Page 121 of Dual

Ice settles in my stomach, displacing the relief. I mean, I can’t really be surprised. But still. “We had a deal.”

“Da, we did. The Boss said not to touch Domhnall Callaghan.” Pavel’s grin widens, showing too many yellowed teeth. “But you? He said we could do whatever we wanted with you. As a bonus for a job well done.”

The words hit me like a physical blow, but I don’t let it show. Can’t let it show. Instead, I focus on the important part—Domhnall is safe. Whatever happens to me next, at least I kept him out of this mess. At least he gets to live.

“How generous of him,” I deadpan.

Pavel chuckles and rises from his chair. “I have business to attend to. But Mikalai has been looking forward to some alone time with you.” He heads for the door, then pauses to look back at me. “He has very specific tastes, our Mikalai, as you know. And such creative ideas about pain.”

The door closes behind him with a softsnick, leaving me alone with my thoughts and the steady hum of the surveillance equipment. I test my restraints again—still secure. The zip ties are the heavy-duty kind, probably rated for a couple of hundred pounds of pressure. My wrists are already raw from my earlier struggles.

I close my eyes and try to center myself. I’ve survived worse than this. I’ve endured horrors that would break most people. Whatever Mikalai has planned, I can handle it. I just have to hold on long enough for?—

The door opens again.

Mikalai enters with the predatory grace of a man who’s done terrible things and enjoyed every second of it. He’s smaller than Pavel but far more dangerous; he’s got the kind of wiry muscles that comes from years of violence. His pale eyes are the color of dirty ice, and they light up when they settle on me.

In his right hand, he carries a long, curved knife. The blade gleams under the overhead lights, its hooked tip designed for one very specific purpose—gutting fish. Or anything else that needs to be opened up and emptied out.

“Beautiful girl,” he purrs in heavily accented English,running the flat of the blade along his palm. “Pavel, he tell me you are very brave. Very stubborn. I like stubborn girls. Their screams make for best music.”

He approaches slowly, savoring the moment. I keep my face blank, refusing to give him the fear he’s looking for. I’ve played this game before. And as scary as this fucker thinks he is, I’ve faced far more evil monsters. I grew up with one who amused himself with far darker entertainments, and while Anna disconnected and went into the deep box in our mind, I was the one to take it. Towatchwhat he forced us to watch. To take the occasional beatings when we weren’t a good girl—the suffocations and the half-drownings.

The key is to scream into the pain and not run away. Because if my father ever sensed fear, he would chase it with more and more insidious psychological tortures. He loved fear almost as much as he loved pain. If you showed an ounce of it, the punishment would last three times as long. After a while, fear itself burned away along with every other emotion except rage. His perfect little trained animal.

Until I wasn’t.

“Nothing to say?” Mikalai asks, stopping just in front of my chair. The knife hovers near my face, close enough that I can see my reflection in the polished steel. “Most girls, they beg by now. They cry. They promise things.”

“I’m not most girls.” I smile up at him.

His grin widens. “No. I think you are not.” He grabs my left hand, examining my fingers like he’s selecting fruit at the market. “We start small, yes? Work our way up.”

The knife moves to my pinky finger, the hooked tip sliding under the nail. I feel the sharp bite of steel against tender flesh, the warm trickle of blood as he begins to pry upward.

The pain is immediate and excruciating—a bright, electric agony that shoots up my arm and explodes behind my eyes. I bite down hard on my tongue to keep from crying out, tasting copper as my own blood pools in my mouth.

I swore to myself when I escaped my father that I’d nevereverbe in a position like this again.

“There we go,” Mikalai croons, applying more pressure. “Let me hear those pretty screams?—”

The world tilts sideways.

It’s not the pain; I’ve handled worse. It’s something else. Something deeper. The familiar sensation of slipping away, of consciousness fracturing and reforming into something new.

No, no, no. Anna can’t switch now. She can’t handle this. Then I frown even as the swimming, dizzy sensation swings more violently.

Am I passing out from the pain? Usually it takes a fuck more than just losing a fingernail to?—

Oh fuck. No. I feelhereven as I start to lose my grip. Something else entirely. Something cold and calculating and utterly without mercy.

Her consciousness brushes against mine like a handshake as she takes over, and I gasp in shock, my last aware thought—oh fuck, Anna was right. It’s not just the two of us in here after all.

RED

When my vision clears,I’m looking at Mikalai through different eyes. The pain in my finger has faded to background noise. Everything feels sharp and crystalline, like I’m seeing the world through a high-definition camera.

Mikalai is still focused on my fingernail, his tongue poking out slightly in concentration as he works. He hasn’t noticed the change. Hasn’t seen the shift in my posture, the way my breathing has altered from rapid and shallow to slow and controlled.