The water splashes hard against her, and I hear a sharp intake of breath as she tries to jump up, but is restrained and held to the floor.
“Kya,” I whisper aloud.
Her head snaps up and her eyes glow a scary red as she growls at Victor.
“Glad to see you’re awake,” Victor snarls. “Now, shall we pick up where we left off, or are you ready to talk?”
She spits blood out, and I realize there’s blood all around her. It looks like they’ve beaten the hell out of her. One of her eyes is bruised and swollen, and her mouth is bleeding like they’ve delivered one blow after another until they beat her unconscious. Her clothes are ripped and tattered, and bruises mar flesh that I thought was indestructible.
I’ve seen Kya fight five men like it was nothing. Well, four. The fifth ran away. Victor has her chained up like she never posed any threat at all.
“Go to hell,” she mumbles weakly.
“Either you tell me where to find him, or I continue to make this as painful as possible until he shows up on his own.”
She laughs bitterly while shaking her head.
“He won’t come. He’s too smart for that. I don’t know where he is. He likes to stay mobile. But I really do hope you find him. I wish I could be around to see him tear you apart like shreds of paper.”
Victor slams his fist into her face, and I hear a sickening crunch as her head jerks around from the impact. She slowly turns back to look at him with more blood oozing from her mouth.
“He’ll come for you,” Victor murmurs, grabbing a handkerchief from his pocket to wipe the blood off his hands. “Then I’ll take my time to pay him back for what he did to me.”
She laughs while looking at his face, and I feel like I’m missing part of the story.
“Believe me, dumbass, if Slade had been the one to find you, you would have lost more than your fucking eye. It. Wasn’t. Him.”
She bites out those last three words as though she’s sick of repeating herself or something, and he hands a pair of brass knuckles to one of the men behind him while walking out of the cell.
They lock her back up, and Victor glances my way. “They’ll all come for the two of you. Stay alive until then.”
Kya’s eyes dart to mine, and surprise fills her gaze. Only one of her eyes is actually visible, considering the other looks like it has swollen shut. She looks like she’s lost a fight that went a lot worse than the one I had with Slade.
“Ah,” Victor says, chuckling. “So you do know each other. Funny how you also lied about that the way you continue to lie about your boyfriend,” Victor gloats.
Kya cuts her gaze toward him, and her jaw ticks. “Slade isn’t my boyfriend. He won’t come. But your ass is about to be ripped into a million fucking
pieces. You have no idea what you’ve just done.” A deadly, sinister, almost psychotic smile crawls across her lips as Victor watches her. “I. Can’t. Wait.”
My brow furrows in confusion, and Victor snorts out a laugh.
“I can promise you he won’t surprise me this time,” Victor says with a dark smile before walking away.
His minions follow him, and one turns to wink at Kya. She spits out another mouthful of blood as they disappear from the room. The second the door shuts, Kya turns to me again.
“You’re so fucking stupid.”
I roll my eyes. “Tell me something I don’t know.”
“What the hell are you doing in here? Don’t you know this is exactly what they wanted?”
“I know. They wanted me to join their damn flock, but I plan to—”
“No,” she interrupts, still pinned to the floor. Only her head can move. “They don’t want you with them, Leah. The only reason you’re alive is because live bait works better than dead bait.”
So I’m not just being paranoid. They really do want me dead.
My eyebrows pinch together, and she blows out a breath. “They’ve been watching us. All of us. They hacked the town surveillance cameras. These guys have seen you with Zee. They’ve seen you with Ella. They’ve seen you with me—the night I saved you. They’re fucking using you just like they’re using me. They think I’m with Slade, and Victor stupidly thinks Slade is the one who left him missing an eye.”