Page 14

14

LAVINIA

I scream with the full force of my lungs as the knife cuts along the flesh on my stomach.

Zoltan's eyes are wide and protruding, like a demon clawing through the flesh of its victim, as he watches the blood trickle out of the wound.

I can’t see it myself—I don’t dare to look down there again. The last time I did, I nearly fainted at the sight of red smeared across the whole area.

But Zoltan refuses to let me forget. He drags his sweaty palm over my stomach. It’s like salt in the many wounds. But what’s worse is when he lifts that same hand to my face. I want to shut my eyes, but I’m frozen in place, staring at that blood-red hand coming for me.

I scream again as he drags it over my face, finally managing to shut my eyes.

The scent of copper fills my senses, drawing a wave of nausea up my throat. I swallow repeatedly to suppress it.

“It’s a shame I can’t use the knife here,” he drawls, pressing the side of the knife to my cheek. I lie deadly still, barely daring to breathe as he leans in, his stale breath blowing hard against my skin right above the blade. “No one would pay to see a cut-up whore sing now, would they?”

He presses his pelvis into me, rubbing his hard cock along my slit. Keeping the knife where it is, he reaches down to smear his dick in my blood, using it as lube before he shoves it into my dry opening.

I squeeze my eyes shut as the raw sensation tears through my tissues, squeezing my jaw tight as I suppress the heavy well of grief and despair at losing myself—my dignity and my worth. I don’t dare to move the tiniest bit as he keeps the knife pressed to my cheek. I just lie there, letting him fuck me, hating myself for staying.

“Stop,” I croak in a weak voice.

He pauses inside me. “If I stop, you won’t get to sing.”

I hold my breath as I weigh my options. If I tell him to stop, he’ll throw me back into the streets, where strangers will rape and abuse me—where I’m nothing and no one. If I let him continue, he’ll tear through my dignity and drag me through more agony. My dignity is not worth much as is, but on the streets, my worthlessness will be on full display. With Zoltan, I can keep it hidden. He wraps me in pretty clothes and shows me off to fancy people, spares my pretty face and promises to let the world hear me sing.

He promises to let me have the one thing left that truly matters to me. My voice. He’ll let me share it with the world and everyone in it. Just one more day with him, and I’ll get to sing on the big stage he has booked. I’ll finally get to soar.

So I stay quiet, and he starts moving again.

As Zoltan fucks me, I fill my mind with images of a red curtain going up, me standing on that stage, singing my heart out, and the audience struck into silence as they watch and absorb the deep-felt emotions I can only pour out through my voice. I imagine my song moving them the same way my music did my mother and sister—being the only comfort I could offer when times were bleak.

I will sing for them —finally fulfill my purpose, bringing solace to the world with my voice, like my mother would say.

But the images can only keep me from reality for so long. Tears start pressing behind my eyes at the thought of the only two people I ever truly loved—the ones who were cruelly ripped away from me. My tears are the one thing I won’t let Zoltan have. It’s the only part of my dignity I can save.

So I drift back to the present. The stabbing thrusts in my pelvis, the devil hiding behind a charming smile, and the searing pain in the cuts on my stomach. I bite down on my jaw and muster all my will. Because I won’t cry for him.

But Zoltan is not done trying as he comes inside me and pulls out. He wants everything, and he’s determined to take my tears.

As if reading my thoughts, he says, “Stubborn bitch. You really think you can keep those tears from me?”

I don’t give him an answer. I don’t react until he moves the blade back to my torso—to my ribs.

“Let’s see if the blade slicing across bone will do the trick.” He gives me a cruel smile, eyes widening with sadistic insanity, nostrils flaring with beastly lust.

“Don’t,” I say in a hoarse voice as I stare up at him. “Zoltan, please don’t.”

“That’s right, beg me, bitch. And then cry.” He drags the knife across my skin, digging deep, slicing across my raw bones.

Agony unlike any I’ve ever known screeches in my nerves, flaying my mind and crushing me into pieces. Nails on a chalkboard, a fork on a plate. The pain even seems to ring in my ears. It closes up my throat, snuffing shut my voice and my lungs.

For a moment, I just lie there, frozen into place, mouth slightly ajar as I stare emptily at the ceiling.

“Cry,” he demands.

Finally, I manage a word. “Stop,” I choke out in a hoarse voice. If he keeps going like this, I won’t be able to sing tomorrow—before all those people he has gathered to make me into a star.

“Then cry,” he snarls, moving the knife to the next rib and slicing through my flesh.

The pain explodes—in my mind, my body, and my every sense. It cuts through everything I am and was. My hopes, my dreams, and the final scraps of worth I’ve been clinging to. That final cut makes everything clear, just before it steals my consciousness and thrusts me into pitch-black blissful darkness.

***

I wake up drenched in cold sweat, my heart pounding like it’s about to give in.

A deep pain aches in my body, but I can’t tell if it’s real or a memory.

I open my eyes but don’t see anything. For a moment, I think this is it. Zoltan killed me.

But then I inspect my surroundings with my hands—the foam mattress, the rough blankets, and the padded walls.

I’m not with Zoltan.

Or maybe I am?

Maybe he’s lurking in the deep shadows, ready to jump?

Steps echo through the hall outside my cell. Maybe that’s him, finally having found me and bribed his way in?

Or maybe he’s been here all along, having paid someone to lock me up in here, taking his time to torment me before he pounces himself?

Or maybe he has brought me out of that facility, locked me in some new padded cell he has made for me at his estate.

There’s no way to tell.

My mind spirals out of control, paranoid and wild.

I push up to sit, staring into the darkness, searching for some kind of reassurance. There’s none to find.

My heart beats faster and faster. My airways narrow as the darkness closes tight around me. I feel like I’m choking.

“Please,” I wheeze, pressing my hands to my tight chest. “Is anyone there?” I move to crawl across the floor, trying to raise my voice as I go. “Help me. Please, I can’t breathe.” I can’t muster much strength between my heaving breaths, so I take to knocking at the door instead. Tiny slaps at the padding turn to pounding fists as my desperation rises.

“Get me out of here,” I croak as panic threatens to snuff me out—the same way Zoltan’s knife did. “Please.” I bang harder as I hear steps in the hall. “Help me.”

There’s a tiny beep, and the door flies open.

I scramble back as a tall figure towers above me. I can’t make him out. I can’t see if it’s him , and suddenly, I want the door closed again.

“What the fuck’s your problem,” the man bites. “Get back to bed and stay quiet.”

It’s not Zoltan’s voice, but the knowledge offers no relief. I’m stuck in the spiraling panic, my breaths stuck at the top of my throat. “I ca-can’t breathe.”

Another tall shape appears before me, and the two start talking.

“It’s Dorin’s bitch. She was banging on the door, panicking. Should we call Dorin?”

“In the middle of the night and wake him up? He’ll have our asses. Just leave her be.”

“And what do you think he’ll do if she chokes to death?”

“You can’t die from a panic attack,” one of them says with ridicule.

“I don’t know. I’m not risking anything. Have you seen the way Dorin acts around her?”

I don’t register the meaning of their words. They get sucked straight into the chaos of my mind, feeding the whirlwind that blinds me to the world around me. All I see is Zoltan’s blood-red hands; all I feel is that blade slicing across my ribs. The lingering fear that he’s close keeps pulsing in my heart until a dizzy sensation threatens to take me out.