“Take a deep breath, Miss,” Harry whispered. I didn’t know why he was in here with me. Usually, he just walked me to the door…

“Tell me about Mister Sulle,” Hun asked calmly, softly, like he cared. A master of falseness.

I remained silent. Hun kneeled down next to me and grabbed my head, his palms cupping my ears. He tucked my hair behind them with his cruel fingers and shook his head at me.

Sadistic bastard.

“It doesn’t have to be this hard. Stop fighting. Tell us what we need to know and it will end.”

Yeah, you’ll kill me.

It’s coming, breathe. It’s coming… breathe, breathe, breathe.

Soon, you won’t be able to breathe.

I clamped my lips together and stared past Mr. Hun. The walls were covered in plump, dark blue quilted material.

Soundproof.

There was no count. Mr. Hun clawed the back of my neck, dug in, and plunged my head into the water so forcefully that my face hit the bottom.

Panic, panic, panic. I didn’t breathe. I forgot to take a breath.

The shock was hard, like a baton to the face. One where you wanted to gasp, but you couldn’t. I opened my eyes to bubbles in almost blackness.

I needed air. There was no air.

The cold crept up my nose, sucked into my ears. A dull thrumming, my heartbeat, surrounded by water, reminded me I was still alive. I bucked my head, but his grasp was like steel.

Bubbles. My voice. My head thrashing like a fish out of water.

Stop.

Please.

It was so cold. My head felt separate to my body. My lungs burning, scrabbling for air.

So cold.

My eyes closed. My mouth desperate to open, to draw in the liquid like it was air. I couldn’t hold on any longer.

Mr. Hun’s fingers pressed into my neck and drew me back. I surfaced and dragged in a breath, like a vacuum. Oxygen revived and hurt like hell.

I sat back on my heels and coughed out the water. The ice cubes danced on the surface. Battling, huddling on a sea.

He still held my neck and turned it so I was facing him. I watched his cracked lips move, his neck wobble as he talked.

“Tell me about Joseph Sulle.”

A hot tear warmed a line down my cheek as I shook my head. I won’t let you take him from me.

Mr. Hun sighed in disappointment.

One, two, three… Take a deep breath.

I am stronger than you think.

My hair clung to my face and neck in wet clumps. The top of my shirt was soaked. Mr. Hun cut my hands free and threw me a towel. Hands shaking, I dried myself as he studied me. His eyes narrowed to slits.

“Stay here,” he said, pointing to the chair in the middle of the room.

I balled the towel around my hands and grinned at him. “Aw… d-don’t go. Are the games over already?” My mouth quivered with cold. And fear.

Mr. Hun drew his shoulders up, and then released them in frustration. He shuffled out of the room, locking the door behind him.

As soon as he was gone, I collapsed in the chair, drew my legs up under me, and forced myself into a tiny ball. I curled into darkness.

How much more?

I leaned into comfort. Orry’s arms wrapped around my leg, supporting me. I leaned back into the chair that had become Joseph’s warm chest. His heart beat steady. You can do this, I told myself.

Feelings rose and fell, panic then strength, panic then strength. My heart either way.

The door opened.

Mr. Hun waddled in. I looked down at his feet and noticed his pants hung, crumpled, far over his shoes. He was a small, cruel man. Insignificant.

Harry rolled in a table and set it in front of me, his eyes more sorry than I could take. I searched for instruments, but it was empty.

Mr. Hun placed his hand on my head and forced it against the back of chair, wrapping a band around my forehead and tying it behind the chair. He did the same around my chest and neck. The towel slipped from my lap and onto the floor.

“What are you doing?” I asked, my voice drained of any impertinence.

He tied my wrists to the arms of the chair and placed both his sickening hands over my own. He looked like a cooked turkey a week old, dried-up.

“Giving you some time to think,” he said with a hacking smile.

Harry placed a screen on the table and loaded a video. He measured the distance between my chair and the table, and then chose to pull the table back a little further so it was just out of kicking reach.

He hit play, and then they quickly left the room.

My eyes darted from side to side, wondering what the next trick would be when I heard Este’s voice, high and shrill, squawking from the screen, her thin frame teetering in those red heels. “I d-don’t want b-b-blood on the carpets.”

It seemed so slow at the time, as if I could catch every second and examine it before the next one came along. This was just ugly and violent and blade smashingly fast. The guard lunged at Joseph, and I stepped in front of him. Just like that.

I wanted to hold my stomach, but I couldn’t. I wanted to look away. But all I could do was watch as the knife plunged into my stomach, the way it crippled me immediately. The disgusting gurgle and aha sound I made. My eyes wet as I stumbled forward, folded over, my hands fluttering over a wound that was just pouring blood like a faucet. I grabbed the knife and pulled it out with a sad grunt. Then I fell to the ground ungracefully like a pile of dirty laundry. My eyes still open. But dead. Dead.

I could feel it. The pain. The fear. The regret. Repeating. But worse than that, I could see Joseph’s reaction when he realized what I’d done.

The worst thing I’d ever done.

The best thing I’d ever done.

He crumbled; he looked like someone had reached inside and pulled his heart out.

“What have you done?” the Joseph in the video asked.

But I didn’t answer. I was dead.

I died.

Emotions choked me as each one fought for release, and sobbing rattled in my throat.

The video went black, and I sighed in relief. But the anguish remained in me. I still felt the knife as it went in and the pain that started to ebb away so quickly as I pulled it out, because my life was leaving me. I remembered the blink and the absolute panic of knowing it was over. I was over.

I closed my eyes and wept.

Until I heard Este’s voice, high and shrill, squawking from the screen, her thin frame teetering in those red heels. “I d-don’t want b-b-blood on the carpets.”

My eyes snapped open.

The video was on loop.

It had been three hours. Three hours of dying. My limbs shook and bounced against my restraints, my face hot but my blood lounging slowly in my veins like it was tired. I was so tired.

After the first hour, the panic started to strangle me. I tried closing my eyes but the noises were almost worse than the video. Instead, I started to focus on the details in the background, like Deshi’s face drowning in horror, his arms drawn up over his body when the clatter and clanging began. He moved a few steps towards me before it happened, but when he saw the knife go in, he froze and then disappeared from the shot.

The guard that stabbed me looked as scared as everyone else. You could tell he didn’t mean to do it. His round face, spotted with freckles, shook slowly from side to side in disbelief. When he released his hold on the knife, he stepped back from me and glanced down at his hands like they were separate from him. Small monsters.

In one moment, everything was ruined.

The video played and etched itself permanently into my brain. It stretched and pushed until there was nothing else in there but violence, pain, and blood.