Page 37 of Toxic
When I refocus on him, the flame is dark, and his face is hard and blank. Death incarnate. “Where is he?”heasks.
I don’t answer him. Past caring, I zone out, my tired body resting against the one behind me. There’s another sizzle, and then I convulse, wanting to move away from the pain, but unable to because of the hands holding me still. He pulls the torch away, and my body automatically sags forward. For the first time, I’m grateful for the bindings. I wouldn’t be able to stay upright if it weren’tforthem.
This time Danny barely pauses and doesn’t repeat the question. The flame moves up my leg, getting closer to the sensitive flesh of my thighs. His hands slip on my wet skin, but he either doesn’t notice or doesn’t care, and I forget to mention that it’s blood and not urine because he touches the flame to flesh again. This time, I dopassout.
When I come to, the sun is high in the sky, and I feel like I’m a column of burning ice. Freezing and on fire at the same time. I gag against the smell surrounding me—my cooked flesh—and manage to vomit away from myself instead of down my chest. There’s nothing but bile to throw up anyway, and soon, I’m back todangling.
My stomach cramps, and a fresh wave of blood coats my inner thighs. I moan, and tears course down my cheeks. I think I pass out again because the next thing I know, a barrage of water fills my nose and mouth, startling me awake. They keep it in my face full blast until I’m breathing it. Then they turn it off, and I cough and hack up water attheirfeet.
I hear one of them cursing and then the water hits me in the chest as they hose me down like a dog.It burns like liquid fire when it hits the burned flesh of my legs. I want to pull away from it, to cry, or to scream at them to stop, but I can’t. I’m completelypowerless.
“The fuck’s she bleeding from?” one of them murmurs. “You didn’t hit herthathard.”
I can feel their eyes on me, but I can’t open mine to see. Besides, I already know what they’re staring at. What conclusions they’re drawing. Let them see what they’ve done. If they have hearts enough to care, I hope it eats them alive until I can cutthemout.
The hose comes back, this time to give me an impromptu shower. I want to tell them it’s pointless because it’ll just keep coming. They’re still grumbling and trying to wash away the blood when orders are barked, and the hands are back on my hips. Danny’s shadowy form and the flickering light of the torch are all Icansee.
I use my last burst of energy to kick the torch out of his hand, and my foot glances off his shin as I follow through, and he grunts in pain. The metallic clatter of the torch hitting the concrete floor echoes throughout the warehouse. Danny waddles to it and snatches it from the ground. There’s a flare of heat and then the screaming pain returns, this time on theoppositeleg.
“Where is he?”heasks.
“Fuck you,” Iwhisper.
This time he leaves the flame against my skin a lot longer. So long that I don’t feel the pain anymore, which sounds good, but I know it can’t be. Injuries without pain equaldeath.
What does it matter? I’m dead anyway,right?
He removes the flame, only to bring it back to a new spot, causing fresh pain. Eventually, I have to go to another place in my brain. One where there is no pain. Where there is no death. Where the baby I hadn’t planned for isn’t leaving me before I ever got to properly love it as it deserved.The place I cultivated at the hands of a husband who didn’t know the meaning of the wordmercy.
I’m ripped back to reality when they bring back the hose to clean me off again. The man behind me is gone, and I can’t hold my head up anymore or stand on my legs, so I’m dangling forward, my eyes on the concrete beneath me. Bloody water travels in rivulets across the ground and to a nearbydrain.
Agony doesn’t describe what I feel when I realize that’s the little life I’d already thought of as mine. Sobs burst from me then. Deep, wracking painful things, and I feel like a part of me has been ripped right from my heart, like I’m changed right down to my DNA. I know if I make it out of this, I’ll never, ever bethesame.
The water cuts off, and then they’re back. I can’t stop crying, not even when the flame comes back. Then my tears turn into screams, and I’m shouting and wailing with everything I have. It echoes throughout the warehouse, and the flame shuts off, and Danny hits me again, his fist colliding with my jaw, making my vision explode in a kaleidoscope ofstars.
“If you aren’t going to answer the question, keep your fucking mouth shut,” he growls as he stuffs a strip of cloth into mymouth.
I’m pastcaring.
My legs too burned to be his canvas of torture, he lifts my foot and the torch clicks back on. The moment the flame touches the sensitive skin of my sole, I scream against the gag and writhe against the manholdingme.
“Where the fuck is he?” Danny asks. “Tell me what you know, and this all stops. The pain will stop if you just tell me whereheis.”
He drops the torch on the floor and removes the gag so I can speak, but instead of talking, I muster up enough saliva to spit in his face. His look of utter outrage causes me to laugh, though, it’s tinged withhysteria.
“She’s fuckin’ losing it,” Andrew says. “Completelyfuckin’nuts.”
Which only causes me to laughharder.
There’s a loud screeching sound from the warehouse door, and I wilt a little inside knowing it must be Sal, whoever he is, coming back to get the results from the past few days or to finish me off. Part of me almost wants them just to put a bullet in me, but the other part, the one who’s sick and damn tired of being treated like shit wants one chance, just one, to pay them back for everything they’ve done, everything they’vetaken.
“Last chance,” Danny says. “Whereishe?”
Then a voice that isn’t Sal’s says, “Well, boys, if you wanted to see me that much, then all you had to dowascall.”
IwishI could turn or open my eyes enough to actually see him. That way, I would know he’s actually here and it’s not some hallucination or shock setting in. For now, I’ll choose to believe he’s really here and for that thought to light me up. I jerk in the bonds, and the man behind me tightenshishold.
Danny straightens, his muscular body going tense as he turns to face a nonchalant Gracin. “King,” Danny says, though it’s more like he spits the word out.“We’ve been lookingforyou.”