Chapter 5

Hours passed. I spent most of the day sleeping on the cold concrete floor. I was too lethargic to move. My ass went numb hours ago, my legs were asleep, and they had pins and needles. Yet, moving them felt like too much effort. My teeth chattered as my temperature plummeted, and the day turned into night. The coldness of night seeped into my bones, making them ache worse. I was asleep when I heard the steel door open.

“And you are back. Is it morning already?” I murmured. Hearing the cell door open, I instantly knew something was wrong as he never once came into the cell. My eyes flew open to see Darius standing in front of me.

“Oh, shit!” I cursed under my breath.

“‘Oh, shit’ is right. Why aren’t you eating?”

“Not hungry,” I told him, and my traitorous stomach growled at the mention of food. His eyes flickered, and he glared down at me. He walked over to me, and I had to fight the urge to shrivel into a ball.

Darius growled before reaching down and grabbing my hair. He jerked my head back painfully, but I couldn’t even fight to loosen his grip. My entire body felt like a dead weight. He sneered at me, looking me over.

“Fucking disgusting,” he said, letting me go and shoving me against the brick wall. My back hit the wall so hard it knocked the air from my lungs in one short wheeze.

“Just let me go. You don’t even want me, so why keep me?” I asked, trying to catch my breath.

“You’re weak. Eat, or I will force-feed you,” he said, kicking the plate toward me. It resembled toast, only white with no color, but it was as stiff as toast. I turned my face away, looking back at the brick wall.

“I am going to give you three seconds, or I will make you eat,” he said coldly. “One… two… three…”

I glared at him—a big mistake when his foot came down my shin. I screamed. The sound echoed off the walls and made my ears ring as the bone broke under the impact.

Pain radiated up my leg, and I blinked back tears while staring at his foot on my leg, his foot crushing it still as I panted. He counted slowly again, and I could only gasp and stare at him in horror at what he had done.

His face was expressionless, like hurting me meant nothing to him. I supposed it did mean nothing, or he wouldn’t be doing it.

“One… two… three…” He twisted his foot, earning another scream from me, yet I was too weak to stop him, and my magic was all but gone; I highly doubted he would give me any to renew mine.

“Stop! Stop! Stop, Darius!” My scream was filled with agony, and I tried to clutch my aching leg, only for him to stomp on my hand. I heard the sickening crack of my three middle fingers. Bile rose in my throat before I threw up the emptiness of my stomach. Acid burned my throat while I gasped for air as bile spilled from my lips onto the ground beside me.

He removed his foot off my hand, and I clutched it to my chest when the door opened behind him. My entire body trembled, and Darius stepped away from me, looking toward whoever entered. The pressure on my leg faded, but it was bent inward in the middle. Just moving caused me pain, and my blood coated the floor beneath it. The bone jutted out of my skin, and I fought the urge to throw up again at the gruesome sight.

I could only stare at my leg in horror at what he had done. The pain receded, and I knew I was in shock. I welcomed the shock, anything to replace the pain, but I knew it would wear off any minute, and it did.

“What’s going on?” asked Tobias, making me look toward him, but I couldn’t see him, with Darius blocking my view.

“She wouldn’t eat. I was making her,” Darius said simply as if he did this sort of thing every day, and it was merely some annoying chore to him.

“Just leave her be. Hopefully, she dies. We don’t need her,” Tobias said coldly, and it was like a dagger in my chest. Tobias stepped to the side and glanced at me with an expressionless face. His eyes darted to my leg and the blood pooled below it. I watched his Adam’s apple bob as he swallowed, and his eyes went to mine fleetingly before he turned his attention back to Darius.

Darius grunted but added nothing else before closing my cell door and leaving me as he followed Tobias. The moment the steel door shut, I fell apart; uncontrollable sobs wracked my body, causing more pain as the floodgates opened. I could no longer contain it.

My hand shook as I tried to use the one that wasn’t broken to pull my pant leg up, the fabric catching on the jutted-out bone. Pain stole my breath away, and I slumped back, trying to breathe through it as my leg throbbed. Tears trekked down my cheeks. He broke it; he broke my leg and hand and just left me here.

“Why?” I whispered to no one. Was my life always going to be a battle, some disaster? Did the fates think I was indestructible? Because if they did, they were wrong. Gosh, how they were wrong.

Pairing me with these monsters was just cruel. I knew I would never survive them, and I had been asking why ever since their mark appeared on my wrist. The wrist attached to the hand Darius had just broken. I should have chosen death.

I couldn’t fathom how they could hate me so much. I hated them for a good reason, yet I would never inflict this on someone, never hurt them like Darius just did. I stared down at my leg, hoping it would go numb like the rest of me. No such luck. Hadn’t they taken enough from me? What did they want? They clearly hated me, so why keep me trapped here?