“You intercepted data, and we need to know what you found, little girl. We need to make sure you don’t talk.”
Hate is ugly and unkind, boiling in a soul for years and years—like hell itself is heating it. It can be endless and toxic, but it can keep someone going. I hated this man for taking my sobriety, and I felt the hate bubble out of me when I spoke to him. “How do you intend to keep me from talking? I’m an Untouchable, after all.”
He narrowed his eyes and searched my hand for a ring. They were all confused. And I confused them more with my fake admission. Yet, if acting like I was tied to Cade kept me alive, I was going to do that.
“Living alone, without Armanelli? That doesn’t sound like an Untouchable to me.”
“Want to find out?” I lifted a brow, taunting him.
“You’re so brave, huh?” He didn’t like me testing him. I saw it in the way his neck flexed. Then he stomped over to the door and yelled out of it, “Alteo, bring in the bucket.”
His friend heaved in a white plastic bucket filled with water sloshing from it with each step he took. There was a look of anguish on his face. “Dion, I don’t think we should do anything to—”
“Tie her hands behind her back,” Dion commanded.
Fighting would do me no good. So, instead, I aided Alteo by placing my wrists behind me. If I worked with at least Alteo, I might get out of this alive.
“I say we wait for my dad to get here and—”
Dion shoved Alteo away from me and took his place behind me. He whispered in my ear, “Get on your knees.”
My stomach curdled at him this close, at how he said the words with a slimy innuendo. But I listened. I couldn’t do anything else but that at this point.
His hand grabbed my hair and dunked me fast, holding me under long enough for my body to have survival instinct kick in. I inhaled. I choked. I coughed. And I fought. I pulled my arms as far apart as I could, fighting the zip tie to no avail.
He pulled me up and whispered in my ear, “Want to talk now?”
I either embraced the rage or the helplessness or the defeat. All my emotions were there, though. Bright. Powerful. And vengeful.
“Talk to you, Dion? I’d rather die,” I murmured, and turned to look over my shoulder, catching his gaze.
He roared before he dunked me again.
I fought him again, and he held me under until I thought I might pass out, might die from drowning.
I crumbled to the floor, choking, as he let me go while he laughed. His laughter was enough to show me I could kill, that I would relish taking his life. A new hatred grew in me right then, and I embraced it. Embraced that my emotions could bring pain, could bring destruction, could ruin someone. A life-and-death situation that does that makes you accept who you are.
I pulled myself up from the ground. As his smile widened and he dragged his gaze up and down my body, I lifted my chin. He wouldn’t make me cower, even if his eyes hovered at the edge of my baggy T-shirt. I was so thankful I wore shorts, but I knew they wouldn’t hold anyone off for long if they wanted me.
“Are you really an Untouchable? What do you know?” he asked through clenched teeth.
“You won’t get any answers without letting me speak with your boss.”
He struck me hard across the face, and I tasted blood in my mouth as I fell to the cement floor.
“Man, we’re supposed to give her good accommodations,” Alteo grumbled.
“Sure. Sure.” Dion shrugged. “You both realize I get her after your dad meets her, though. I’m going to teach you some manners too.” He bent over me. “I will start by telling you I like a nice woman, one who doesn’t talk back. Until then, you don’t eat.”
He took the food off the ground, like he’d won.
“Wouldn’t have taken the food you offered anyway,” I grumbled. It was petty, dumb, and asking for a beating.
He didn’t disappoint. His boot hit me right in the stomach. The second kick I was ready for, but the wind had already been knocked out of me. I wheezed for air, for life, and scrambled on the floor as he tried to land a few more blows.
When he finally had me cowering in a corner, he chortled. “Good. I see the fear in you now. Next time”—he leaned close, and I smelled stale tobacco on his breath—“don’t make me work for that fear, and it’ll be a lot nicer in here.”
Before he left, he cut my zip ties, pulled a needle from his pocket and dropped it on the floor.