Shadowed

XXVI. Twist the Knife

DREW

They come every day. I can't count on much, but I can count on their visits. It's gotten so bad, so lonely, that I've started to measure time by them.

There's no windows down here, no way to tell when a day has passed. But I consider one day done when Jade and Delia return to my cell again.

They bring food sometimes. Not every time. There's an ache in my stomach, a gaping hole that begs and screams for nourishment. I can't always give it what it wants.

Fresh cuts slash my arms. They're not my doing. The food I can't count on, when they come, but they always bring a knife.

It's the same knife every time, small and silver-handled. The blade is always stained with dry, crusted blood, and my cuts burn and sting strangely when they finish. Maybe it's an infection.

I couldn't care less if I died of tetanus. I think I'd be glad to. That's why I never use the bandages they give me, or the little bottle of healing salve. 

They're upholding the deal, they say. The one they made with Rowan. They said they'd treat our wounds, mine and Angella's and my sister's.

I know why they're really doing it. They need to keep us alive so we can be tortured another day. If they'd really meant to keep the promise they made to Rowan, we would be free and back to the city.

Rowan. Every time I close my eyes I see his lifeless body again, sprawled on the floor in that hellish room, covered in blood, eyes glassy and empty.

He was naive, I know. Cruelty is law here. Kindness and mercy have no sway. There was no way in hell we would have gotten out once they had a hold of us.

Angella especially. Rowan fell for Jade's act, her seething fit, but they would never have planned on setting her free. She's rotting in a cell just the same as me.

Sometimes, when Jade comes to taunt me, she brags about the blind girl. What she's doing to her. How she's making her pay.

"You should be grateful," she says. Every time, she tells me I should be grateful for the cuts striping my arms, the blood and pain I can't seem to escape no matter where I go, because Angella has it worse.

But I've learned never to trust anything that comes out of their mouths. So much of it is lies with no remorse. My pain isn't worth less just because Angella's hurting more.

Sometimes a scream cuts through the air, and I'm positive it's Angella's voice, high and terrified. 

Those are bad days. But the worst days are the ones when I hear my sister scream. 

Those days are rare. It takes a lot to make Abby break, and when she does, I find myself wondering what pushed her over the edge? What torture was too much for her to handle?

And then my mind hooks onto it and my head fills with images of Abby bleeding on the floor. Maybe Delia holds a knife to her throat like she did to me. Maybe Jade presses a gun to her healing bullet wounds and threatens to pull the trigger. Maybe she has cuts running up and down her body like mine.

Or maybe she's screaming because of me. Maybe Jade and Delia tell her I'm dead or close to it. Maybe they tell her I've been crying, begging to see her one last time before they murder me. 

That's what the Hunters do to me, anyway.

Sometimes, when I can't stand it, I do cry, and I do kneel and beg. I'm positive they'll either kill me, or leave me to rot and die, and I'll never see my sister's face again. My sister, who I bled for. My sister, who's my other half, who I've followed through hell and back out again.