Blood and Bone | 1

2 | 8

Hundsen himself unlocked the chains that were inhibiting my legs and yanked me to my feet. With a firm hand on my arm, he and Orozco escorted me into another room that I'd never seen before.

My eyes were drawn to the splatter of blood, both dried and drying, that stained the concrete. Various torture devices lined the wall. I didn't falter in my neutral expression or my steady gait, though my two wounds were stinging with sharp pain.

I gave an involuntary grunt as the hand on my arm forced me down to my knees. A new younger man stepped into my field of vision. He may have been handsome, but it was covered up by a swelling black eye and several cuts on his face.

     "That looks like it hurts," I told him mockingly. "Did Jake give you a hard time?"

     He responded with a swift slap to my face. I hardly moved. This wasn't the first time I'd been tortured.

    "Show her what we do with those that desert and defy the Crepuscule Club," Hundsen ordered, sounding smug. I could practically hear the satisfied smile in his voice.

The torturer started by hitting me so many times that I lost count. Soon, my own blood mixed with the blood of those unfortunate enough to find themselves in this room. He made sure to land blows on my bad shoulder, which led to a pain so great that I had to grit my teeth together to keep from screaming.

Once in a while, when the torturer would take a few seconds to either switch his weapon or to hold me down, my eyes darted to the plethora of weapons hanging on the wall. It would be so easy to simply use them on the man inflicting such pain on my body and Hundsen, who stood watching.

But my plan for escape would be stopped by the crowd of gang members who were standing in the entrance of the room, trying to get a peek at Delphinium Tesla on her knees, being beaten to a pulp. If I killed Adiago, I knew that all of his minions would go straight for my team and kill them like he would have wanted.

I couldn't have them die. Too many people had been ruthlessly cut out of my life.

It had taken the multiple threats of their lives to make me realize that, though I didn't trust them or rely on them, I felt responsible for their lives now. If I let them down, I would have a team no longer. If I didn't have a team, I couldn't avenge the deaths I'd brought about.

But when the torturer got out a wickedly sharp blade somewhere between a sword and knife in length, my heart sank.

As he slashed away at my flesh, mostly at my arms and legs, I lost my self control. The pain was blinding as I bled out from a thousand wounds. My screams echoed in the metal walls of the warehouse.

I sent a volley of knives sailing through the air towards Hundsen, but another slice of the knife and my aim was ruined. They sank helplessly into the wall three feet away from Hundsen's head, who hadn't moved a muscle.

I'd been tortured before but because they'd needed me alive for the next mission, the torturer had never gone too far. Adiago Hundsen didn't seem to have the same problem.

And then, just when it seemed that my body couldn't take another cut from the knife, the assault stopped. I lay on the floor, completely exhausted and physically done, as Hundsen held up a hand to stop the man that I was beginning to think was my executioner.

"I just thought of a favor you can do for me, Tesla," he spoke, looking down at my weakened form without pity.

"You actually have the audacity to ask me for a favor?" I inquired through gritted teeth as I lifted myself from the concrete. "How about you do me a favor and go to hell?"