“It’s your lucky day,” Kage says sarcastically. “I’m putting an end to your misery. Oh, but not before I make it so much worse.”
He rolls his eyes, having no patience for any of it. I can imagine he’s had enough time to come to terms with the fact that he’s going to die. Now there’s no panic left. But as he glances over at me and does a double take, there’s definitely intrigue.
“Who the fuck are you?”
I smirk as I take a step forward, removing the hat and sweatshirt and tossing them onto a nearby chair. His smile grows as he takes me in until he has his head thrown back in laughter.
“Oh my God,” he says, like my being here is the best thing ever. “That’s brilliant. Oh, I wish I could be a fly on the wall when Dmitri finds out you’re still alive.”
Kage lifts one foot and presses it on the cackling man’s crotch, adding just enough pressure to make him mewl. “Too bad you won’t make it out of this room.” He looks over at Roman and Cesari. “Get him up.”
As they do what he says, Kage comes over to me. This is the hottest version of him I’ve seen yet, and the only thing on my mind is what I’m going to do to him after we leave here.
“Still good?” he questions, voice low enough to be for my ears only.
“Never better,” I answer honestly.
Vlad screams as they drop him onto his knees before attaching the chains to his wrists and lifting his arms over his head. With a few sharp tugs, they have him hanging from the ceiling, with his feet off the floor.
Kage puts his hand out for me to take and leads me over to the table that’s littered with weapons. Everything from knives, to baseball bats, to things I’ve never seen before. Being most familiar with it, I grab a knife. It’s shorter, but the serrated edges look painful.
Walking over to Vlad, he snarls as he looks down at me. “Careful, little girl. Don’t want to hurt yourself with that.”
I hum, smiling sweetly before jabbing the knife directly into his stomach. The way the blade cuts right through flesh with so little resistance, it’s mesmerizing. Vlad roars as blood spews from the wound, but before I can do it again, Kage puts a light touch on my elbow.
“Relax,” he tells me calmly. “Killing him is only the inevitable outcome. The goal is to make it as painful and unbearable as physically possible. Take your time.”
I look up at him and smile. “Well, in that case...”
Cutting open the shirt that is all but glued to his skin, I press my hands on his ribcage and count the intercostal space. When I find what I’m looking for, I slowly plunge the knife in. It’s excruciating, and when his eyes widen, I know I’ve hit my mark.
“Fucking whore!” Vlad growls.
But Kage isn’t about to let that slide. He clenches his fist and decks him right across the face. The sound of his jaw cracking echoes through the room.
“Watch your mouth,” he orders. “That’s no way to talk to a lady!”
"What did you do to him?" Ro asks.
I smirk, looking up at Vlad. "I just punctured one of his lungs. Nothing fatal."
Walking across the room, I toss the bloody knife onto the table. Now that I know the true objective, I pull my hair up and secure it with the hair tie on my wrist. Kage comes up behind me and puts his hands on my waist. The corners of my mouth raise as I lean back against him, his lips to my ear.
“It should not turn me on this much to see you like this,” he murmurs.
I grab the taser and spin around to face him. “Take a seat. I’m just getting started.”
Tapping the button while the taser is almost against his chest, it crackles and he steps back. He chuckles slightly as he goes over to stand with Ro and Ces, and lets me do my thing. I inspect the taser as I walk back to Vlad.
“Funny story about these things,” I tell him. “They used to scare the shit out of me. I got electrocuted as a kid. You know, the age-old stuck a fork in an electrical socket story. Thankfully, my grandfather was there to grab me before it did serious damage.”
“Oh, great,” Ces grumbles. “It’s fucking show and tell.”
I roll my eyes and give Vlad an exasperated look. “Men are always so impatient.”
Pressing the taser to his neck, I push the button and watch as his body convulses from the shock. He roars as it flows through him, taking no mercy. When I release it, he’s able to breathe for a moment, but just when he thinks it’s over, I press it again—this time to his balls.
“Moral of the story is I got over my fear,” I yell over the sound of the taser.
As I let go, he lets his head hang and tries to control his breathing—the breathing that is already difficult due to the punctured lung. I go back over to the table and look over all the weapons again. I place the taser down and grab a handle that’s attached to a bunch of ropes with metal hooks at the end.
Picking it up, I hold it in my hand and turn toward Kage. “You’re into some kinky shit, aren’t you?”
He bites his lip as he laughs. “They’re cat o’ nine tails. You use them like a whip.”
My curiosity piques and I look down at the weapon. “Interesting.”
I skip back over to Vlad, who still hasn’t recovered from the taser. Gripping the handle, I swing it with all my might. The strings whip his body while the metal hooks work as knives, piercing into his skin. Vlad winces at the pain, but when Kage gives me the next instruction, I know it’s going to be so much worse.
“Now rip it back out.”
I lick my lips and do as he says, watching as each of the metal hooks tear through his skin in the path to their escape. My eyes widen in delight, and I turn back to look at Kage.
“I think these might be my favorite.”
Unable to resist, I walk around him, whipping different parts of him and littering his body with cuts. The blood flows over his skin, covering him in a shade of red. Vlad takes it like a man, though. Or at least one with man-flu. He whines like a baby but doesn’t try to do anything about it.
Drops of his blood are splattered across my arms and chest, and I’m sure if I wasn’t wearing black, you’d be able to see it all over my clothes. And that’s exactly how I want it. All the best things in life are a little messy.
Tossing the cattails down onto the table, I grab another blade. A longer one this time, while sticking a smaller one into my back pocket. Vlad has his head tilted back, as if he’s waiting for me to just slit his throat and put him out of his misery. Instead, I use him as a dummy, practicing my stab techniques in all the places I know don’t have vital organs.
Would you look at that? My pre-med major is useful after all.
I watch in amazement as the knife slides through his flesh like butter and embeds inside him. Everything I’ve been bottling up lately, all the pain and emotional anguish, it all comes out in the form of torture, and I am more alive than I’ve been in weeks.
When I’m done, I drop the longer knife and kick it across the floor before pulling the shorter one out of my pocket. Arching up on my tip-toes, I grab the bottom of his eyelids, one by one, and cut slits into them. And as the blood flows out, it looks like he’s crying blood.
Finally feeling like I’ve had my fill, I walk over to the corner where Kage sits between Ro and Cesari. He watches me intently, as he has been the whole time, a look of amazement in his eyes. I put my hands on his chest and move till my lips are against his ear.