I brushed past him and out of the room. By the heavy footsteps that followed, I knew he was behind me, and the second I heard the door shut, I spun around. He was so tall I had to crane my neck in order to look him in the eye.
“What exactly did they do to her?”
“Alyx—”
“Tell me. And don’t you dare sugar-coat it.”
Granite pulled out a cigarette, cursing under his breath. “They broke her arm.”
“That’s obvious.”
He indicated with his finger to his cheek. “Those wounds on her face. It’s cigarette burns.”
My stomach turned. “What else?”
“Don’t do this to yourself. What’s done is done. No one can change the past, so it doesn’t matter now.”
I stepped closer. “It matters to me. I want to know what those monsters did to her. Did they…” I couldn’t say it. “Did they…”
“Rape her?” He finished my question, taking a deep drag of his cigarette then tossing it to the ground. “Yeah, Alyx. They did.” Suddenly, his face turned as hard as stone, his expression cruel and menacing. “They raped her repeatedly in every way they could think of. And not just with their dicks.”
I stumbled back. “What?”
“That’s right, Alyx. Believe me when I say you don’t have the stomach to deal with what they did to her.”
“Tell me.
“No.”
“Granite.”
“See, this is exactly why I fucking lied to you. I knew you’d push. I knew you wouldn’t be happy with just knowing she’s alive. Goddammit, Alyx. Isn’t it enough, the fact she’s still fucking breathing?”
“No!” I shouted. “No. It’s not enough. It’s not fucking enough. I want to know every little thing that happened to her because I want to carry the burden with her. Maybe if I knew what kind of hell she’d been through, she wouldn’t have to deal alone.”
Granite cocked his head, and his eyes flashed with awareness. “And then you’d feel less guilty.”
I stood there staring at him, unable to say anything further. He was right. Maybe if I was halfway into the same hell as she was, I’d feel less…guilty.
Granite loomed over me, his dark brows drawn together. “There is no place for guilt in our world. Feeling guilt makes you weak. And weakness will get you killed.”
I didn’t back down, squaring my shoulders, not giving a damn that he could crush me if he wanted to. “Feeling guilt makes me human. Feeling anything makes me human.” My anger turned to courage, and my voice grew louder with every word. “Being human, feeling things, might make me weak in your eyes, but I don’t give a shit. I’d rather feel something and die than live without feeling anything. This world you’re in—the world you forced me into, it’s hell.”
“You’re damn fucking right it’s hell.” Granite’s eyes darkened, the vein in his neck pulsing. “You wanna know what they did to her? You wanna know exactly what evil shit goes down here in hell, ballerina girl?” His words were laced with intentions to hurt while he towered over me, intimidating me. “They raped her with more than just their filthy cocks. They did things to her body that go beyond the most fucked-up thing you can ever imagine, and I bet she begged them to shove their penises up her ass rather than do to her what they did.” He took a step closer. “They beat her, Alyx. They made her bleed. They made her scream. And those third degree burns on her back, wanna know how she got those?”
I retreated more, the look in his eyes scaring me. It was like evil possessed him, and his words became malignant as he spat them out one by one.
“Granite, stop.” My back hit the wall.
“You wanted to know, so I’m telling you. Ask me, Alyx. Ask me how she got those motherfucking third-degree burns.”
I shook my head, no longer convinced I wanted to know.
Granite slammed his fist against the wall behind me. “Ask me!” His voice rumbled, and it shook me to the core, causing me to whimper, closing my eyes from fear.
He grabbed my chin, and I yelped as his fingers pressed painfully into my jaw. Looming closer, his face was inches from mine. “Ask. Me.”
A shudder wracked down my spine straight to every limb, the wild look in his eyes forcing fear deep inside my chest. “How?”