Prey

Chapter 78

No. I volunteered this.

His head turned, cold eyes meeting mine as he grabbed what looked to be a leather band from off of the wall.

"Don't make this difficult. I'm already tired as it is thanks to you," he grumbled, motioning for me to approach.

My feet felt like blocks of cement, but I forced them to move anyway, fighting my breathing to keep it normal.

As I got closer, I looked up at the hook, noticing its higher placement.

Just don't think about it.

Just shut your eyes, grit your teeth and get it over with.

After this, it can only be uphill.

I held my hands out before he could tell me to, hoping that this might go by better if I just complied.

I didn't have time to figure this guy out, and he was never going to be an issue again, so I just settled with that.

It wasn't hard to figure out what position I was going to be in with the band he then put my wrists through.

He pulled the bottom of the band up once I did, forcing my wrists together, tight, before yanking my entire body forward to hang the band and me from the hook.

I felt a little lucky that I was tall enough for my feet to still touch the ground, and have a little bend in my arms.

Not that it would help but...

My hands intertwined with each other the best they could being trapped above my head, keeping my eye on the vampire as he pulled a random whip from the wall.

He didn't carry the same statistic excitement that I'd seen from Layla, still just radiated pure annoyance as he made his way behind me.

My breathing was getting harder to control with the anticipation, my forehead meeting the cool wall in front of me as I just braced for it.

CRACK!

The sound pierced my ears just before the tearing of my shirt and the sting across my back.

I narrowly choked back the yelp, my back arching into the wall.

Okay... that wasn't too bad.

I don't think it broke skin.

A cry ripped out of me with the second one, more tearing in my shirt, and this time my skin with it.

The burning sensation of it hit me in no time, giving me no time to hold it back.

My nails dug deep into the opposing hand, sweat dripping down my forehead.

The third was when I first felt the warmth drip down my back, and the next three came in such quick succession that my reactions from them were completely raw.

Unrelenting and unfiltered shrieks as my skin was split

My legs were beginning to shake, forcing my knees to buckle lest I was going to collapse. And by that, I mean to be left to dangle by my wrists.

I fell forward against the wall as much as I could, colors swirling behind my eyelids with how hard I squeezed them shut with the next crack of the whip against my back.

Each breath came with a fight as the agony of each hit sent wave upon wave of agony through my body.

I couldn't even try to stop the tears from blurring my already hazed vision.

My throat was beginning to sting with the rest of me, and I instinctively began to pull against the strap keeping me there out of pure survival instinct.