“Who is it?” he yelled.
“It’s Afton, sir. I volunteered to be your assistant for the procedure.”
“Fuck.” Grumbling, Everett rushed to tie his trousers back together, then yelled, “Come in,” and sullenly added, “You’re early,” as a slim, redheaded man entered hesitantly.
“I—er—sorry, sir,” Afton answered, bobbing through an awkward bow of apology, only for his eyes to widen as he saw me strapped to the extractor. Just as quickly, he turned his attention away and cleared his throat. “If—if you want me to come back later, I can—”
“No, no. You’re already here,” Everett answered impatiently. “We might as well start the procedure now.”
Slapping the metal cuff over the tops of my breasts and causing me to moan in agony over the tight fit, he bolted the strap into place and called over his shoulder, “Well, get over here. The faster we get this done, the sooner we get justice for Axel.”
Afton nodded and stumbled forward. “Wha—uh—what do you need me to do?”
“Grab a knife and dip it into that bowl,” Everett instructed. “The blade needs to be submerged into the brew completely.”
“O-okay.” Fingers fumbling because they shook so badly, Afton did as he was told and pulled a dagger from his pocket before soaking its blade. Everett did the same with a knife he produced. Once they both had their blades dipped in the magic potion, Everett turned to me.
“We need to cut her simultaneously. The first incision will be on the sides of her eyes, vertically along her temple. Only one to two inches long, remember?”
Afton’s head quivered up and down, the jerky version of a nervous nod. “How…” He paused to lick his lips. “How deep?”
“Not very,” Everett answered. “We don’t want the blood to flow too thick. It just needs to be a steady, slow but constant drip.”
“Right.” Stepping forward, the assistant lifted his blade and accidentally met my gaze.
When his eyes pleaded forgiveness, I couldn’t help it. I began to beg. “Please,” I rasped. “You don’t have to do this. Please. Stop. Stop him. Help me.”
But my pleas had the very opposite effect of gaining his mercy. Gaze hardening into a glower, he sneered at me. “You told Everett that Axel begged for his life, too, didn’t you, you Graykey whore?”
I blinked, not having an answer for that.
“Well, Axel was the love of my life.” Shaking his head, he growled, “You never should’ve killed him.” And he lifted his attention to Everett, stone-cold rage flooding his stare. “I’m ready when you are, sir.”
Everett smiled in approval. “Now, then,” he answered.
They came at me in unison, one on either side of me. A single cut would’ve been bad enough, but two slices at the same time were unbearable. I screamed as my flesh was forced open and split apart. Even after the blade was removed, the stinging in my tormented flesh remained.
“Good, good,” Everett murmured, studying his and Afton’s handiwork. “Now, you make an X over her heart while I get the tongue.”
The next round was worse than the first. And I didn’t even feel the X that was made on the top-most swell of my left breast, just above the metal clamp. When Everett grabbed my chin and forced my mouth open, I tried to hide my tongue deep into my mouth, but he didn’t seem to mind slipping the blade between my teeth and gouging.
I gagged and moaned at the same time. Blood filled my mouth until I coughed, spitting it up to keep myself from choking.
“We’ll need to hurry through the rest. If she gags to death before we flip her, we’ll have to find a new test subject, and this one was already too much of a sacrifice to catch.”
The incisions that came to my hands and feet were made quickly and efficiently, yet they still hurt like hell. I moaned through a mouth full of blood, not sure how to reason through all the pains and injustices being done to me.
“And for the final touch,” Everett told his assistant as he grabbed my face, digging his fingers deep into the joint of my jaws to force them apart. “We need to put this retractor in here to keep her mouth open so she can’t swallow the blood that needs to drop from her tongue.”
I wished I could’ve struggled more to fight them off when a hard piece of leather was inserted around my teeth, keeping my jaws gaping open, but I was quickly losing my energy. My consciousness flickered.
“Help me turn her,” I heard a voice saying.
The sound of grinding metal and whirring gears followed. Then I felt myself swaying, tipping to my side, and falling. Every time my muscles tightened bracing for a fall, cold metal hands caught me, cradling me in a painful grip. Then I flew forward, facedown, and shrieked, only to land with an impact that snapped bone.
The misery that screamed through me was short-lived because I blacked out for a stretch. And every time I started to come to, piercing cuts and throbbing bones made me recoil from the light again. So I retreated back into the darkness.
I might’ve stayed down forever in the cool, black nothing, but the sound of Indigo’s voice in my head called to me.
You were absolutely right, his deep, musical voice murmured. His lively blue eyes and that smile—that devil-may-care roguish grin—wavered through my brain. I would do anything for this. I’d do anything for you.
I saved back the very core of myself for you. For the mere hope of meeting you. And all that I am now is yours.
But then his brow furrowed with urgency, fear, and worry. Go to Earth. Go to your safe place and live a full, happy life. Just get to safety. Live for me. Please, he demanded. I love you.
“Sir,” a voice broke through the memories. “Do you think there’s too much saliva mixing with the tongue blood?”
“There’s nothing to be done for it. Though maybe we should make another incision in there to ensure the map’s getting enough blood.”
Pain filled my mouth, I couldn’t even properly cry out, not with my jaws pried apart like they were, and my tongue and throat bone dry.
Glad I had the clamp across my forehead, so I could rest against it and not have to work to keep my head lifted, I opened my lashes. A map of the Outer Realms—as large as I was tall—lay open on the floor under me, tacked flat at the corners so it wouldn’t curl closed. I blinked at it, watching splotches of blood hit and splash against the surface. The map immediately absorbed every drop and wiped all traces of red away again…
Only for another drop to land and start the absorption process anew.
Time after time, I watched the blood plop and disappear. Plop and poof. I began to make it a song in my head. Plop and poof, and plop, plop, poof.
But I grew drowsy trying to come up with a rhythm for the disappearing blood, and I blacked out for a while, jarred awake only when my cuts started to dry, and they had to reopen them to keep them fresh.
“How long will we need to do this, sir?” Afton asked once.
“A fortnight to a moon cycle, I’d say,” came the answer.
I nearly laughed hysterically. But a moon cycle? A fucking moon cycle of this? Hadn’t I already been going through it for years? It felt as if we’d been at it for a millennium.
“She can probably only withstand about eight to ten hours of it at a time, though. So we’ll break for a day of recuperation, and alternate back and forth, resting and bleeding her alternately, for if she’s bled out too quickly, she’ll die before the procedure’s complete. And we can’t have that.”