smell was an entirely different story. It was like cheap perfume had been dabbed on a rotten piece of beef.
The steady blood flow eventually turned into a light trickle, and then a drip.
I eventually had no choice but to shimmy my pants down to urinate on the ground or risk pissing myself. There was nothing I could do about my growling stomach.
No one else came by.
Day turned to night, and I was left alone.
CHAPTER NINE
Every time I shut my eyes and managed to sleep, he was there waiting for me. This time was no different, even when my dozing off wasn’t intentional.
He knelt right in front of me, his onyx eyes boring straight into mine, searing right into the tar black soul that exclusively belonged to him.
His infuriating as hell signature smirk was in place, and made my heart beat off kilter. One look in his jaded eyes made me want to forgive everything.
I was so lost to this man, trapped under his wicked spell. He would forever be my beloved devil.
When he finally spoke, the familiar deep timbre of his voice sent delicious chills down my spine.
“You look like complete shit, but you’re still the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.” He clicked his tongue and reached out, gently trailing his knuckles down the swollen side of my face.
It wasn’t until a door slammed in the distance and I became extremely aware of how real his touch felt that clarity came rushing back to my mind and I knew this wasn’t a dream.
The natural exotic smell of him and the heady scent of blood and old piss filled my lungs as I sucked in a harsh breath. I wanted to wrap my arms around him and kick his ass at the same time.
I wasn’t ready for, or expecting, the wave of emotion that came crashing down on me now that we were right in front of each other.
I felt like we’d just ended the most fucked up game of hide-and-go-seek in history.
All I had to do was lift my hand and I’d be able to touch him. My brain started churning at a mile a minute. I suddenly felt ultra-awake. Adrenaline flowed like lava through my veins.
There were so many things I wanted to say; I’d planned this out in my head a thousand times, but I could never bring myself to tell him how I felt, and that didn’t miraculously change in the short span of two weeks.
I buried it and did my best to act indifferent. That could all wait. All I needed to focus on right then was getting far the fuck away from wherever I was.