Panting and shaking, I forced my gaze back to his. He could have my body, torture me, kill me, it didn’t matter. Deep down, he knew he hadn’t won until I spoke those disgusting words.
For a long moment, Gray held my gaze with his shiny, insane eyes before he sighed heavily and turned back to the dresser. “I brought a few tools of my own along too, you know,” he commented, like we were discussing the fucking weather or something. “Now, let’s see here...” He dug around in the drawer for a moment, then came back with a couple of instruments, which he laid on the bed cover beside me.
The angle I was tied at made it impossible for me to make out what exactly those tools were, but I sure as fuck recognized the brass knuckles he slid onto his fingers, then closed his fist around.
Oh fuck, this is going to hurt.
The thought barely had time to register before his fist came slamming into my side. Distinctive cracking sounds reached my already ringing ears as my ribs broke, and Gray’s face split into an excited grin once more. No longer bothering with his need to make me beg and plead, he rained blows down on me, switching the brass knuckles to his other fist when his first must have become tired.
Eventually he stopped, puffing, with sweat patches spreading under his armpits. My eyes were beginning to roll back into my head, and it was everything I could do to stop myself from passing out. I would not give him the satisfaction of giving in.
“Stubborn bitch, aren’t you?” he panted, tossing aside the brass knuckles and picking up a pair of needle-nose pliers and waving them in front of my face. “See these? I’d intended to use them to rip out your fingernails, but I don’t want to risk disrupting this drain...” He tapped them against his chin. “But I’m always open to compromise.”
Circling back to the foot of the bed, he grasped the little toe of my undamaged foot and lined up the pliers with the nail. Looking up at me with a twisted grin on his face, he chuckled.
“I’m not going to lie, Foxy; this is going to hurt.” He gave no further hesitation before clamping down on the little nail and ripping it from my flesh in one smooth motion.
My jaw clenched hard. I bit back a scream but couldn’t do anything to save the moan of pain as the nerves in my foot shredded and burning agony lanced up my leg. Black spots danced at the edges of my vision, and cold shock rushed over me in waves while I desperately clawed my way back to consciousness. It was becoming painfully obvious he wanted me to pass out. Well, fuck him.
“Still hanging in there, huh?” he observed, lining his pliers up with the next toenail over. “Maybe I’ll do this next one slower. Really drag it out.” As he said this, he began pulling with his pliers, tearing the nail from my skin with excruciating patience while my nerve endings fractured and frayed. This time I really did scream, the sound coming out hoarse and dull in my agony.
What the fuck was I thinking? I couldn’t do this. If I really was immortal, then this pain truly might never end. There was no easy escape for me in death. My only hope was for Gray to become bored, but given he’d been waiting six years for this opportunity, I doubted it’d happen any time soon.
Maybe it’d be easier to just let him have what he wanted. Control. Obedience. After all, they were only words, right?
Haze swept across my vision, blurring the room and Gray’s leering face in and out of focus, and I knew I was losing the battle. My magic was almost entirely depleted now; I could barely feel a single tingle of it trying to work. Or maybe that was just because the pain of my many injuries was outweighing any other sensation? Hard to know.
Dimly, somewhere in the fog of near unconsciousness, I heard Wesley’s voice calling my name. But that didn’t make any sense; I’d thrown my receiver into the pool. Hadn’t I?
“Kit, sweetheart, can you hear me?” Wesley’s voice called softly, seeming to echo through my head rather than meeting my ears like a normal voice might.
“Wesley?” I murmured, not totally sure if this was a pain-induced delirium or not.
“Who’s that?” Gray sneered at me. “One of your useless boyfriends that won’t be coming to save you?”
“Sweetheart,” Wesley’s voice echoed again through my head. “I’m with you. You don’t need to answer out loud; you can just think your thoughts to me.”
“Wesley,” I groaned silently, realizing with an even deeper spike of despair that he had been changed after all. “I can’t do this, I’m not strong enough. It all hurts.” Even inside my mind I could hear the desperation to my words. I was giving up, I knew it. It was only a matter of time.
Maybe it was for the best? Gray was a sick, sadistic bastard; there was no question. But his motives were personal, primal, selfish. If I gave in to him now, let him have my mind, would my magic then be out of reach to those who would destroy the world with it?
“Kit, this isn’t you. You’re the strongest person I’ve ever met.” Wesley’s voice scolded me inside my own head, and I frowned. “Sweetheart, fight him. I know you can do it.”
“How, Wes? I’m weak, bleeding, and tied down. I’m useless. How the fuck can I fight him like this?” Tears rolled freely down my face. Not from the pain, but from desperation. I could hardly believe it had come to this, that Gray might win.
“Wes?” I whimpered inside my head. My thoughts were punctuated by Gray tearing another of my toenails out, and I had no doubt my scream echoed through my thoughts as well as the room. Blood ran freely down the sole of my foot now, and it almost tickled as it pooled on my heel and dripped off.
Something clicked inside me though. Not all wins had to be physical, and in this situation, the most important win was mental.
Fuck him. Gray, that was. He could do what he wanted to my body, but Wesley was right. I’d made a promise to myself to never let Mr. Gray bend my mind to his will again, and here I was about to let him do just that. No. He wouldn’t win this one.
I’d come so damn far from the scared little girl I’d been in Suzette’s foster home. I’d healed, damn it. Found a life for myself, albeit a dangerous one. Found several men who, against my fears, cared for me. Hell, River had even said he loved me.
That sealed it. I hadn’t even told River I loved him back, so there was no way, no fucking way, I was letting Gray have those words. I’d get through this and then… then he’d suffer.
“Hang in there, Kit. Austin is almost there.” Wesley’s voice was faint as the pain dragged me back to full consciousness once more, but he’d left me with a grain of hope.
Austin was coming; this would all be over soon.
With that one, comforting thought, I dove head first into the creeping blackness.
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