The Kingdom of Deception

Chapter 12

"About time," he growled upon realizing she was awake.

Her torso was bare, he had taken off her shirt. He pushed against her, pressing the blade into her again, causing her to sway. Stars exploded in her vision causing bile to rise in her throat. Blood poured down her stomach, she cried out in agony when he sadistically began cutting a piece of flesh off of the side of her hip. He was going to gut her and skin her alive.

Someone appeared behind her with rough calloused hands on the bare skin of her back. He moaned in approval of her soft skin causing her skin to squirm as though she were covered in leeches. She would rather be. She screwed her eyes shut, her entire body trembling like a leaf in the wind. She tried to envision that it wasn't the stranger's hands on her back, or Magister Marlowe's fingers pulling on her pants.

She couldn't imagine Cathmore because of Marlowes foul breath invading her nostrils. She tried to remember something happy to pull her from her reality but nothing could drown out what happened next. Cathmore's hands, Katara's laugh, Avren's smile, Eros' dumb jokes. Please please give me something, anything. She pleaded with herself.

Marlowe dropped the knife and began tugging her blood soaked pants downward.

She raised her legs and kicked him as hard as possible. His carving of her abdomen rendered her weak, though, and did no damage to him. He laughed at how weak and helpless she was.

"Please," she begged. He ripped her pants, shredding the material. She was left completely nude with no way to cover herself up- her shoulders feeling as though they would dislocate from the way she was suspended.

"I'm just taking what's mine, a life for a life," he grinned sinisterly.

He reached up and cut the ropes that hung her, sending her colliding with the hard floor. Blood drained from the deep cuts, the skin of her knees splitting with the impact. She crawled away, her arms shaking. She was kicked onto her back.

"This is the pathetic thing that killed Bastian?" The other man in the room burst into laughter.

"I didn't mean to!" She screamed bloody murder when the fat gapped tooth sweaty man crawled onto her. She shook violently, trying not to inhale the rancid smell coming off of his shirtless body.

"You don't accidentally slit someone's throat!" Marlowe boomed. She was struggling beneath the whale of a man who had her pinned below his sweat covered stomach. Stop, stop. Panic was restricting her breathing, an invisible grip on her windpipe.

She was naked, utterly exposed to the disgusting man on top of her who was practically drooling. Marlowe crouched above her head and tilted his head tauntingly. He wore a disgusting smile of yellow, foaming at the mouth with excitement. Who was the man on top of her and why was he involved? She was hyperventilating under his crushing weight.

"You have such a sad little cry, like a baby bird," he pouted his chapped lips.

The big man grabbed her arms and pinned them above her on the floor, on either side of Marlowe's feet where he was crouched and looking down on her. The ceiling above them seemed coated in mold and damage, falling apart like the world around her. She hoped it would collapse and kill them, kill her.

The man straddled her and all she could think was that she was grateful he still had pants on, even if his torso was rubbing against her breasts and nipples.

"No one can hear you out here," the stranger laughed, drool dropping onto her face. Even Marlowe seemed briefly disgusted by it. She whimpered and squirmed beneath him.

Marlowe flipped the blade in his hand, twisted her palm upward to face him and stabbed the blade clean through her hand- pinning it to the floor. The scream that escaped her was inhuman, unnatural, and seemed to shake the building. She tried to reach for the blade with her other hand but he stepped on it, flattening it to the ground.