Page 58 of Devoured

Silence.

“Tell me,”I insisted. “Tell me what they did that was worse than murder. Worse than torture. Worse than whatever you are.”

More silence followed.

He shifted his weight, and the blade scraped against stone, sending sparks dancing across the floor.

“You don’t know, do you?”The realization hit me like cold water. “You just killed them because you could. Because someone told you to. Because it felt good.”

Still nothing. But something in his posture changed—a tension that hadn’t been there before.

“I apologize.”The words spilled out before I could stop them. I pressed my forehead to the cold stone and spoke to the dead whose skin surrounded us. “I’m sorry I let him touch me after he killed you. I’m sorry I came on his fingers while you’re nothing but furniture now. I’m sorry I’m still breathing when you’re not.”

My words echoed off the walls and came back twisted. Distorted.

“I’m sorry he made you into this.”I reached out and touched the edge of the bed, running my fingers along someone’s arm that had been stretched and tanned and stitched into place. “I’m sorry no one remembers your name.”

Tears hit the floor and hissed against the heated stone.

My shoulders shook with sobs that felt like they were being ripped from somewhere deeper than my lungs.

Somewhere in the place where shame lived and fed and grew fat on every choice I’d ever made.

“I’m sorry,”I whispered again.

To them.

To Marion.

To everyone who’d ever believed I was worth saving.

Memories flooded back like water through a broken dam.

The way I’d responded to him. The sounds I’d made. The way my body had arched against his touch while the screams of his victims still echoed in these walls.

How could I live with that? How could anyone?

The worst part wasn’t even the physical response—bodies did things without permission all the time.

The worst part was how I’d felt in those moments with the Executioner.

Wanted. Desired. Chosen.

Varnar had made my body respond too—forcing sensation until I came, wanting to own my shame. That orgasm had tasted like self-hatred.

But the Executioner’s touch was different. He didn’t touch me to humiliate or control. He touched me like I was something precious—dangerous and perfect in my damage.

And unlike with Varnar, when my body responded, I’d wanted it. Craved it. I’d felt desired by someone.

And that someone was a monster who turned people into furniture.

I crawled across the floor until I found what I was looking for: jagged stones.

I picked up the sharpest one and drew it across my palm, watching blood well in the cut.

The pain was clean. Simple. For a moment, I controlled something.

Heat surrounded my hand before I could cut deeper.