Page 133 of Degradation

“Let the bitch starve.” Mace snaps.

“She hasn’t eaten since we got her.” Cooper says.

He’s right. She hasn’t. Not that that’s a bad thing, better we keep her weak, better we keep her frail.

“Bitch has had enough water to keep her alive for weeks.” Jackson spits and a few of the others laugh.

I let out a sigh, before jerking my head for Cooper to follow me. Perhaps he’s right, the bitch does need sustenance. But that doesn’t mean we have to give her a feast, do we?

I stalk into the storeroom, grabbing a few supplies, then head for her cell. Cooper is on my tail like a second shadow.

Before we enter, we pick up the masks, covering our faces and distorting our voices. I don’t know why it really matters. I don’t know why I don’t want her to know that it’s me doing all this.

Maybe she would talk if she realised. Maybe she’d understand how truly fucked she was and just give in.

And yet, I still don’t want to do it. It feels like a trump card, a final piece in my arsenal. I want her at breaking point, I want her on her knees, utterly destroyed, when I reveal the truth.

When we walk inside, the girl is curled up, whimpering, though I can’t tell if she’s awake or not. My mind flickers back, back to a moment so long ago, in a room with silk sheets and pretty painted walls. She’d whimpered then, hadn’t she? When she was asleep, when she’d all but collapsed with exhaustion after I’d spent hours ruining her.

Yeah, she’d whimpered alright.

She’d cried and she’d begged too.

I shake my head, ridding myself of that memory and I give the girl a good kick in the ribs to get her attention. Her body tenses as she comes to.

We keep her drugged enough that she doesn’t have the mental capacity to think logically. All of us have fucked her in some way or other, it’d be easy enough for her to guess who we are. The drugs eliminate that possibility.

“Grab her head.” I order Cooper.

He twists his hand around her dirty hair, using it like an anchor to pull her head back.

“Open wide.” I spit, forcing the tube in over her tongue, forcing it down her throat.

She tries to scream, tries to fight as I ensure it’s far enough down that’s it’s past her sphincter and truly into her oesophagus. I don’t want this to accidentally go into her lungs, I don’t want the bitch to aspirate and die on me. In my other hand I havea protein shake. I snap the lid off, pouring the contents in, watching as it streams down the semi-transparent tube.

She screams more, she begins to choke, and I do nothing as I squeeze and squeeze.

“Imagine it’s one of our cocks.” Cooper sneers. “You always enjoyed choking on one of those.” He laughs at his joke, giving her a hard slap on the back for good measure.

I don’t react, I just continue squeezing until the bottle is empty and then I yank the tube out, doing nothing to stop it from catching on the way up.

Paitlyn splutters, she doubles up onto all fours and half sobs. Cooper laughs more, telling her she’s clearly out of practice while I stare at her, stare at the woman, the creature that once, I was going to risk everything for.

I would’ve burnt the world down, I would have sacrificed everything I was, everything my brothers were. And for what? For this? For her?

She lifts her hand, pleading with her body because her words have done nothing so far.

I sneer down at her, not that she can see the expression, and with all my strength I kick at her fingers. I kick so hard so collapses, her body slams into the concrete and that’s where I leave her.

Pailtyn

The pain is indescribable.

I thought waterboarding me would be the worst.

But as white hot, searing agony shoots through every cell in my body, I know that this is it. This is my limit.

It feels like my brain is boiling. It feels like my blood is curdling in my veins.