72

E
velyn
Watching, horrified as she walks towards me with the blow torch, I feel bile rise in my throat, nausea swirls within me at what she is about to do. She has lost her mind.
“Look, your foot is bleeding. How about I cauterize it for you?” she mocks and holds the blue flame to my broken foot. I scream.
At first, it feels cold, but then it is melting my skin off. I thrash, trying to get her to stop as she starts with my toes. My screams fall on deaf ears as she ignores me. I have never felt pain like it; not even catching fire hurt this badly. This is torture in every sense of the word. My skin is literally melting under the intense heat.
She stops, checking out her handy work. I can smell my burning flesh. It fills the room. The stench is horrendous. She then stands up and walks upstairs; relief floods me that she is leaving. I am drenched in blood and sweat, drenched in my own tears.
“No, no, no,” I scream when I hear the door open and realize she is coming back.
She walks down the stairs, a cruel smile on her face. She is carrying a knife. “Burns are terrible, aren’t they? So painful,” she tells me. “I was planning on burning you to death, but I can’t handle the smell. It is atrocious.” She grabs a medical mask from her pocket and puts it on. She then ties her hair up, getting it off her face and picks up the knife.
She runs the back of the blade across my shoulder to the middle of my throat, pushing the point in slightly. “You are a pretty little thing. Let’s change that, shall we?” she says, her words muffled by the mask.
She turns the blade and runs it down my chest. I scream as it slices through my chest and across my breasts. She starts yanking on my shirt, tearing it away, jerking me forward, the zip ties cutting into my wrist painfully. I feel one snap from the pressure of my wrist, being in a weird angle from her tugging.
She rips my shirt down the middle; the knife cuts into my skin as she continues yanking on me, trying to remove my bra while holding it. This woman is sick; she is going to mutilate me.
Once my bra is undone, she grabs the knife, and just as she is about to slice my breast, I grab the blade. I can feel it slicing through my palm and fingers; she seems shocked as she yanks the knife away. Like it’s the most casual thing to do, she walks over to the table and grabs another zip tie.
I frantically start yanking on my other wrist, trying to free it, when she comes back, grabbing my hand and prying it away, trying to restrain it. I can’t let her do that, so I use the only thing I have, my head. I headbutt her, and she stumbles back. Gold flecks dance before my vision from the impact of our heads colliding. Pain shoots through my skull, and she gets up.
She screams, and I can see her eyebrow is bleeding, blood runs down the side of her face as it twists in anger, and she screams again, tackling me. I can’t do anything as the chair falls backward. My head smacks the concrete with a loud crack, making me see black for a few seconds. The air is knocked from my lungs as she comes down on top of me.
I don’t even register the first few blows as she rains down punches on my face. I have lost feeling for a few seconds, and I fear that I am going to die; I am pretty certain any more knocks to the head, I am going to be out. Suddenly, I hear a loud noise upstairs; she stops, looking at the ceiling, and I scream, hoping she can hear me; Lana must be home.
April instantly clamps her hand down on my mouth. I bite her hand, letting out a scream when she jerks her hand away and she punches me in the mouth. My lips swell and I can taste my own blood. I watch her raise her fist again, when suddenly she is gone. Just vanishes as I hear a loud crash, and her body bounces off the wall. She lands next to me, unconscious on the floor when suddenly I see him.
His fangs protrude, and never have I been so thankful to see someone. Orion is coming into my line of vision. Then suddenly, I heard another violent crash; I think the roof is about to cave in.
“Down here!” Orion yells out to them, and I hear fast-moving footsteps, followed by a terrifying growl. Orion picks me up in the chair, placing it upright and snapping the cable ties. Looking over his shoulder, I see Thaddeus, a murderous look on his face, his eyes trained on the unconscious April on the floor.
“You’re okay now; we got you,” Orion says, grabbing my face and making me look at him.
Everything is becoming fuzzy around the edges. My vision is becoming tunneled. Everything hurts, yet all I can focus on is that they are here. Orion bites into his wrist, and I don’t even think about it, just wrap my lips around his bite mark, knowing his blood will offer relief and stop the pain. I can feel his hand, rubbing the back of my head.
“Get her out of here!” Thaddeus yells at him as he stalks toward April.
Orion grabs me, lifting me, and I can feel my body healing, the pain slows as I wrap my legs around his waist, and Orion heads for the stairs. I see Thaddeus grab April and toss her in the chair; he has to catch it to steady it from the force he uses.
He is going to kill her, and even after what she did, I don’t want her to die. Does she deserve death? Probably, but that isn’t for me to decide. She was still my mother for a year, still Lana’s mother.
“Please don’t kill her,” I whisper, and Orion stops, pulling back and staring at me as if I have lost my mind. Thaddeus’ head whips in my direction, a look of anger on his face, directed at me.
“Get her out of here, Orion! I will deal with her and Ryland later,” he growls, and I see April stir when suddenly, I feel a rush of air and smell fresh air. Opening my eyes, I see we are outside.
T
haddeus
There are worse ways to die than death. Worse ways to torture someone other than physical pain. Looking down at this weak, pathetic woman, I want to inflict the same pain Evelyn endured.
Yet, Evelyn, for some strange reason, wants me to leave her alive. If it were me, I would want to torture her slowly. I will still enjoy this, though. Evelyn doesn’t need to know as long as she remains silent.
“Get her out of here, Orion! I will deal with her and Ryland later.” I watch as they go, and the woman stirs.
How could she inflict what she has done on another woman? But I can see this one is tainted with madness and jealousy; she honestly thinks Evelyn was having an affair with her husband.
The thought of touching this woman disgusts me, but I have no choice. Grabbing her face, I force her to look up at me. She whimpers, cowering back in fear.
“You will not make a sound; you will not cry; you will only suffer internally,” I tell her, watching her eyes glaze over. She doesn’t even put up a fight. Evelyn is tiny, and even she can sometimes fight off my compulsion; however, this woman doesn’t put up any fight. “Now you will suffer what Evelyn did.”