Amanda's POV
Not long after I had started screaming the door flew open. Dominic stood there with an irritated facial expression, but in his eyes there was also something else. He almost looked excited. James was no longer screaming, at least I couldn't hear him.
"It's finally time to have some fun", Dominic told me before he took a strong hold of my arm and started to drag me. I wanted to resist, but at the same time I knew that there was no point to it. In the end my resistance wouldn't change anything. I would go where Dominic wanted me to go, no matter if I wanted to or not.
We started towards the same way we came from, the front door. I doubted that we were on our way out of the house. Dominic seemed to giddy for me to feel safe. I didn't really want to know what we were going to do, but at the same time I did. I was scared but wanted to be prepared. It was strange.
"You don't need to worry, kitty. Your little boyfriend is probably fine. I mean, I don't know for sure but we usually torture a lot more before killing. He's also kind of important so we're not just going to kill him after five minutes", Dominic told me as if he was stating facts. His words were nowhere near comforting. If anything they made me worried about if James was hurt or in pain. I couldn't imagine getting tortured, couldn't imagine that such things could happen to someone I knew.
"Oh little kitty! You'll see him soon so calm down", he sighed then before opening a door. There was a staircase and he started to lead me downstairs with a firm grip on my shoulders.
"I've brought her!", Dominic called out in a gleeful tone that made my stomach twist. As soon as we got downstairs I saw James sitting on the floor with his hands tied. The woman from earlier was there and she watched Dominic and me when we started to head her way.
"Good. Maybe we can get somewhere with her. The boy is a little too... persistent", Pandora spoke. James' head peaked up immediately and his eyes met mine with fear in them. He seemed to fumble to get to his feet, but with a light nudge Pandora brought him to the floor again.
"She doesn't know anything. Even if you tried you wouldn't get anything, so please don't hurt her", James pleaded in a hoarse voice. The look of him and the way he sounded made me get a clearer picture of how bad he must be feeling. It made me want to help him, make everything alright. I just wanted him to be fine. He clearly wasn't though.
"She knows a lot and if I happen to be wrong I can promise you that she'll at least motivate you, isn't that right James?", Dominic spoke mockingly and with a sick smile on his lips. It wasn't until it hit me. They were planning on hurting me. They thought I knew things, important things.
I had no time to even come to full realization before the pain hit my body. A yell of pain escaped me without I even realized it was coming. My legs got weak almost immediately and I fell to my knees. It hurt beyond anything I had ever felt before. I felt as if there was fire licking my limbs, attacking me. I could barely catch a breath as the fire reached the insides of my body.
Then it was gone without even sign of it having been there. Nothing except my memory. My head was hanging and I could see parts of my unharmed body. I could see that physically there wasn't anything wrong with me. The worst thing left was my breathlessness. I never got a chance to do anything about that before pain returned. That time it was electricity, making my whole body feel as if it was going to shut down because of an overload. That time I couldn't breath. I was physically unable to fill myself with air. No one seemed to notice, or simply didn't care since everything ended with the world going black with my body shutting down because of the lack of air.
•••
When I woke up I was alone. No, not alone, James was there. In the beginning I couldn't see him. All I saw was the wall I was facing and the dark shadows dancing over it. For a couple of seconds I simply lay there, breathing. My whole body was buzzing, as an aftermath of the pain. I had no idea what had happened after I passed out. I could have been hurt after that too, by the aching in my muscles I suspected that, that was the case.
"Amanda?", a ragged voice wondered into the darkness. I wanted to spin around and look at James and see that he was actually there. My body made that impossible and I had to carefully turn around so that I was laying on my back. Just that simply move had me groaning out of pain.
"Hey, how are you feeling?", James once spoke. It was clear that he too was badly affected by the stay with Dominic and Pandora but I imagined I was far worse off. When I moved my eyes to where I could see the outlines of his face I noticed that in fact hadn't been as dark as I had first thought. All of James' features were visible even though I wished they weren't. I didn't want to see all of the bruises on his skin.
"I want to say terrible but I think I'll save that for later", I croaked out with my voice braking throughout the sentence. Sorrow and pity filled James' eyes and I sighed before closing my eyes. I couldn't handle seeing James in pain and also with such unhappiness on his face.
"I have no idea how we're going to get out of this, Amanda. I seriously have no idea." When his voice hitched at the end of the sentence I tiredly opened my eyes once more. Despite the pain in my muscles and bones I fought through it and moved my arms before lifting up my body. A frown appeared on my face because of the exhaustion of moving, but I still pushed myself to move.
"I hadn't expected you to... But I think we'll make. I mean, we have to make it, right? How can't we make it?", I wondered and even when I tried to conceal the desperation, it came through. At least I succeeded with grabbing James' attention. He turned and looked at me, seeing how beaten and exhausted I was. Softly and carefully he moved his arms around me and hugged me to his body. I leaned against him and let my body rest there.
"Is it even possible to see anything positive at a time like this?", James wondered quietly into my hair. I let a croaky, dark chuckle leave my lips as I pondered over how completely messed up the situation was. Hadn't I been in as much pain as I actually was I might have let a complete insane laughter with an ending of crying escape. I couldn't do that though. The almost inaudible, weak chuckle and silent tears had to do.
"Apparently it is. How is it that I'm suddenly the sun in this situation. That's you, you're always the sun", I told him which made him carefully grab my face so that I could look up into his eyes. They were broken but loving when he gazed at me. Those feelings brought a heaviness to my heart that was neither happy nor sad to my heart.
"Maybe seeing me at my end of hope brought your desperation up, making you try and find any light in this dark hole of a situation", James said which made me wrinkle my forehead. I leaned a little bit closer to him, slowly. I tried to not think about my screaming body but it was. That didn't mean I couldn't ignore it.
"That must be the smartest thing I've ever heard you say. I don't think we've ever spoken this deep with each other. We must be really messed up", I told him before resting my forehead on his. A small, almost invisible glint of amusement shined over his eyes. The smile on his lips gave me a glimpse of the light we had been talking about earlier.
"Are you really going to ruin this right now?", he wondered although there wasn't a single indication of that I had ruined anything. He looked genuinely happy that I had said something so normal, so much like our old and happy conversations.
"Just shut up, James." He did. Not a single word was spoken from him. Instead he had leaned in and closed the gap that had been separating our lips. Even though we were dirty, in pain and miserable the kiss felt amazing. I had no idea what to describe it as. It was like breathing new fresh air, like the feeling of when you come home after a long time away. It was safe and it wrapped my heart into a blanket of warmth. We had no idea what was going to happen or if we were even going to survive. In that moment I just knew that the kiss might've been the last bit of happiness I would ever experience. I wouldn't let anything ruin it.