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Cat

“ C at.”

The voice penetrated the dark fog cast over my mind, and something clanged in my chest.

“Cat.”

Every single part of me ached to respond. I felt the urge in the tangled mess behind my rib cage, felt it deep in my soul, but the darkness clinging to me was sticky.

It refused to let me go.

“I didn’t want to do this,” that vital voice said. “But you give me no choice. Cactus Bengal-Tiger Wallison, I need you to wake up.”

That was enough to pierce the darkness, a splinter of light forming. No, my eyelids had cracked open.

“There you are,” that voice said with breathy relief. “Now, I don’t want you to panic. The situation is completely under control. I’m going to get us out. Okay?”

My head lolled onto my shoulder and everything went dark. I forced my eyes wider to let in more light but the darkness remained.

“How do you know that name?” I rasped, my mouth dry. I tried to see through the all-consuming dark, but that brief sliver of light was gone.

“I don’t,” he answered too quickly.

With a groan, I lifted my head and—inhaled sharply when that crack of light returned.

It wasn’t a splinter in the dark. It was a slot in a metal coffin.

My breathing hitched, then broke apart. I stretched out my hands, and choked on a whimper when they only raised a few inches before brushing cold, cold iron.

“Alfie—” I gasped.

“Okay, fine,” he blurted, oblivious to my mounting panic attack. “I might have stalked you a little. But in my defence, I’m better at it than the others because you never noticed me. So is stalking really that bad when you never know it’s happening? Surely it doesn’t even count.”

“Pain,” I choked out, pressing my hands against the cold metal, searching, searching for an opening.

A way out. I was completely trapped. Kicking my feet out showed they were encased too, and when I tipped my head back there was only pitch darkness in every direction.

No escape. I was in an iron coffin. “I need—I need to get out—”

“Shit,” he whispered. “It’s fine, you’re totally fine. We’re gonna get out of here. Promise.”

“I can’t—”

“Fuck, I wish I had my full power right now. I’m right here, I’m right with you.”

“Get me out,” I gasped, broken shards of air clawing up my throat.

“I would if I could, darling woe, but there’s a slight snag.”

“What?”

“I’m, uh, in a matching iron maiden.”

“Iron—oh, god.”

“It would be so good to hear you say oh god under other circumstances. Maybe with a bed instead of a torture device. What’s your accessory of choice? Blindfold? Fluffy handcuffs?”

A laugh burst from my too-tight lungs. “Fluffy—handcuffs?”

“Hey, I’ll never judge you for anything you like. Even if it’s an absurd addiction to fluffy handcuffs. They’d be pink, of course. Goes without saying.”

Another laugh, forcing its way through, creating space for more air. “You’re insane.”

“Nah, you’re thinking of Madness. I’m Pain.”

“Hey,” I choked out, trying to blink through the haze of panicked tears to see through the slit in the coffin. The iron maiden. The thing Pain called a torture device. “He’s not … that insane.”

“Cat.”

“Okay, so he’s really insane,” I rasped, focusing on that slit, ignoring the oppressing cage of iron all around me. No way out. Only a tiny slit for air. “But he’s my insanity.”

“He’s gonna come for you, you know? They all are.”

I swallowed, blinking until my vision cleared. I couldn’t see much beyond the iron maiden; there was little light to see by. The room looked big—bigger than I’d been expecting—but empty of everything except my coffin, the one across from mine and—

“Oh god,” I choked out, losing whatever calm I’d managed to claw hold of.

“Best not to look at the rotten corpses,” Pain urged, his voice gentling when he added, “Eyes on me, darling woe.”

“I still haven’t—decided if I like—that name,” I somehow said, though it felt like a fist wrapped around my throat and an anvil pressed on my chest.

“It’s the first nickname I’ve given someone in thirty years, so I hope so. Unless you count that one time I called Passion a dick-faced soggy lettuce.”

I rested my forehead against the cold iron, pressure in my chest. “What does that—even mean?”

“Not sure. He didn’t care for it much.”

“Wonder why.”

Pain laughed, a rusty, gravelly sound that reached past all my fear and shaking and bloomed a warmth in my chest. “Passion doesn’t care for much, to be honest. He’s not super friendly for a guy named after the hottest emotion.”

“Pretty sure—hottest emotion is rage.”

“You met him at Madness’s castle,” he told me, a thread of desperation in his voice.

It occurred to me then that he needed to talk as badly as I needed to hear his voice, that this was the only thing tethering him.

“Massive guy. Not the long-haired, snappy dresser. The guy that looks almost exactly like Lurch from Addams Family.”

“That’s what I thought,” I blurted with a rusty laugh. “I used to watch it with my dad.”

“Used to?”

“Before—before I killed someone.”

“He deserved it.” Vicious satisfaction sharpened Pain’s voice, along with something that made absolutely no sense. Pride.

“How do you know?”

“I don’t,” he replied quickly. Too quickly.

“I’m too panicky to figure that out right now.”

“Cool. So you didn’t hear what I said earlier about stalking you. Perfect.”

“You—what?”

“Hm? I didn’t say anything.”

A snort burst out of me, a paltry smile tugging at my mouth. I sucked in a slow, jagged breath. “How do we get out of here?”

“Well. I have one single plan, and it’s not exactly sound.”

“I’m listening,” I said, and laughed bitterly. I couldn’t see anything except a dark room and an iron maiden. I couldn’t move more than a few inches. Couldn’t do anything but listen. 1

“It all depends on how well you can use your magic.”

“I didn’t know I had magic,” I said with a nervous laugh. “The shadows… I felt you touch them.” It wasn’t a question, not quite, but I could still recall the exact feeling, like a sensual hand caressing my soul. A touch of intimacy and care.

“Yes,” Pain said in a quiet, roughened voice.

I tried to see him across the room, tried to glimpse green-hazel eyes, but there was too much space between us and not enough light. “How do I use them?” I asked, my voice coming out lower than I meant it to. “Tell me what to do.”

“That’s not my thing, I’m more of a you-order-me-around kinda guy.”

“Pain,” I groaned.

“Yes, darling woe?”

“Tell me how to use this magic I apparently have.”

“It’s instinctual mostly. Breathe, centre yourself, and let the magic flow where it wants to. But you have to quiet your mind or it’ll all go haywire.”

Oh, that sounded easy. Just quiet my mind.

While I was locked in an iron coffin with a god called Pain as my only company.

When our jailor was a total and utter psychopath.

When my men were either trapped inside the domain, or if the mist had really devoured the whole realm …

gone. They could be gone, forever. I might never see them again.

“Is it working?” he asked hopefully.

“No.” My voice was thick with unshed tears; I cleared my throat and ignored the soft, sympathetic sigh from across the dark room.

“Well, in positive news, we appear to have unlimited time to practise. I can teach you how to empty your mind. We’ll have to go the boring route since we’re both locked in iron maidens. If we were free, you could ride me to oblivion and that’d empty your mind quite nicely.”

“Pain!” I choked out, my eyes wide.

“What? It’s the best method. There’s nothing at all in the world that can’t be cured with multiple orgasms.”

I closed my eyes and ignored the heat tingling my face, creeping down my neck. “So—boring method?”

“Right,” he began, but froze at a loud, grating creak.

I went completely still, forgetting to breathe as a door opened.

Who was it? Cruelty? Someone worse? My heart stumbled, then resumed twice as fast. I could have done with that calming, mind emptying technique right now, but Pain had gone silent too, both of us conscious of how vulnerable we were locked in here. How easy we would be to kill.

I listened intently for footsteps, for the scrape of skirts over stone, for any whisper of sound, but there was nothing—and then I flinched at the grate of the door closing again.

She was playing with us. No steps, no breathing, no delighted giggling at getting to play with us.

She’d opened the door and closed it again, probably to torture us with all the possibilities.

“Cat,” Pain said quietly, taut with warning. “Cover your ears, darling woe.”

“What—?”

“Now,” he said with enough steel that I jerked, my head hitting the back of the iron maiden. I struggled to raise my arms, to manoeuvre them up my body, but I didn’t have enough room.

“I can’t,” I said sharply after three failed attempts.

My panic was escalating. Why did I need to cover my ears?

What did he know that I didn’t? He hadn’t seen anything in the room, but what if he could sense something with all that god magic?

He might not have access to it, but it must have given him enhanced instincts and—

Screaming.

She was screaming again, howling that name over and over.

My son, my boy! My darling boy!

I shook my head hard and renewed my struggles to get my hands up to my ears, bruising my knuckles as I dragged them up my stomach, over my chest. 2

“Enough,” Pain snapped, his voice lower, dangerous the way it was when he spoke to Cruelty before. So different to how he spoke to me, it was like hearing a whole other person.