Page 147 of Terror Tuesday

“I won’t let them,” she whispers, her gaze darting to the corner, where a red camera light blinks repeatedly. “I love you.”

“Life isn’t worth living without you. I’m getting us out of here.” As I say it, I have no idea how. My parents… Hers… Surely, they’ll know we were taken and come looking. Both of our families would stop at nothing to get us back.

But it may be too late.

For a long moment, we stare at each other in silence. My legs hurt from holding myself up and continuously buckle under the weight of my body.

“How’s your head?” she asks delicately.

“How’s your face?”

The only response is for her to shake her head. “Valen…” She stops herself, and I worry she’s going to tell me they did more than come on her skin. More while I was asleep and unable to save her while only ten feet from her.

“What is it, baby?”

“They have these metal plates under me…”

I blink and focus on the table, then I see them.

Black cords snake down the sides, converging into a thick bundle near the wall. They trail around the room, disappearing through a wooden door barely visible when I strain to turn my head. Metal plates…

They’ll shock her—use her agony to force my obedience.

I thought they just wanted me dead, though… So why? Why?

Oh. To getherto comply…

With killing me.

“Take a deep breath for me,” I tell her with a steady voice and another quick glance at the camera. “We’ll get through this.” And when it comes down to it, I’ll let her do what she needs to, as long as she gets out alive.

She cries softly as if she knows what this means. “No.”

“Yeah. We’ll get out of here and get back to where we want to go. Where do you want to go?”

Her lips press together, then soften into a fragile smile. “To putt-putt.”

Tears leak from the corners of my eyes as I chuckle. “You want to kick my ass again? Is that what you like? To humiliate me in front of a bunch of kids?”

Some of her dark hair falls across her face as she nods rapidly. “Yes.”

“Then that’s where we’ll go. Shitty pizza and stale beer and plastic prizes. All of it. I’ll take you there.”

She breaks—shatters right in front of me, her pain stabbing deep into my gut, like the tip of the knife is twisting brutally. “I want to have coffee in bed right now, V. Please.”

“I know, baby. I’ll make you coffee every fucking morning, I swear.”

“They’re going to make me kill you and then kill me.”

“Shh…” But I already feel myself falling into the black hole of unconsciousness. Dreaming of her back in our bed, safebeneath me, warm and tangled together in our sheets, my body sheltering hers…

That’s exactly where I need to be. If I can only force myself to wake up.

High-pitched,panicked gasps jolt me into reality. This time, I’m more alert, but throbbing agony sears through my skull. Rusted metal bites into my forearms as I strain against the chains. They don’t budge.

“Strip him. I got the camera set up.”

“It’s not on yet, though, right?”