Page 89 of The Wicked

My eyes snapped open with a short gasp.

I was alone.

Relief flooded through me, but it ceased when I realized I was hanging… hanging from a ceiling.

“What the…”

My arms were stretched above my head, with my wrists tied to an iron hook at the top. My feet were far from the ground—andGod, I was aching.My eyes burned as I looked around the space. It looked like an abandoned shed, and I could tell we were well into the afternoon and approaching evening from the light sneaking in through the small window at the end.

“Fuck…” I groaned in annoyance.

My ribs burned from the strain when I tried to twist my wrist free, but whoever tied the knot knew what they were doing. I drew in a deep breath before swinging myself back and forth three times, lifting my lower body and then my upper. It only lasted about three seconds before my body dropped in a painful protest.

I ground my teeth together, holding in the sharp pain thatshot through the joints in my shoulders at the drop. I had probably been hanging for hours.

Voices had my ears perking up; I was breathing hard as the door opened. Two men in black walked in, one rolling in a table with what looked like an electrical torture machine.

“Oh, come on, for a chihuahua painting, really?” I asked, my voice tired.

One of the guys approached me while the other rolled the table beside him. The one watching me had a buzz cut and a brutal healed scar slashing from his brow to his cheek. His lips were lifted in a sneer.

“Hi?” I voiced.

“You have a mouth on you.” His French accent shot thickly through his words.

“Doesn’t everyone have a mouth on them?”

His hand roughly grabbed my chin, turning my face from left to right.

“See something you like?” I asked. “Is it the freckles? It’s always my frec—”

The back of his hand swung, connecting with my cheek in a hard slap. My head whipped to the side at the force of the hit, and I tasted blood in my mouth.

My breathing shuddered as I licked it off my lips. I turned to the buzzcut motherfucker; he was smirking at me.

“Learn to keep that mouth shu—”

I spat in his face before he could complete that statement.

He closed his eyes, pausing a few seconds before slowly digging his hand into his pocket, bringing out a handkerchief, and wiping the spit off his face. He opened his eyes again, this time with a glare that had me wondering if he would kill me now.

The other man turned on the machine, clearly pissed at how I’d insulted Buzzcut.

“My boss was right,” Buzzcut said, throwing the handkerchief away. “Youareher.”

I frowned, my thoughts freezing. “Her who?”

“Manuel’s whore.”

I swallowed, my blood running hot. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. Who’s that?”

“You want to play dumb?”

“Bitch, I thought I was here for the painting.”

“Oh, you are.” He stepped back and picked up a pair of jumper cables. My breathing changed pattern as I caught the jagged metal teeth gleaming in the dim lighting of the space. With a flick of his wrist, he scraped them together, causing a crackling spark that cut through the air.

My eyes alternated from him to the metal clamps as he faced me once more.