29

Rae

Sometime in late January 2020

My breathing was labored, blood coating my skin as I looked through my clumped lashes to the man who claimed he loved me.

I didn’t know what day it was, whether it was night or day. All I knew was how exhausted I felt, how hungry, and how much pain I was in. I couldn’t shut it out. I was supposed to be able to shut it out.

I was sitting in my own piss, my shredded clothes plastered to my skin by my own blood as Jack stood before me, his sleeves rolled up on his forearms, Zo standing yards behind him, leaning against the wall, watching me carefully with emotionless eyes.

My hands were strapped by chains to the arms of the chair, my ankles strapped to the legs, the chains bolted to the floor. He hadn’t carved away any skin yet, but there were other ways to torture people. More sadistic ways.

He had reopened the wounds they had made before. He had slammed a knife into each thigh, one into my side, carefully avoiding any major organs, but that was as much mercy as he had given me.

Mercy was a strange word to use in this instance, I supposed. The man who claimed love was destroying me piece by fucking piece, but at least I had all of my fingers and toes. I wouldn’t have made such a mistake.

I straightened, staring at the guy who had fucked me into a coma on more than a dozen occasions and spit out a mouth full of blood. “Love,” I said, my voice thick, my tongue coated in copper. “That’s what you said.” I would give anything for a drink of water. My left hand. My foot. But I would never say that out loud. I wouldn’t show him the weakness he was so desperate to find.

Jack chuckled, the sound anything but friendly. “Oh, Princess, this is love or did you forget what we talked about already?”

He headed for the workbench, gazing over the tools, some of them covered in my blood. “You know who you remind me of? Azrael,” I hissed, knowing how much he hated being compared to his baby brother.

His shoulders tensed.

I laughed, the sound terrifying. “Yeah, don’t like that, do you? I saw the way you, Malachi, and Beckett acted around him, the way Poppy stood behind him, latched to him. You’re all terrified of him. He’s worse than all of you, isn’t he? He scares you. He scares the absolute shit out of you and that’s who you’re acting like. You’re acting just like him.”

Zo’s eyes shifted to Jack.

Jack picked up yet another blade, this one serrated. “If you want Azrael, Princess,” he said, turning to me, his blue eyes almost black now, “I can call him.”

“J,” Zo warned.

He held up a hand, silencing her. “I’m sure he would love to torture my Claim, break her mind. He’s done that on more than one occasion, broken women. It would take him an hour to break you.”

I laughed, leaning back in my chair. “You’d kill him before he ever drew blood.” I knew that for a fact. Jack was the only one who could torture me until I died. He wouldn’t let another person hold that blade. Not even Zo.

Jack walked up to me, nothing familiar in his eyes. “I would, you’re right. Which is the prime reason why I’m different than him.” He leaned over, grabbing my jaw. “He’d let us kill his Claim. If he ever made one.”

I jerked my head out of his grip, grinding my teeth. “Are you going to call him or just talk shit like the shit-eating pussy fuck you are?”

“I don’t want you to die, baby, I want you to remember.” He held the knife up to the fluorescent light above us. “What’s your father’s name?”

“He was a one-night stand,” I snarled, fighting against the restraints. “Mom never gave me a name.”

Jack sighed. “You’re running out of spots to reopen, Rae, I’m going to have to make some new scars.”

“Fuck you,” I spat, blood and saliva spraying across his face.

He smiled as it dripped down his sweat-covered skin. “Soon.” He placed the blade on my right shoulder, added just a bit of pressure, and dragged it back slowly.

I screamed, jerking at my restraints as I felt the knife bite into my muscles.

He pulled the knife out and flicked my blood off the end of it.

“Fuck,” I snarled, panting, sweat pouring down my already sticky, grimy skin. “You’re going to pay for this, Jack, I swear to God, you’ll pay for it.”

He smiled. “You don’t scare me, Princess. You don’t have the strength to make me pay for it.”

“I’ve studied with the most world-renowned fighters. You think you know how to fight,” I laughed as his brows furrowed. “I’ll show you how far Malachi fell in your teachings because I promise you, the Shadows are nothing compared to me.”

Jack angled his head. “You trained with other fighters?”

“Of course, I did,” I spat. “Any respectable agent learns from multiple people, not just one. Never just one.” Even an idiot knew that. The Program had only six trainers. Good at what they did, but there were more than six different fighting techniques in the world. My mom made sure I was trained by the best in them all.

Zo shoved away from the wall. “Agent?” she asked, walking up to Jack. “He never said anything about being an agent.”

I looked between them, my own confusion growing. “What are you talking about? We’re fucking agents, he wouldn’t deny that.”

“Holding it back is different than denial,” Jack said, his voice shifting into something softer. “What kind of agent are you, Rae? Agent of what?”

The burning seared across my mind, my hands flexing as I tried to reach for the information. “Um…” I closed my eyes, shaking my head, my hair sticking to the blood and sweat coating my skin. “We…we don’t belong to any organization,” I said, finding their eyes. “It’s…uh…fuck.” I lost it, whatever train of thought I had, it was gone.

Zo lifted and dropped her hand. “They could have used the term to give them access to certain areas of the world. Fake credentials. We’ve used more for less.”

Jack studied me carefully, so many thoughts drifting through his eyes before he nodded and straightened. “Stay here for a few hours, sit in the darkness, think about it,” he told me, turning back to the workbench.

I pulled at the chains. “Wait, Jack, please,” I tried. “Let me sleep in the bed, please? Just for a few hours, I promise I’ll be good.”

“We’re not doing this because you’re bad, Rae,” he hummed, heading for the stairs, Zo on his heels. “We’re doing this because someone else is.”

I screamed as my only hope for escape left. I jerked at the restraints. I didn’t want to do this anymore. I didn’t want to do this anymore! “Jack! Jack!” I screamed. “Let me out! Please! Please, let me out! Don’t leave me here again, please!”

The light shut off, the sound of the door closing like a gunshot in the silence.

“Jack!”