Seize me From Darkness (Pierced Hearts Book 4) (19 page)

I’d failed a little by enjoying this, but I’d succeeded too. She wasn’t injured, just scratched.

“More, Mister Pieter!”

Shit.

“Last time,” I yelled back at them. No reply. I took a deep breath and approached her.

My relief when she came again and no one screamed
more
at me was immense.

There was some
fresh bleeding on her stomach. I’d check that when the wires came off.

B
efore I could unwrap her, they ordered me to back away and be restrained. I bowed my head a moment before obeying.

The lock of the cuffs on my wrist
s brought Gregor into the room.

“You were a little too gentle and look.”
He went to one knee and picked up the silver bracelet with the angel. “She has to wear this or I punish her. You know this angel, hey?” He nodded at Jasmine.

Her lips trembled. Above her head, her fingers tightened on the chains making them sway and
clink.

“Answer me.”

“Yes, sir,” she whispered.

“It was my fault!”

But he ignored me, tugged on the gloves I’d dropped, and began to roughly remove the wire.

“My fault! Not hers.” I seethed.

“Never mind. Next time you will know. Be silent or this will be worse for her.”

I lost count of the new scratches he created and
the slaps he gave her face and breasts. Jazmine was sobbing uncontrollably by the end, streaked with red like a cake iced entirely the wrong way.

Yet another point on the list of reasons to kill him.

When I ground my teeth, the guards near me laughed. So many people to kill, so little time. I gave myself some gold stars for caring. They almost cancelled out the black marks I’d gained for wallowing in her pain.

By the time they delivered me to
her room, she was there, waiting, naked except for the blood. Exhaustion blurred my mind, but I went to her.

The distres
s and her choked out noes drove me away for all of half a minute before I growled, advanced again, and tucked her into my arms.

“I’m sorry. I’m sorry.” I rocked her a
while, aghast at how much I’d done to her. Not all of it had been Gregor’s fault.

Now that I had her, she didn’
t move at all. That scared me most of all. She hadn’t forgiven me for the boy. What was going on in her thoughts?

“Come. You have to clean off the blood.
Don’t stay too long. It’ll keep the wounds from clotting if you do.” A voice like the tide coming in, soft and persuasive. With his big hands on my back, he herded me to the shower then turned it on, held me there a second, as if afraid I’d fall, or wander off...

Mute, blank, nothing happen
ing in my head, I stood there with the cold water pouring down me, stirring up the pains. I hissed but with time the pain dulled.
Cold.
I shivered.

At least so
me of the bad seemed to wash away in the flow.

The things they’d done to me.

Maybe I deserved it. Maybe. My tears mingled with the water. I’d done bad things in life. Maybe this was karma. My eyelids drifted down.

I stood there, being washed away, being hurt.

But it wasn’t Pieter. It was him, Gregor. The dismissive, casual violence he did to me, as if I were nothing. Absolutely fucking nothing in this awful world. I was a piece of dirt to him, a piece of temporary enjoyment. Gregor would kill me as easily as he’d crack an egg.

I opened my eyes
and put my palms on the white wall, leaned in.

A
s each blow of his had bruised me, the pain had hammered me down inside. Why did what Gregor did or thought matter? I despised him. I gave him power by letting anything he did to me hurt.

Pieter
was different. Even when he’d killed that boy, he’d said it was his only option, that he did it for me. I hated the boy dying. Yet the
why
of it...it made Pieter more in my eyes. Even if he hurt me and did what Gregor asked with no protest at all, he was my warped hero.

Everything that happened in this place was dirtied.

The water was helping. Under it, with the roar in my ears, I felt protected in some weird way. Here was safety.

Of course, Pieter didn’t protest because that m
ight make things worse for me. Everything he did here seemed aimed at me. He liked hurting me but the difference between his type of pain and Gregor’s was vast and puzzling. I didn’t really understand why he helped me. I didn’t understand why he liked hurting me. Worst of all, I didn’t understand how he made me like it.

When my shivering started again, I stirred.

Don’t stay long.
It’d been ages, hadn’t it? My mind wasn’t functioning well.

Where had he
gone?

I shut off the water and dripped dry,
watching the droplets dribble down the strands of my hair, down my legs, then into the drain. Still, he didn’t come to me.

The towel was
a gray-white but by the time I’d dried myself it’d become a mess of pink, red, and gray. My belly leaked blood. My legs too. Watery blood. My breasts were patched with blue and dark red bruises. Those were from Gregor. I stuffed my face in the towel and breathed there shaking. Everything about me might fall apart if I moved. I shouldn’t have turned off the water.

“Give me that.” From behind, he took the towel from me and wrapped me up.
Warmth. His body gave me something solid to lean into.

All my head seemed to register was that here was security. Safe again. Though he said something to me
, I’d lost the ability to concentrate.

We were moving and at some point, somehow, we reached the bed. Once I hit the sheets,
my thinking shut down and I was gone.

When I woke it was light still. Or was it morning? From the pallid color
of the wall next to the bed, it was early morning. I’d slept and now I hurt. So stiff. Places unstuck as I rolled over, my head ending up half off the bed. The sheet slipped away. I was still without clothes.

Last night in the R
oom had really happened. I shut away a sudden vision of Gregor hitting me.

Was Pieter
here? Had they taken him away? I panicked, stupidly, focusing through sleep-glued eyes. There he was.

He sat on the floor, back against the wall near the door, head shaded by his hands. This glowering man, who scared me as much as attracted me, was lost in some reverie.

None of my lovers, few in number that they were, had ever seen me exposed as rawly as he had. If they had, I doubted they’d have cared for me. I’d become so dirty. Sullied was the word. If only I could get home again and curl up in bed. If no one saw me, it wouldn’t matter.

A dream
but a good one.

I wanted to be alone as much as I wanted to be with someone.
Just look at what had happened here – people had messed up my beautifully organized life. Fuck them all.

I
pried myself from bed, set my feet on the floor.

I limped to him, hesitated
when I reached his side. When had I ever hugged anyone voluntarily? Over-effusive boyfriends never stayed with me long. Family gatherings were a nightmare.

But I longed to touch him, this
man who had wrapped me in barbed wire.

Yes? No? Touching him by myself made my stomach twist. I stretched out my arm, my forefinger an inch from his shoulder. He was unaware.

I lowered my arm, willing him to turn and see me, because that would be so much better.

A
strand of my hair grazed his cheek.

Then he did turn, and he looked at me and nodded,
then hauled himself to his feet. He raised his hands as if to draw me close, only to lower them.

A pang of disappointment saddened me
.

“How are you? I’m sorry, I was thinking.”

About what? A score of possibilities reared their heads.

The darkn
ess I’d glimpsed in his expression daunted me. The man had demons. With his past, I expected that. Asking what he’d been thinking might give me more than I wanted right then.

I shrugged then
winced. Tiredness dulled my reply. My jaw ached when I opened my mouth. “I’m sore.”

“
Mmm.” His gaze travelled over me. I could see him stopping at each wound, a frown would touch his brow then he’d move on. “I wish we could do more than wash these down.”

“There
are bandages and some sort of antiseptic.” I pointed at the plate bearing Gregor’s gifts. “They brought it yesterday.”

“They left it before they took you to the Room?”

I nodded, remembering how it had bothered me.

“
Fok
them.
Fok
them all to hell and back, but I can use it. Come to the middle so I can play doctors and nurses.” He flashed me a smile then waited, maybe to see if I had it in me to smile back.

Wrapped up in misery but grateful, I walked to the middle and p
retended to be tough when he dabbed iodine on the cuts.

“Doesn’t look like you need stitches. These will hurt for days, you poor baby.”

Baby? How weird being called that and by this man who’d made some of these holes in me. Then he came in close. I dropped into flight or fight mode and stiffened.

He whispered
into my ear, “I’m getting us out. You need hope. Here it is. I’ve figured a way.”

So
soft. Had I imagined those words?

I stared at the wall like
a robot then cautiously turned my head. He gave the slightest nod.

La
st time I’d had hope it’d been the boy guard and look what had happened there.

A nightmare I’d never forget, while that boy would be silent forever, wherever they’d buried him. If they had.
He could be lying out there somewhere in the jungle.

I blinked.

Pieter wasn’t a man for casual promises. Like Gregor, he reserved words for when he meant them.

The next burn of the iodine seemed to add fire to my mind.
Getting out. If only.

My vengeful daydream surfaced.

Run to the police. Fuck them over. God, I prayed they’d all die horribly. Then dig to find out who organized this shithole torture palace. Someone could rip this enterprise open to the world with the right article. I could do it. I fucking could.

Please let it happen.

The pain from a dab zapped me back to earth. “Owie.” I ducked away, tried to shift my feet, only to be brought up short by his hand wrapped around my knee.

“Stay
, girl.”

“I never thought I’
d see you kneeling for me.”

Pieter grunted.

I might be a prisoner still, but I had hope now, because of him.

He rose from where he’d been painting my thigh.
Back in my real life, I’d have been horrified at a man doing this while I was naked.

“Better?” His question was loa
ded with extra significance.

“Yes.”

“Good.”

My thoughts tracked sideways. I needed hope but
,
oh my
, if I wrote an exposé about this place,
if
we escaped, would it bring him down too?

I shook myself. Of all the things to worry about.

What a beautifully constructed man he was.

Even as I
trailed my way along, from those biceps you could bounce a bullet off, to the thickness of his shoulders, to his small smile, I knew a truth. He wasn’t for me. I wasn’t for him. Some people were as opposite as the arctic and the middle of the sun. Sure, he could make me come a zillion times while he worked his magic with pain, and that had been such a revelation. But in my life? Mr. Let me hold you still while I fuck you and beat you? He adored pain. He killed without looking back.