Chapter 16

I’m not sure how long I was kept awake with the ice water, but at some point I stopped struggling. I stopped crying, screaming, or even caring.

As the cold seeped into my bones, numbing me to the pain, I found myself slipping into a state of detached resignation. It was as if the icy water had washed away not just my tears but also my will to fight against the torment.

With each passing moment, the throbbing in my head and arm became a dull ache, a constant reminder of the brutality inflicted upon me. Yet somehow, I managed to push it to the periphery of my consciousness.

At some point they finally let unconsciousness take hold, and I was relieved by the emotionless blank escape that it provided. Or at least I would have been if it was dreamless, instead once again my mind was filled with nightmares of my stepfather torturing me.

When I finally woke up gasping for what had to be the tenth time, he had transitioned from my nightmares into reality in front of me. Still bound to the chair, I feel a surge of dread course through me, knowing that the nightmare is far from over.

His arms crossed, a cold, calculating glint in his eyes, he regards me with a mixture of indifference and malice. It’s a familiar look, one that sends shivers down my spine and ignites a primal instinct to flee.

But there is nowhere to run, no escape from the suffocating confines of the room, and the knowledge of my helplessness settles over me like a heavy blanket. I can’t muster any physical show of defiance at the moment, all I feel is grim resignation.

“I was forced to give Killian and the guys another hole to use after your little stunt last night, but from the sounds of it, they didn’t mind,” he says, his lips curved into a cruel, twisted smirk.

My heart clenches in my chest, but thankfully my body doesn’t betray the misery I feel at his words. As he speaks, a bitter taste rises in my throat, a potent mixture of fear and disgust. I try to steel myself against his taunts, to maintain some semblance of composure in the face of his cruelty.

But his next words cut through me like a knife, leaving me reeling with a sickening sense of shame and humiliation.

”But then they never asked about you, so maybe they weren”t satisfied with your cunt either,” he jeers, a look of twisted humor passing over his face.

His words hit me like a physical blow, each syllable like a dagger to the heart. The shame washes over me in waves, threatening to drown me in its suffocating embrace.

I force myself to meet his gaze, to show him that his words cannot break me, but inside I am crumbling. The knowledge that I am nothing more than an object to be used and discarded fills me with a profound sense of despair.

Nausea washes over me, and I”m suddenly thankful for my empty stomach. I struggle to keep my composure, but I can feel the panic rising within me like a tide.

He reaches behind him and pulls out a knife from behind his back, and I have no control over the whimper that escapes at the sight of it. Every instinct screams at me to flee, to find some way to escape the impending torture, but I know there is no escape from this nightmare.

”The bath you got yesterday unfortunately means the pretty cuts I gave you are clean. But your defiance irked me, so I thought today I could rectify that... unless you”re going to be a good little slut for my men from now on?” he taunts, the smirk on his face sending shivers down my spine.

His words hang in the air like a poisonous cloud, suffocating me with their venomous intent. I can feel the blood drain from my face as the full weight of his threat sinks in. The knife gleams in the dim light, a cruel reminder of the pain that awaits me.

A surge of panic courses through me, but I clamp down on it with every last ounce of willpower I possess. I refuse to give him the satisfaction of seeing me break, of hearing me beg for mercy.

Instead, I summon every last shred of defiance within me and meet his gaze head-on. ”I”ll never be what you want me to be,” I spit out. ”You can torture me, you can break my body, but you”ll never break my spirit.”

He laughs at me, a cold, mocking sound that sends shivers down my spine. ”Stupid little slut, let”s try this again then,” he sneers before leaning forward and pressing my right wrist down again. He wastes no time digging the knife back into the partially open wounds he left the day before. I grit my teeth briefly, but if there is one thing that worked in my favor from what happened, I”m now numb, both body and soul.

As he digs and drags the knife through my flesh over and over again, I stare off to the side of the room, focusing on the wall of my living hell and blocking him out. The pain is there, of course, a constant companion, but it”s muted now, distant, as if it belongs to someone else.

I refuse to give him the satisfaction of seeing me break, of hearing me scream. Instead, I retreat into myself, finding solace in the numbness that envelops me like a protective barrier.

But even as I steel myself against the agony, I can feel something inside me beginning to fray, a thread of sanity unraveling with each agonizing cut. How much more can I endure before I lose myself completely?