Finally, she found the light switch, and the naked bulb overhead flickered on. Holt squinted as his eyes adjusted the light. Viper kept him in darkness save for the days he came to visit, and on those days Holt didn’t want to see what Viper had in store for him.
He must have made a sound because she whirled around to face him, hands raised, eyes wide. Her gaze flickered over the implements on the walls—whips, chains, iron bars, knives, axes, and all manner of torture devices Holt had never encountered before but with which he was now intimately familiar—the hooks in the ceiling, the toilet in the corner that was just far enough for his chains to reach, and the blood stains on the floor.
Not all his blood. There had been another man in the dungeon when he’d first been captured. A dark-haired Devil Dog who had made the mistake of sleeping with one of the Black Jacks’ old ladies. After beating the poor bastard to death, Viper left his body on the dungeon floor and moved Holt to a different dungeon in a different location where Holt was subjected to everything he’d witnessed and more. When Viper returned Holt to his original cell, the Devil Dog was gone, and everything had been rebuilt as new. But the horror was old and endless.
Finally, the woman’s gaze fell on him. She gasped and her hand flew to her mouth. Holt tried to make out her face, but with his eyes swollen and crusted with dried blood, and unused to the light, she was nothing more than a blur.
“Ohgodohgodohgodohgod.” She took one step toward him, then another. When she crouched down in front of him, he managed to widen his eyes enough to see her clearly. She was slim, and small, with long dark hair, and a heart shaped face. He couldn’t discern the color of her eyes, only that the color shifted as he watched, and her gaze was deep with sympathy when she met his stare. It had been so long since he’d seen a woman, she looked almost ethereal with her pale skin and fine features, but her cheek was badly bruised.
Easy to break. Viper could crush her neck with one hand, and yet she seemed angry, not afraid.
“You’re alive.” She reached out and stroked his cheek.
Holt jerked back at her gentle touch. Instinct. Borne of constant pain from every touch he’d endured since the last day he’d seen the sun.
“I’m sorry.” Her voice was soft, throaty. He’d forgotten about the beautiful things in life. Soft things. Gentle things. Sights and sounds. Tastes and touches. She was all of them wrapped up in one sweet package.
“Viper thinks you’re dead.” Her brow furrowed. “I heard him talking with his men before he brought me down here. They’re planning to get your … you and bury you somewhere.”
He listened to the lilt of her voice, watched her lips move. Felt a stir of happiness that he had the chance to behold beauty one last time on the eve of his death.
She stepped closer, inspected his bare torso, the cuts and bruises, welts and burns. She choked when she saw the whip marks that crisscrossed his skin, and pain flickered across her face.
“Viper did this to you.” A statement, not a question, and not one that he could answer, but this close he could see all the bruises on her face, a cut on her temple—Viper’s handiwork on her beautiful skin.
Rage, the only emotion he had left, coiled in his breast, along with a curious desire to protect the beautiful woman from Viper’s wrath. He jerked his hand, tugging against the manacles on his wrists, and the chain clanked, drawing her attention.
“He’ll kill me if I let you go.” She glanced around the dungeon, her gaze resting on the Sinner’s Tribe cut pinned to the wall with Holt’s dagger. “You’re a Sinner.”
Holt shrugged. Once upon a time he was a Sinner. Now he wanted nothing from the club except their destruction.
She stared at the cut, and then her gaze flicked to Holt. “No one hates the Sinners more than the Black Jacks. You’re their only threat to dominance in the state. I’m surprised you’re still alive.”
So was he. After months of torture there was little about the Sinners he hadn’t shared with his captors. But Viper was a sadist at heart, and he’d clearly taken more pleasure in Holt’s pain than he would have in Holt’s death. At least until he found another distraction.
“If I help you, the Sinners will owe me,” she mused. “Maybe they can hide me or protect me. Maybe even work out a deal so Viper leaves me alone.”
He shook his head, wanting to explain to her that he was done with the Sinners, but she was already searching the dungeon, her hands brushing over the racks and cinder block walls. “I don’t suppose he left the keys.”
Holt grunted and tipped his chin to the door. Of course Viper had left the keys to the cuffs. Just like he’d installed a light switch in the dungeon. Nothing drove home the hopelessness of the situation as well as leaving the tools for escape just out of reach.
The woman followed his gaze and grabbed the keys from the nail near the door. “Let’s think this through…” She twisted her lips to the side, the keys dangling from her fingers.