Total pages in book: 59
Estimated words: 56182 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 281(@200wpm)___ 225(@250wpm)___ 187(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 56182 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 281(@200wpm)___ 225(@250wpm)___ 187(@300wpm)
But when the pain did come, it was much lower, giant fingers curled and surging from a massive body into my exposed, weak midsection.
My air knocked out with a whoosh, with the pain of impact as my body folded forward, one of my hands dropping to hold my belly even as the other tried to strike out.
But met empty air.
My captor was no longer standing before me.
It wasn't until I felt the weight and the click that I realized he had ducked down low by my legs.
And shackled me.
That was the metal sound.
Chains pulled against the floor.
My leg kicked out on impulse, like it could dislodge it.
But there was no way.
This was something heavy, something that weighed as much as my full leg likely did, making it hard even for it to lift off the floor.
There was a creaking sound as my captor got back to his feet.
I remembered maybe at the last possible second to curl my fist and strike out, to show that I wasn't cowed by a shackle, that I still had fight left in me.
My knuckles met the firm, yet soft, flesh of an upper arm, having no impact at all except to incite the man who curled backward, and finally gave me what I had admittedly earned with my own violence, a strike to the jaw.
The pain started at impact then ricocheted outward until the entire side of my face was throbbing, until the pain was deep in my jaw and gums but also my nose, my eye socket, my temple.
I fell back against the wall for support as my hand rose, pressing into the pain as though there was any chance of easing it.
My eyes closed.
My breath hitched.
Hitched.
Like I was going to cry.
But no.
No crying.
I wouldn't give him that, no matter how much my body was begging for the release.
I took fast, strobe-like breaths, frantic and panic-laden.
I could feel his gaze on me, his eyes clearly better adept at night vision than my own, the impact of it slimy and penetrating.
But short.
Short because he turned and I heard the clomp of his boots across the floor. Then up the stairs.
There was a pause as he met the landing, then a light blared to life above me, making the migraine roar back to life, my body shrinking away from the brightness I could see even behind my closed lids as I fought back another wave of nausea.
I didn't have time for pain.
But my body didn't want to listen to reason, to my primal need for self-preservation.
My body folded, my back sliding down the wall until I was squatting at knee-level, my elbows braced on my thighs, hands cradling my head.
I can't say how long I stayed there.
Pain had a way of warping time, bending it in a way that made it impossible to tell one pain-soaked moment from the next.
But when the screaming inside my brain eased to a level that allowed me to think past it again, my thigh muscles were burning, my legs shaking with the effort to hold my weight in an unnatural position for it.
I let myself slide down the wall fully, my butt hitting the hard, cold ground, my legs kicking out, one slower than the other, dragging the weight of the chain with it.
That was the first thing I saw with the newfound harsh, fluorescent overhead light - the shackle, the giant metal ring encompassing my bare ankle, flecks of rust moving from it onto my skin. It would rub me raw, I knew, in just a few hours' time, making me sorely sorry that I had changed out of my school clothes and into this godforsaken outfit.
A silly, frivolous, immature thing, I realized as I sat there, wanting to have a sweet sixteen, wanting it enough to disobey my parents, to take risks, to allow myself to be captured.
I was victim-blaming myself, but, really, I should have known better. I should have realized that my father - of all people - was not the sort to overreact. If he felt I needed to be at school with armed guards, then at Hailstorm with an army of them, then that was exactly what was needed.
I had been selfish and stupid to assume otherwise, to take it personally, to immaturely think that he was just trying to metaphorically rain on my parade.
And here I was, paying for that ignorance.
In a basement.
How cliche.
I mean, of course it was a basement. Of course it was a cliche. Those existed for a reason. Because what better place to keep women chained up but in a basement, ten feet under ground, behind thick, impossible-to-escape concrete, with no one to see them or hear them scream?
I let out a shaky breath, pushing thoughts like those away, knowing they would do nothing but fuel the panic that was lying in wait, a tiger ready to pounce.