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CHAPTER 19

LARA

I’m so tired, I can’t keep my eyes open.

Weak.

It takes effort to focus on moving. Everything feels heavy.

I’ll just lie here and count my heartbeats. That sounds like something I can do without too much work.

How can I be this calm? Like the stress of the world doesn’t bother me anymore.

I just want to sleep.

So I do.

Drifting in and out, I have no idea how much time passes. It just takes more work every time I struggle to look around, I finally just give up.

A loud bang almost startles me enough to open my eyes.

But not quite.

Kirill’s deep voice almost pierces the fog. “Fuck. We can’t let her die, that isn’t the plan. We need information.”

Muffled sounds resemble an exchange, but I can’t understand the words.

I don’t care.

“We aren’t ready to fight Mikhail, not yet.” His smooth fingers slap against my cheek.

My eyelids flutter weakly letting in a flash of light.

Then darkness.

“Shit. She hasn’t eaten this whole time?” he growls across the room.

“No, boss.” The clown moves closer.

Kirill hits me again, harder. “Wake up,” he commands.

I can’t.

When the footsteps fade, I’m sure I’ll be left alone again.

Good. I’m enjoying the lack of dreams. I guess my body thinks that takes too much energy too.

It’s interrupted by rough hands jerking me upwards.

“Open your mouth.”

No.

I’m too weak to utter the word.

Hard fingers dig around my jaw, trying to pry it apart far enough for something hard pressing against my lips.

Every bit of strength in my body goes to keeping my teeth firmly shut.

Screw him. He isn’t going to win this battle of wills.

I’ve been doing this my whole life.

“Fucking bitch,” he grunts. “Fine, I’ll make you take it.”

A metallic grating sound hits my ears just as the blinding pain explodes from my mouth.

Now I look.

The handle of a knife protrudes from my cheek where he twists the blade, forcing my chin down.

Both of my wrists are cuffed when I try to move them.

Screaming around the blood pouring into my throat, it bubbles down my chest.

He doesn’t pause, but takes a thick tube and shoves it past my teeth and over my tongue, gagging me as he pushes it further.

“Pour the shit in,” Kirill says over his shoulder to the other man.

The clown pops the top of a protein shake and dumps it messily into the tube.

My stomach tries to seize at the intrusion, twisting against the foreign food.

Trickles of it run down the outside of the plastic and mix with the blood on my lips in a chalky tang.

The empty can rattles against the wall when he throws it, then the length of tubing is ripped out of me.

I want to puke.

“No you don’t.” Kirill stuffs a pillow behind my head, then grabs a roll of thick duct tape next to him. “If you hurl that shit up, you’re gonna choke to death. Eat up, Volkov. You don’t get off that easy.” He sticks a long piece over my mouth that wraps over the wound in my cheek.

He wipes his crimson stained hands on my mattress and sheathes his blade. “I’m going to start cutting off fingers and toes and shoving them down your gullet if you decide to keep testing me.”

Squeezing my eyes shut, I try to wish my belly to stop being as queasy as he slams the door shut behind him.

I thought I had an out.

Shit my face hurts.

How bad is it?

Now, I’ll be even more hideous. No one is coming to get to me.

I’m not sure what I’m clinging to.